“Thus says the Lord God: ‘I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep….I will feed them with good pasture.’ ”
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The Washington Post: Sunday, July 25, 2010, Obituaries
A Local Life—Cynthia Newcott, 56 (by Rick Rojas)
“Like any good hostess, Cynthia Newcott knew party protocol:
“Never skimp on your guests. Even if they were dozens of teenagers who descended on her home every Tuesday for 15 years and might otherwise be content with spaghetti or a simple casserole.
“Mrs. Newcott insisted on a sit-down dinner. Her table was candlelit and, of course, her guests never ate off a paper plate or used plastic utensils. (Her husband had to do the dishes.)
“Bill Newcott said his wife would haggle with—sometimes ‘browbeat’ – the butcher for a good deal on a turkey, ham or roast. She’d start cooking at noon on Tuesday, making mashed potatoes and baking the three or four cakes that would still be warm by the time she served them.
“Until 2006, when the last of her four children graduated from high school and she became ill with ovarian cancer, Mrs. Newcott opened her home to as many as 50 guests every Tuesday night. She died July 11 from her illness. She was 56.
“The dinners began, Bill Newcott said, because ‘she saw the lives of high school students.’ They were always on the run and never sat down to eat,’ he said. ‘She sensed it was not only good for them to have a good meal, but to sit down for dinner.’
“Tuesday nights at the Newcott house…grew into a weekly salon, with guests from middle school through medical school (and even older) sitting around the table for a solid meal and stimulating conversation.
“To Mrs. Newcott, a sit down dinner was about more than the food. It was a way for the former teacher to reach out to young people. Once the meal was served, the hostess would then hold court.
“Mrs. Newcott, the daughter of a Baptist minister, was a strong woman…not afraid to share her opinion of things. But rather than enforce her own opinions, she would coax her guests into defending their own, particularly when it came to politics.
“’She didn’t tell them what to think,’ Bill Newcott said. ‘She would just get them to think.’
“The conversations grew with the dinners. Having one central conversation broke into several chats dispersed across the table. The talk never became splintered across age groups: High schoolers would carry on conversations with college kids.
“Mr. Newcott said that Cynthia felt it was a big, scary world out there and too many kids were thrown into the world and left to fend for themselves. ‘And she wanted them to have a second home to come to.’
“Eventually, guests would fill the first floor of the home. The weekly dinners had spread from their children’s friends, to friends of friends, to a wide network of people who somehow caught wind of the dinner—including perhaps the oldest of guests, a limousine driver who borrowed a limo to drive Mrs. Newcott’s family to her funeral.
“Through the years of Tuesday night dinners, Mrs. Newcott never denied a guest and rarely cancelled.
“It always worked out that there were just enough seats at the table.”
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“Then the king Jesus will say to those on his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger, and you welcomed me…”
“Truly, I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers you did it to me.”
“And the righteous will go into eternal life.”
Amen.