We took a bit of a break there to travel, to shop, to wrap, to bake, to party, to sing, and to shovel the snow (and to grade the last papers, but those aren't worth mentioning).
But now we're in the midst of both the secular and liturgical feast, eating and laughing and eating and playing and eating and sleeping and eating a little bit more.
Our days leading up to the Christmas feast proper are always filled and hectic, with lots of joy--but also lots of schedules. What this means when we're visiting is that sometimes the meals before the holiday itself can become a bit haphazard.
As our preparation, we have settled on a few accidental traditions in order to accommodate both the preparation and the feast. One of the annual parties my parents host calls for Taco Soup--origin indeterminate--that's a casual but always anticipated meal to share. And our Christmas Eve celebration settled years ago on Eggs Benedict after the late service, so our supper beforehand is usually a simple soup that calls for cleaning out the fridge of the last leftovers before we open up the ham on the day itself.
Along the way, the snacks roll in the door (we're visiting fruit country, so we have wonderful pears and apples aplenty along with my seasonal favorites, Satsuma oranges), and we fill in the cracks with fruit and cheese, Dorothy Carr's lefse, krumkakke, and other cookies.
---
Perhaps none of these meals is remarkable in itself, but the point of the feast is the preparation, anticipation, and the extension. A feast is not a momentary celebration but goes on for days (liturgically, the twelve days of Christmas have only just begun; Easter goes on for fifty!): feasting is about dwelling in celebration for a length of time, not simply a day. It's fitting that this first major feast of the church year is, in fact, the Feast of the Incarnation. We celebrate, first of all, the divine entrance into human life that transforms the whole understanding of what it means to be human. So we eat.
And we sing and we laugh and we give and we play and we sleep and we eat. And as we dwell with one another in the best of our humanness, we think of the Word become flesh, who dwelt among us.
Merry Christmas! Have something to eat.
---
Taco Soup
1 lb. ground beef, browned and drained
1 onion, diced and sauteed
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
1 can corn, rinsed and drained (or about 1 C. frozen corn kernels)
1 can diced or crushed tomatoes
1 can diced green chiles (or repace tomatoes and chiles with a jar of salsa)
1 package taco seasoning
Enough water or chicken broth to cover
Salt and pepper to taste
Simmer on the stove or crock pot as long as you need. Serve with grated cheese, sour cream, and tortilla chips.
---
Clean-Out-the-Fridge Christmas Eve Soup
(This year it was Chicken-Mushroom-Brown Rice)
6 C. cooking liquid (either all chicken broth or up to 2 cups of dry white wine with chicken broth)
1 C. leftover cooked chicken
3 C. sauteed mushrooms
1/2 onion, minced and sauteed
1 clove of garlic, minced and sauteed
1-2 tsp. poultry seasoning or Mural of Flavor
1 C. brown rice (pearl barley or wild rice or some combination would also be nice)
salt and pepper to taste
Simmer for 1-2 hours; finish with 4 oz. cream cheese, stirred in; serve with grated parmesan cheese.
(Last year it was Minestrone)
6 C. cooking liquid
1/2 onion, diced and sauteed
2 cloves garlic
2 carrots, chopped and sauteed
1 zucchini, diced and sauteed
1 can dark red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
1 large can crushed tomatoes (or tomato sauce, in a pinch)
1 C. small pasta (elbow macaroni-sized)
2 tsp. dried basil
1 tsp. dried rosemary (crushed)
1 tsp. dried oregano
2 tsp. hot sauce (to taste)
salt and pepper to taste
Simmer all ingredients except pasta for 20 minutes; add pasta and cook until tender. Serve with grated parmesan cheese.
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Monday, December 17, 2012
Naming the Women
On Saturday, Dad called me trying to decipher Dorothy Carr's Lefse recipe. While I was looking for something else, I ran across the recipe for Myrtle's Coffee Bread in my great-grandmother's handwriting. Both of these brought to mind Ruth Brekke's Ginger Cookies. Esther's Cardamom Toast. Arlene's Pan Bread. And other recipes in my repertoire that invoke a name--sometimes known, sometimes unknown.
Dad said he remembered Dorothy Carr, and even I remember Ruth Brekke, but I'm not sure any of us know who Myrtle was.
In the food that we eat, however, we invoke their names and their lives, the care they took for family and friends, and their willingness to share with others who want to pass along the goodness.
Most recipes, despite their individual varities, are anonymous. Most of the time, we don't pass along our name as the source of what we share in this way, and we don't recall whose dish inspired us this time we make it.
But when I am reminded as with these examples of the generations (primarily of women) who have cooked and shared and blessed the people in their lives--and me--with their recipes and their names, I am also reminded of the many nameless whose lives have fed my own.
Dad said he remembered Dorothy Carr, and even I remember Ruth Brekke, but I'm not sure any of us know who Myrtle was.
In the food that we eat, however, we invoke their names and their lives, the care they took for family and friends, and their willingness to share with others who want to pass along the goodness.
Most recipes, despite their individual varities, are anonymous. Most of the time, we don't pass along our name as the source of what we share in this way, and we don't recall whose dish inspired us this time we make it.
But when I am reminded as with these examples of the generations (primarily of women) who have cooked and shared and blessed the people in their lives--and me--with their recipes and their names, I am also reminded of the many nameless whose lives have fed my own.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
On the Eve of Gaudete Sunday, 2012
On weeks such as this one, I wonder about this little writing project of mine. Cookies? Really?
But while cookies (or, rather, food in general) are the surface feature of what I'm working out here, the underpinnings are at the same time far more complex and far simpler.
Human beings suffer and die. Innocent. Guilty. Beloved. Forgotten. Reviled.
