Wonder of Celery: A Sacred Story Featuring Shazia Anwar’s Soup
Sacred Story of Wonder During Wild Week, 2026
When RH Board Member, Shazia Anwar, participated in one of the special days of soup-making during Wild Week-2026, she was surprised by an encounter that had a mysterious sequence of events involving celery. As Shazia encountered celery two separate times in her preparation that morning, her curiosity and wonder were piqued as the day unfolded. Here is Shazia’s sacred story about making soup - and an unexpected connection to something as basic as celery. It truly made us wonder…
I was excited about preparing lunch at the Retreat House for one of the days at the wild week. I gathered items to assemble my scrumptious menu, French bread, red lentil soup and watermelon salad. As I was chopping up the ingredients for the soup, I reached for the fresh celery in the fridge, I was thinking of adding that to the soup. But I thought, my original Pakistani recipe does not call for celery in the soup. So I decided not to add it to the soup. I reached the Retreat house, laid all my beautiful colored fruits and veggies on the kitchen counter. I cut open the watermelon and the watermelon was so beautiful, bright red color catching everyone’s eyes as they passed through the kitchen. The soup was on the stove simmering, I needed to add a little bit water to adjust the consistency. I could see the ready-made carton of vegetable broth in the pantry and reached out for it , took a look at the ingredients, there was celery in it, on second thought I it back. “I’ll just add plain water,” I said to myself. Finally, the lunch was served and Jill , a fellow at the Retreat house, comes and asks me, what is the soup base? I replied it is water-based. She asked me again, “Are you sure there is no celery in it?” I replied that there was no celery in the soup, but also that I almost reached out for celery twice and then decided not to put it in the soup!
As we enjoyed the soup , I looked at Jill and said, “God really wanted you to have that soup today!”
Smiles and hugs were exchanged , new friends were made at the table. This is the power of beautiful gatherings at the Retreat house!
When Shazia shared this story, it led to wonder: Twice she considered adding celery to her soup; twice she chose not to - only to discover that one of the people joining for lunch was highly allergic to celery. This story invites us to marvel at meaningful coincidences - or subtle movements of grace.
It was a powerful reminder to:
Pay attention to small moments
Be open to unexpected connections
Wonder about Divine providence or synchronicity
Maintain a sense of awe at how ordinary events can carry deeper meaning