---
On Thursday, as a culminating class event, we hosted a round-table discussion of leaders in our community who are committed to combatting hunger in many and various ways. We were confronted with staggering statistics--many about children--and an overwhelming sense of need. Along with that also came an overwhelming fear, confusion, and grief about what to do in the face of such need. And along with that came the excitement in sharing community, passion, and purpose with others who are joyfully doing God's work in feeding the hungry.
---
On Friday, we ended the class officially with a simple soup and bread lunch, wrestling with what we had heard the night before. I overheard one student say, "This was the best meal I've had in months." I'm sure it wasn't, but I think the fact that two teachers would make homemade soup and homemade cookies for college students just before finals week changed the ordinariness of the offering into something special.
---
Today I made peppermint bark and cardamom toast, preparing to send Christmas packages on Monday. Trying to send a bit of ourselves to those beloved far away who are suffering and rejoicing in their own ways.
---
The Third Sunday of Advent is celebrated as Gaudete Sunday, when we are called in the midst of the solemn season to rejoice. The joy we are called to is not the joy of the revelation of Christmas but is the anticipation. This is the joy we are called to in the midst of the darkest time. This is the joy of the very-nearly-but-not-yet. This is the joy of the hope of both Christ's first coming and his second.
---
As complicated as my feelings are about being called together to rejoice in this moment, somehow the summons is fitting. Joy doesn't wait around for us to find circumstances fitted to it. Joy doesn't expect that the evils of the world will cease in order for it to be marked. Joy cannot wait--even until the end of Advent--for us to make the world a safe place for all of God's children. The joy is in our hope in God's redemption that comes precisely because of all that is wrong with the world. The joy is in the promise of God With Us, precisely at the world's darkest moment.
---
As I write this, again I wonder how simple it all sounds and how impossible it all is. Cookies? They're not enough. Never. And I would be the last person to suggest that somehow I could take the restoration of the world into my own buttered hands. But this project pulls me back to joy in the ways I might be able to recognize it in my own life and bring it, bite by bite, into others'. That this joy takes tangible form is my witness to the incarnation, to God With Us. Washing. Eating. Drinking. Living with one another in hope only because the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
Rejoice.
---
Sausage, Potato, and Kale Soup
(the students scraped the crock pot clean)
1 lb. Bulk Turkey Italian Sausage, browned
1/2 sweet onion, diced and sauteed
2 cloves of garlic, minced and sauteed
6 C. chicken broth (or Better than Bullion and water)
1 1/2-2 lbs. potatoes, diced (I used Baby Yukon Golds this week, but any potato will do)
4 large leaves of kale, stems removed and chopped
1 tsp. dried basil
1 tsp. fennel seed, crushed
Simmer all together until the potatoes are tender. Add 4 oz. light cream cheese and stir until dissolved. Add salt and pepper to taste.
But while cookies (or, rather, food in general) are the surface feature of what I'm working out here, the underpinnings are at the same time far more complex and far simpler.
Human beings suffer and die. Innocent. Guilty. Beloved. Forgotten. Reviled.
---
On Thursday, as a culminating class event, we hosted a round-table discussion of leaders in our community who are committed to combatting hunger in many and various ways. We were confronted with staggering statistics--many about children--and an overwhelming sense of need. Along with that also came an overwhelming fear, confusion, and grief about what to do in the face of such need. And along with that came the excitement in sharing community, passion, and purpose with others who are joyfully doing God's work in feeding the hungry.
---
On Friday, we ended the class officially with a simple soup and bread lunch, wrestling with what we had heard the night before. I overheard one student say, "This was the best meal I've had in months." I'm sure it wasn't, but I think the fact that two teachers would make homemade soup and homemade cookies for college students just before finals week changed the ordinariness of the offering into something special.
---
Today I made peppermint bark and cardamom toast, preparing to send Christmas packages on Monday. Trying to send a bit of ourselves to those beloved far away who are suffering and rejoicing in their own ways.
---
The Third Sunday of Advent is celebrated as Gaudete Sunday, when we are called in the midst of the solemn season to rejoice. The joy we are called to is not the joy of the revelation of Christmas but is the anticipation. This is the joy we are called to in the midst of the darkest time. This is the joy of the very-nearly-but-not-yet. This is the joy of the hope of both Christ's first coming and his second.
---
As complicated as my feelings are about being called together to rejoice in this moment, somehow the summons is fitting. Joy doesn't wait around for us to find circumstances fitted to it. Joy doesn't expect that the evils of the world will cease in order for it to be marked. Joy cannot wait--even until the end of Advent--for us to make the world a safe place for all of God's children. The joy is in our hope in God's redemption that comes precisely because of all that is wrong with the world. The joy is in the promise of God With Us, precisely at the world's darkest moment.
---
As I write this, again I wonder how simple it all sounds and how impossible it all is. Cookies? They're not enough. Never. And I would be the last person to suggest that somehow I could take the restoration of the world into my own buttered hands. But this project pulls me back to joy in the ways I might be able to recognize it in my own life and bring it, bite by bite, into others'. That this joy takes tangible form is my witness to the incarnation, to God With Us. Washing. Eating. Drinking. Living with one another in hope only because the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
Rejoice.
---
Sausage, Potato, and Kale Soup
(the students scraped the crock pot clean)
1 lb. Bulk Turkey Italian Sausage, browned
1/2 sweet onion, diced and sauteed
2 cloves of garlic, minced and sauteed
6 C. chicken broth (or Better than Bullion and water)
1 1/2-2 lbs. potatoes, diced (I used Baby Yukon Golds this week, but any potato will do)
4 large leaves of kale, stems removed and chopped
1 tsp. dried basil
1 tsp. fennel seed, crushed
Simmer all together until the potatoes are tender. Add 4 oz. light cream cheese and stir until dissolved. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
St. Lucia
Last weekend, our congregation celebrated an annual tradition of the St. Lucia festival.
I've known the story of St. Lucia since I was a small child (as most children of even nominally Swedish hertiage do), and it's a fascinating, mysterious, gruesome tale (as most saints' tales are). It ends, however, with light.
St. Lucia's day is historically associated with the darkest day of the year (according the Gregorian calendar; it's currently observed on December 13). And in Sweden, the tale is connected to a distinctly Scandinavian miracle: at dawn on one December 13, in the darkness of a northern winter and in a time of famine, St. Lucia appeared, with a crown of candles on her head, on the shores of Lake Vanern, bringing coffee and rolls to the people.
My husband always laughs at the idea. A saint whose primary miracle is coffee and rolls.
But, in the darkness, in the cold, in the hunger, the simplicity of the miracle is profound. Coffee and rolls? Yes. Candles? Yes. Christmas Cookies? Yes. Lefse? Yes. Krumkakke? Yes.
So we celebrate. The children sing and dance in traditional costume; we gorge ourselves on cookies (the rule is to show up early or all the rosettes are gone); and in the end, a shaky young girl walks through with a crown of lighted candles on her head (fire extinguisher ready at the door).
In Scandinavian tradition, St. Lucia Day means the Christmas season has finally arrived, and we'd better get baking.
It's dark now, but soon the light is coming, and we'll need something to eat.
---
I'll post about the other Christmas baking as we get closer to the feast itself. At this point in the season, I'll make Esther's Cardamom Toast (biscotti) and Peppermint Bark, which both keep well and ship well.
(My Swedish Great-Aunt) Esther's Cardamom Toast
1/2 C. butter, creamed with
1 1/2 C. sugar, add
3 eggs and
2 3/4 C flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. ground cardamom (fresh)
Spread on cookie sheet in rectangle, about 1/2" thick, and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until done (cakelike consistency). Cut into bars, 3"x1/2", separate, and bake in a 250 degree oven until dry and crisp (about 1 1/2-2 hours).
I've known the story of St. Lucia since I was a small child (as most children of even nominally Swedish hertiage do), and it's a fascinating, mysterious, gruesome tale (as most saints' tales are). It ends, however, with light.
St. Lucia's day is historically associated with the darkest day of the year (according the Gregorian calendar; it's currently observed on December 13). And in Sweden, the tale is connected to a distinctly Scandinavian miracle: at dawn on one December 13, in the darkness of a northern winter and in a time of famine, St. Lucia appeared, with a crown of candles on her head, on the shores of Lake Vanern, bringing coffee and rolls to the people.
My husband always laughs at the idea. A saint whose primary miracle is coffee and rolls.
But, in the darkness, in the cold, in the hunger, the simplicity of the miracle is profound. Coffee and rolls? Yes. Candles? Yes. Christmas Cookies? Yes. Lefse? Yes. Krumkakke? Yes.
So we celebrate. The children sing and dance in traditional costume; we gorge ourselves on cookies (the rule is to show up early or all the rosettes are gone); and in the end, a shaky young girl walks through with a crown of lighted candles on her head (fire extinguisher ready at the door).
In Scandinavian tradition, St. Lucia Day means the Christmas season has finally arrived, and we'd better get baking.
It's dark now, but soon the light is coming, and we'll need something to eat.
---
I'll post about the other Christmas baking as we get closer to the feast itself. At this point in the season, I'll make Esther's Cardamom Toast (biscotti) and Peppermint Bark, which both keep well and ship well.
(My Swedish Great-Aunt) Esther's Cardamom Toast
1/2 C. butter, creamed with
1 1/2 C. sugar, add
3 eggs and
2 3/4 C flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. ground cardamom (fresh)
Spread on cookie sheet in rectangle, about 1/2" thick, and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until done (cakelike consistency). Cut into bars, 3"x1/2", separate, and bake in a 250 degree oven until dry and crisp (about 1 1/2-2 hours).
Peppermint Bark
(for the busy parents of two-year-olds and others who need an easy homemade gift)
1 package almond bark
1 doz. standard candy canes
Chop and melt almond bark slowly in the microwave or stovetop, stirring often. Crush candy canes in a zip-top bag (a task that can be given to the aforementioned two-year old, at least in part). Fold the crushed candy canes into the melted almond bark and spread on parchment paper-lined cookie sheets, about 1/8- 1/4" thick. Chill for 45 minutes, and break into pieces.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
A poem for Advent
(Sorry I missed yesterday; I plead child-home-from-daycare.)
from "Mysteries of the Incarnation"
"She Said Yeah"
The land lies open: summer fallow, hayfield, pasture. Folds of
cloud mirror buttes knife-edged in shadow. One monk smears
honey on his toast, another peels an orange.
A bell rings three times, as the Angelus begins, bringing to
mind Gabriel and Mary. "She said yeah," the Rolling Stones
sing from a car on the interstate. "She said yeah." And the bells
pick it up, many bells now, saying it to Mechtild, the barn cat,
pregnant again; to Ephrem's bluebirds down the draw; to the
grazing cattle and the monks (virgins, some of them) eating
silently before the sexy tongue of a hibiscus blossom at
their refectory window. "She said yeah." And then the angel left her.
--Kathleen Norris, Little Girls in Church
from "Mysteries of the Incarnation"
"She Said Yeah"
The land lies open: summer fallow, hayfield, pasture. Folds of
cloud mirror buttes knife-edged in shadow. One monk smears
honey on his toast, another peels an orange.
A bell rings three times, as the Angelus begins, bringing to
mind Gabriel and Mary. "She said yeah," the Rolling Stones
sing from a car on the interstate. "She said yeah." And the bells
pick it up, many bells now, saying it to Mechtild, the barn cat,
pregnant again; to Ephrem's bluebirds down the draw; to the
grazing cattle and the monks (virgins, some of them) eating
silently before the sexy tongue of a hibiscus blossom at
their refectory window. "She said yeah." And then the angel left her.
--Kathleen Norris, Little Girls in Church
Friday, December 7, 2012
Party Food
It's that season!
In the midst of the papers I'm supposed to be grading and the evaluations, reports, and syllabi I'm supposed to be writing (our next term begins on the ninth day of Christmas: Ladies dancing, all around.) come the parties.
We hope to get together with friends sometime this weekend for a little birthday brownie pudding, and on Sunday we have our annual Christmas gathering at school, a catered dessert buffet before the Christmas concert. Monday, the dean has invited us over for heavy hors d'oeuvres. It looks like we have a break until Thursday evening, with cookies and punch at a campus event, followed by Friday's last-day-of-classes feasting in various forms.
I'm sure I've overlooked a few, and that's only the next week.
I do love party food.
Given the opportunity, I try to make sure it's reasonably healthy, since I know that the snacking can add up to much more than it might seem to on the surface. When we manage it ourselves, we lean heavily toward hummos and veggies, fresh chunky salsa and chips, and stuffed mushrooms.
My favorite, though, is baked artichoke dip, a variation that goes something like this:
---
Baked Artichoke Dip
1 can artichoke hearts (not marinated), drained and chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
4 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/2 C. grated parmesan cheese
1/2 C. plain yogurt or light sour cream
Mix ingredients together until they are thoroughly combined. Top with 1/4 C. breadcrumbs mixed with 2 Tb. olive oil and another 2 Tb. parmesan cheese. Bake in a 9x9 dish at 375 until hot and bubbly (about 25-30 minutes).
Serve with bread, crackers . . . spoons . . .
In the midst of the papers I'm supposed to be grading and the evaluations, reports, and syllabi I'm supposed to be writing (our next term begins on the ninth day of Christmas: Ladies dancing, all around.) come the parties.
We hope to get together with friends sometime this weekend for a little birthday brownie pudding, and on Sunday we have our annual Christmas gathering at school, a catered dessert buffet before the Christmas concert. Monday, the dean has invited us over for heavy hors d'oeuvres. It looks like we have a break until Thursday evening, with cookies and punch at a campus event, followed by Friday's last-day-of-classes feasting in various forms.
I'm sure I've overlooked a few, and that's only the next week.
I do love party food.
Given the opportunity, I try to make sure it's reasonably healthy, since I know that the snacking can add up to much more than it might seem to on the surface. When we manage it ourselves, we lean heavily toward hummos and veggies, fresh chunky salsa and chips, and stuffed mushrooms.
My favorite, though, is baked artichoke dip, a variation that goes something like this:
---
Baked Artichoke Dip
1 can artichoke hearts (not marinated), drained and chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
4 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/2 C. grated parmesan cheese
1/2 C. plain yogurt or light sour cream
Mix ingredients together until they are thoroughly combined. Top with 1/4 C. breadcrumbs mixed with 2 Tb. olive oil and another 2 Tb. parmesan cheese. Bake in a 9x9 dish at 375 until hot and bubbly (about 25-30 minutes).
Serve with bread, crackers . . . spoons . . .
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
I'm supposed to be grading papers . . .
but instead I'm thinking about Christmas shopping, about philosophy, about sunshine in December, about sushi, about next semester's meetings, about former colleagues, and about dinner. That is, just about everything except the papers.
This is the time of year when I challenge myself with words and images of stillness, of silence and reflection, and I come up short because the list seems, somehow, to keep getting longer. Tackling the list seems impossible this far out, and so I look up ways to stretch it out some more (especially if it means not grading papers).
I do this in part because I know that the papers are inevitable--as is the time I spend wasting before I actually sit myself in the chair and deal with them. But I do it also because sometimes there's a flash of brilliance, a really good idea, that comes while I'm busy not doing something I'm supposed to.
---
One of my colleagues and I have a lot of conversations in doorways. We both know we shouldn't. We should be prepping for class. We're on our way to meetings. We should be writing something. We should be grading papers.
But, this year (after five years of such behavior), we have embraced the doorway conversations--even begun to celebrate them.
We've recognized that in the midst of our rambling chats about students, kids, the papers we're not grading, university goings-on, books we've read or want to read, and food we shouldn't be eating, we have developed important projects that have improved our teaching, our thinking, and our life together as a department and university community.
There's no way to codify our doorway converations; that's precisely the point.
We're not supposed to be having them.
We are supposed to be doing something else. (Like I'm supposed to be grading papers.)
In the inevitability of the supposed-tos, however, sometimes something else breaks in. And so I open the door for it.
This is the time of year when I challenge myself with words and images of stillness, of silence and reflection, and I come up short because the list seems, somehow, to keep getting longer. Tackling the list seems impossible this far out, and so I look up ways to stretch it out some more (especially if it means not grading papers).
I do this in part because I know that the papers are inevitable--as is the time I spend wasting before I actually sit myself in the chair and deal with them. But I do it also because sometimes there's a flash of brilliance, a really good idea, that comes while I'm busy not doing something I'm supposed to.
---
One of my colleagues and I have a lot of conversations in doorways. We both know we shouldn't. We should be prepping for class. We're on our way to meetings. We should be writing something. We should be grading papers.
But, this year (after five years of such behavior), we have embraced the doorway conversations--even begun to celebrate them.
We've recognized that in the midst of our rambling chats about students, kids, the papers we're not grading, university goings-on, books we've read or want to read, and food we shouldn't be eating, we have developed important projects that have improved our teaching, our thinking, and our life together as a department and university community.
There's no way to codify our doorway converations; that's precisely the point.
We're not supposed to be having them.
We are supposed to be doing something else. (Like I'm supposed to be grading papers.)
In the inevitability of the supposed-tos, however, sometimes something else breaks in. And so I open the door for it.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Waiting for Stillness
In yesterday's call to worship, the liturgy reminded us of "the silence of this space." I was sitting in our habitual back corner, kids row. It was neither silent nor still.
I love the liturgies of Advent that remind us of the stillness and silence of waiting, but it's also good to be reminded of the fluster of preparation and hectic tasks that come at this time of year. I realized that my hope for silence and stillness will likely come after Christmas, if at all.
Waiting, nevertheless, remains part of my days at this time of year. The countdown to finals. The countdown to the last papers to grade. The countdown to packing and getting on the airplane. The countdown of parties to attend and host, cards to write, concerts to applaud, presents to gather, treats to create. All many and joyful things, but all part of the list of things to do.
I'm working on stillness still, however. To sit in the midst of kids climbing over and under chairs, in search of fruit snacks and toy cars, and to hear the prophecy anew: "Lift up your heads; your redemption is near."
I love the liturgies of Advent that remind us of the stillness and silence of waiting, but it's also good to be reminded of the fluster of preparation and hectic tasks that come at this time of year. I realized that my hope for silence and stillness will likely come after Christmas, if at all.
Waiting, nevertheless, remains part of my days at this time of year. The countdown to finals. The countdown to the last papers to grade. The countdown to packing and getting on the airplane. The countdown of parties to attend and host, cards to write, concerts to applaud, presents to gather, treats to create. All many and joyful things, but all part of the list of things to do.
I'm working on stillness still, however. To sit in the midst of kids climbing over and under chairs, in search of fruit snacks and toy cars, and to hear the prophecy anew: "Lift up your heads; your redemption is near."
Friday, November 30, 2012
St. Andrew's Day
Now officially begins the waiting.
I realize that the first Sunday in Advent is officially the start of Advent, but traditionally St. Andrew's Day has also been a marker of the new season and the new church year.
I love Advent. Perhaps it's that my birthday comes in just a couple of weeks. Or perhaps it's that I've lived my life on the academic calendar, and this is the season of the year where we all take a deep breath and sprint to the end.
Most of all, I've learned to treasure Advent's lessons of waiting for fulfillment and revelation, the tension of already-but-not-yet. We know what's coming (or, at least, we think we do), but the mystery of the incarnation nevertheless confounds us every time we try to make sense of it.
And this is what I love: Advent calls us to consider the mystery of the incarnation, to the mystery of God's divine being becoming (not seeming, not appearing, not pretending) human.
But it's not here yet. We have to wait. And in the waiting, we get to contemplate the mystery even more both as we see it now and as it will be revealed in the end.
And there's time to make cookies in Advent.
Happy new year, everyone.
I realize that the first Sunday in Advent is officially the start of Advent, but traditionally St. Andrew's Day has also been a marker of the new season and the new church year.
I love Advent. Perhaps it's that my birthday comes in just a couple of weeks. Or perhaps it's that I've lived my life on the academic calendar, and this is the season of the year where we all take a deep breath and sprint to the end.
Most of all, I've learned to treasure Advent's lessons of waiting for fulfillment and revelation, the tension of already-but-not-yet. We know what's coming (or, at least, we think we do), but the mystery of the incarnation nevertheless confounds us every time we try to make sense of it.
And this is what I love: Advent calls us to consider the mystery of the incarnation, to the mystery of God's divine being becoming (not seeming, not appearing, not pretending) human.
But it's not here yet. We have to wait. And in the waiting, we get to contemplate the mystery even more both as we see it now and as it will be revealed in the end.
And there's time to make cookies in Advent.
Happy new year, everyone.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
The Best Field Trip Ever
I got word last weekend that one of my graduate school professors died shortly after Thanksgiving. I remember him fondly (though realistically) for his absent-mindedness, his long digressions, and his books.
But the story I tell most often of him is of The Best Field Trip Ever.
It was ten years ago now, in early November 2002, and I was working as his research assistant (and doing a terrible job, by the way; I was the worst research assistant ever, and I'm not sure anyone other than him knew it. He was a gracious man). I was also planning a wedding.
Dr. B. had strong opinions about many things, and, as I learned that fall, one of his favored concerns was wedding cake and the quality--or lack thereof--at most weddings. He told in rapturous recollection of his own wedding cake. Other than his wife, it seemed to be the only thing he recalled from the event.
So knowing I was planning a wedding for the following spring, Dr. B. asked what thought and research I had given to the cake. I admitted that it hadn't been high on my priority list and that we had simply figured on "something." This was not good enough, and Dr. B. announced that he knew just the place. It was a little French bakery, oddly plunked down in a gritty suburb of western Pennsylvania.
A week or so later, he asked if I had followed up on it. I hadn't. (I was slightly better at wedding planning than research assisting, but not much.)
Another week or two? I still hadn't made a visit to the French bakery.
By early November, Dr. B. decided to take matters into his own hands. He would take me to the bakery himself.
We scheduled a trip for a gloomy Thursday morning, leaving campus at about 9:30. I wondered if this would count toward the research assisting hours I was not completing.
We drove the fifteen or twenty minutes from campus and exited off the highway into an alcove town. As we passed through the business area, Dr. B. also waved at a candy store off to the right. "They make the best homemade vanilla ice cream," as we drove on another block and a half to the bakery.
Inside the tiny shop, I turned toward a photo album on a stand that held pictures of elaborate tiered cakes. I glanced at some price information discreetly and noted $4.25 a slice as the estimate. Um. It would probably be good, but it was well beyond our budget.
Dr. B. looked over my shoulder at the pictures, but he also attended to the bakery case, buying something to send to his daughter out of town. He asked which pastry I would choose, and we went out each with a treat in our hands and he with a box under his arm. It was lovely.
We climbed back in the car and turned the corner back toward the highway. He surprised me, though, "Do you like vanilla ice cream?" It was about 10:30 in the morning.
We pulled around the block again and parked in front of the candy store with red awnings. We headed toward the back--an old-fashioned soda counter with red stools to match the awnings out front. He ordered us each a small dish of ice cream (having just finished the pastries, mind you), and we sat at the counter and chatted about the weather.
I commented that the gloomy grey of November days always reminded me of Truman Capote's "A Christmas Memory"--a story I had read in high school that stuck with me even though I didn't realize it at the time. I told him I think of days like that one as "fruitcake weather," though I've never made a fruitcake in my life.
He mused that his wife made fruitcake every year--in fact, she had recently started on this year's batch. He wondered if she needed more bourbon.
We finished our ice cream, pushed the dishes back, and headed back to the car once more.
Just before the exit to the highway, right on the edge of the tiny business district, was a state liquor store. Dr. B. pulled in the parking lot without comment, and as he turned off the car, he announced that he thought he should pick up some more bourbon for his wife's fruitcakes. So, I followed him in and down the aisles, while he picked up a modest bottle.
He paid for his purchase, and we climbed back in the car.
As we drove back to campus, I pondered the morning's trip, realizing its strangeness and its beauty. We got back to campus about 11:15.
I have a number of other recollections of Dr. B., but this is my favorite. One that I shared with no fellow students, and one that solidifies my understanding of who he was. Whether he was talking about poems, book collecting, paper-making, liturgical pratice, or food, he most of all had a warmth and passion to share with others whatever joy he found in the world.
And while I am a very different teacher than he was, I hope that, someday, some students will be able to ponder some strange trek that shows them something more about how they see the world.
Thank you, Dr. B.
Rest eternal grant to him, O Lord, and may light perpetual shine upon him.
But the story I tell most often of him is of The Best Field Trip Ever.
It was ten years ago now, in early November 2002, and I was working as his research assistant (and doing a terrible job, by the way; I was the worst research assistant ever, and I'm not sure anyone other than him knew it. He was a gracious man). I was also planning a wedding.
Dr. B. had strong opinions about many things, and, as I learned that fall, one of his favored concerns was wedding cake and the quality--or lack thereof--at most weddings. He told in rapturous recollection of his own wedding cake. Other than his wife, it seemed to be the only thing he recalled from the event.
So knowing I was planning a wedding for the following spring, Dr. B. asked what thought and research I had given to the cake. I admitted that it hadn't been high on my priority list and that we had simply figured on "something." This was not good enough, and Dr. B. announced that he knew just the place. It was a little French bakery, oddly plunked down in a gritty suburb of western Pennsylvania.
A week or so later, he asked if I had followed up on it. I hadn't. (I was slightly better at wedding planning than research assisting, but not much.)
Another week or two? I still hadn't made a visit to the French bakery.
By early November, Dr. B. decided to take matters into his own hands. He would take me to the bakery himself.
We scheduled a trip for a gloomy Thursday morning, leaving campus at about 9:30. I wondered if this would count toward the research assisting hours I was not completing.
We drove the fifteen or twenty minutes from campus and exited off the highway into an alcove town. As we passed through the business area, Dr. B. also waved at a candy store off to the right. "They make the best homemade vanilla ice cream," as we drove on another block and a half to the bakery.
Inside the tiny shop, I turned toward a photo album on a stand that held pictures of elaborate tiered cakes. I glanced at some price information discreetly and noted $4.25 a slice as the estimate. Um. It would probably be good, but it was well beyond our budget.
Dr. B. looked over my shoulder at the pictures, but he also attended to the bakery case, buying something to send to his daughter out of town. He asked which pastry I would choose, and we went out each with a treat in our hands and he with a box under his arm. It was lovely.
We climbed back in the car and turned the corner back toward the highway. He surprised me, though, "Do you like vanilla ice cream?" It was about 10:30 in the morning.
We pulled around the block again and parked in front of the candy store with red awnings. We headed toward the back--an old-fashioned soda counter with red stools to match the awnings out front. He ordered us each a small dish of ice cream (having just finished the pastries, mind you), and we sat at the counter and chatted about the weather.
I commented that the gloomy grey of November days always reminded me of Truman Capote's "A Christmas Memory"--a story I had read in high school that stuck with me even though I didn't realize it at the time. I told him I think of days like that one as "fruitcake weather," though I've never made a fruitcake in my life.
He mused that his wife made fruitcake every year--in fact, she had recently started on this year's batch. He wondered if she needed more bourbon.
We finished our ice cream, pushed the dishes back, and headed back to the car once more.
Just before the exit to the highway, right on the edge of the tiny business district, was a state liquor store. Dr. B. pulled in the parking lot without comment, and as he turned off the car, he announced that he thought he should pick up some more bourbon for his wife's fruitcakes. So, I followed him in and down the aisles, while he picked up a modest bottle.
He paid for his purchase, and we climbed back in the car.
As we drove back to campus, I pondered the morning's trip, realizing its strangeness and its beauty. We got back to campus about 11:15.
I have a number of other recollections of Dr. B., but this is my favorite. One that I shared with no fellow students, and one that solidifies my understanding of who he was. Whether he was talking about poems, book collecting, paper-making, liturgical pratice, or food, he most of all had a warmth and passion to share with others whatever joy he found in the world.
And while I am a very different teacher than he was, I hope that, someday, some students will be able to ponder some strange trek that shows them something more about how they see the world.
Thank you, Dr. B.
Rest eternal grant to him, O Lord, and may light perpetual shine upon him.
Monday, November 26, 2012
Thanksgiving Leftovers
Sorry for the unannounced hiatus, but, as you might expect, I was occupied with other things.
We had a lovely holiday celebration with family and friends, and though we didn't end up hosting, I did end up roasting a turkey and am now dealing with an entire bird's worth of leftovers and drippings for gravy (this, in my point of view, is not a problem).
I'm also working my way through the double-batch of Cranberry Orange Relish, which I largely eat straight out of the bowl.
To the potluck celebration I added roasted sweet potates with apples, so the only thing I've yet skipped out on that's unusual to this time of year is the bread stuffing. Since I've got some stray ends of good bread in the freezer, I may yet find an excuse to put it together, but not today.
Friday was the first round of leftovers, and we ended up with Turkey Pot Pie and Sweet Potato Muffins for dessert. Enjoy!
---
Cranberry Orange Relish
(modified from the recipe on the OceanSpray package)
2 lbs. fresh cranberries, rinsed
Zest of two oranges
flesh of two oranges
Combine together in food processor or blender until coarse chopped (not a smooth puree).
Stir in 3/4 C. sugar (or more, if you prefer; I like a tart relish)
Serve on everything thanksgiving-y, including oatmeal, yogurt, or straight off the spoon.
---
Turkey Pot Pie
1 C. leftover turkey gravy
1 c. plain yogurt
salt and pepper (or seasoning salt) to taste
cooked potatoes (even mashed will work), miscellaneous cooked and/or frozen vegetables; ours included diced kolrabi, carrots, peas, red peppers, and green peppers.
1 c. cubed leftover turkey
Heat together in a low simmer while you prepare the biscuits (modified from the Better Homes and Gardens Bread cookbook):
1 C. white whole wheat flour
1 C. all purpose flour
1 Tb. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
4 Tb. cold butter
blend together until butter is large crumbs (lentil- to pea-sized)
stir in scant 1 c. milk
Drop and pat on sheet pan, bake at 450 degrees for 10-12 minutes.
Dish gravy mixture into bowls and top each with a biscuit.
---
Sweet Potato Muffins
Mix together
1 C. mashed sweet potatoes/yams (or canned pumpkin puree)
1/3 C. unsweetened applesauce
1 egg
1/3 C. packed brown sugar
2 Tb. canola oil
1/3 C. milk
1 tsp. vanilla
Whisk together (separately)
1/2 C. white whole wheat flour
1/2 C. all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. apple pie spice (or cinnamon)
Add the wet mixture to dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Fold in 1/4 C. chocolate chips (I had a small dark chocolate bar, which, chopped, was just right).
Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or so in muffin tins. Makes six generous muffins.
We had a lovely holiday celebration with family and friends, and though we didn't end up hosting, I did end up roasting a turkey and am now dealing with an entire bird's worth of leftovers and drippings for gravy (this, in my point of view, is not a problem).
I'm also working my way through the double-batch of Cranberry Orange Relish, which I largely eat straight out of the bowl.
To the potluck celebration I added roasted sweet potates with apples, so the only thing I've yet skipped out on that's unusual to this time of year is the bread stuffing. Since I've got some stray ends of good bread in the freezer, I may yet find an excuse to put it together, but not today.
Friday was the first round of leftovers, and we ended up with Turkey Pot Pie and Sweet Potato Muffins for dessert. Enjoy!
---
Cranberry Orange Relish
(modified from the recipe on the OceanSpray package)
2 lbs. fresh cranberries, rinsed
Zest of two oranges
flesh of two oranges
Combine together in food processor or blender until coarse chopped (not a smooth puree).
Stir in 3/4 C. sugar (or more, if you prefer; I like a tart relish)
Serve on everything thanksgiving-y, including oatmeal, yogurt, or straight off the spoon.
---
Turkey Pot Pie
1 C. leftover turkey gravy
1 c. plain yogurt
salt and pepper (or seasoning salt) to taste
cooked potatoes (even mashed will work), miscellaneous cooked and/or frozen vegetables; ours included diced kolrabi, carrots, peas, red peppers, and green peppers.
1 c. cubed leftover turkey
Heat together in a low simmer while you prepare the biscuits (modified from the Better Homes and Gardens Bread cookbook):
1 C. white whole wheat flour
1 C. all purpose flour
1 Tb. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
4 Tb. cold butter
blend together until butter is large crumbs (lentil- to pea-sized)
stir in scant 1 c. milk
Drop and pat on sheet pan, bake at 450 degrees for 10-12 minutes.
Dish gravy mixture into bowls and top each with a biscuit.
---
Sweet Potato Muffins
Mix together
1 C. mashed sweet potatoes/yams (or canned pumpkin puree)
1/3 C. unsweetened applesauce
1 egg
1/3 C. packed brown sugar
2 Tb. canola oil
1/3 C. milk
1 tsp. vanilla
Whisk together (separately)
1/2 C. white whole wheat flour
1/2 C. all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. apple pie spice (or cinnamon)
Add the wet mixture to dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Fold in 1/4 C. chocolate chips (I had a small dark chocolate bar, which, chopped, was just right).
Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or so in muffin tins. Makes six generous muffins.
Monday, November 19, 2012
In passing . . .
I was gone. Now I'm back. (But, as far as being gone and back go, there's a lot in between.)
A quick summary:
A quick summary:
- Airport food. We will not speak of it.
- Eating alone and enjoying it, even with a pitying waiter.
- Opulence and excess and their contradictions of focus and presence.
- No coffee at an 8:00 panel at an academic conference. Really?!
- Mall food court food (even at a really posh mall). We will not speak of that, either.
- Loud restaurants and the (im)possibilities of conversation.
- The delight of a good Thai green curry and a catch-up with a friend.
- Old cobblestones and glass skyscrapers.
- A farmer's market on Copley Square.
- Old people eating lunch at Symphony Hall.
- Chilled sunshine over water. (As opposed to the chilled sunshine over plains at home.)
- A sunset in the sky over Chicago that made me recall the narrator of Wise Blood who said, "No one was paying any attention to the sky."
- Jo's sticky fingers in my hair at home.
Monday, November 12, 2012
"Enough is as good as a feast."
Though this is a proverb I'm familiar with, I can't place it in my recollection. I don't think it was something I routinely heard in my family. As it echoes in my head this morning, it seems to have come probably from Marilla or Rachel Lynde in Anne of Green Gables. As one of those slightly archaic aphorisms, it rings of truth and cliche simultaneously.
In the first lesson from yesterday's lectionary readings, Elijah instructs the widow of Zarephath to "make me a little cake of [the last meal she has] and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son" (1 Kings 17.13). He tells a woman who is preparing to starve that in sharing what she has with him, she will save both herself and her child. The conclusion of the story is that "the jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the LORD" (17.16).
A small cake made of meal and oil isn't much, but in its endurance--in lasting--it amounted to a miraculous feast that sustains three people in the midst of famine and drought.
It was both enough and feast.
So this weekend, a few moments to deal with nagging household tasks, an extra hour to fall asleep in front of the television, enough time and money to share in a benefit concert for a local family, two and half hours to see my students work out Shakespeare on the stage, time for Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, and a blissful ninety minutes of food and wine and laughter with friends. Even an hour or two to grade a few of the papers that threaten to overwhelm me.
We live in famine and drought of time. As a badge of social honor these days we hold up to-do lists and packed-out schedules. There's never enough time.
I'm feeling it, too, since I'm headed out of town on Wednesday (and so will be taking a break here until next Monday). But time is also the sustenance we have, and even when there's precious little of it, nevertheless it can sustain us.
And so even though I'm swamped and feel out of time already, I am grateful for enough--and the scant wisdom I have to share it--and especially in sitting down over guacamole and cupcakes last night, time enough becomes a feast.
In the first lesson from yesterday's lectionary readings, Elijah instructs the widow of Zarephath to "make me a little cake of [the last meal she has] and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son" (1 Kings 17.13). He tells a woman who is preparing to starve that in sharing what she has with him, she will save both herself and her child. The conclusion of the story is that "the jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the LORD" (17.16).
A small cake made of meal and oil isn't much, but in its endurance--in lasting--it amounted to a miraculous feast that sustains three people in the midst of famine and drought.
It was both enough and feast.
So this weekend, a few moments to deal with nagging household tasks, an extra hour to fall asleep in front of the television, enough time and money to share in a benefit concert for a local family, two and half hours to see my students work out Shakespeare on the stage, time for Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, and a blissful ninety minutes of food and wine and laughter with friends. Even an hour or two to grade a few of the papers that threaten to overwhelm me.
We live in famine and drought of time. As a badge of social honor these days we hold up to-do lists and packed-out schedules. There's never enough time.
I'm feeling it, too, since I'm headed out of town on Wednesday (and so will be taking a break here until next Monday). But time is also the sustenance we have, and even when there's precious little of it, nevertheless it can sustain us.
And so even though I'm swamped and feel out of time already, I am grateful for enough--and the scant wisdom I have to share it--and especially in sitting down over guacamole and cupcakes last night, time enough becomes a feast.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Keeping up.
I'm trying. Though it has been a trying fall.
At our house, we've felt more often like we're falling down than standing up in these past weeks, but today was a short exercise (after yesterday's falling once more) in keeping up.
This time, we passed the child back and forth (no child care on Thursdays) between ourselves and a spare college student while we both attended to our office duties and attended a lecture required of both of us. And then we managed to meet up, all three of us, in the autumn sunshine of an untended yard, raking leaves, stuffing bags, and arriving at the leaf drop-off just as the gentlemen were setting out the orange cones for the night. They were gracious enough to let us through. (Though I think they also were a bit afraid not to when they saw the leaf bags piled in not-quite-on-top-of the two-year-old.)
We got to grab a quick bit of dinner together at the Pita Pit (our favorite fast food in town) before I turned back around to head to campus for my evening class. Whew.
Days--weeks--months like these we've had of late both exhaust me and amaze me. Exhaust for obvious reasons, but amaze when I recognize the resiliance of my own body and soul and the awesome capacity of the people around me to keep going--laughing, talking, working, singing, grading (oh, the grading), and caring--in the midst of what feels a lot like chaos.
Tonight we'll watch a film that juxtaposes the order of the natural world with the frenetic pace of modern life (of thirty years ago--it's only faster now!). At the end, the filmmaker focuses in on individual faces, slowing for the first time in more than an hour to let us see individuals, humans, in the world that hardly seems human any longer.
Perhaps I'll be able to go home and realize that even pausing for a few minutes in the midst of the chaos can remind me that I am, in fact, human. And all of these folks around me struggling to keep up? They're human, too.
At our house, we've felt more often like we're falling down than standing up in these past weeks, but today was a short exercise (after yesterday's falling once more) in keeping up.
This time, we passed the child back and forth (no child care on Thursdays) between ourselves and a spare college student while we both attended to our office duties and attended a lecture required of both of us. And then we managed to meet up, all three of us, in the autumn sunshine of an untended yard, raking leaves, stuffing bags, and arriving at the leaf drop-off just as the gentlemen were setting out the orange cones for the night. They were gracious enough to let us through. (Though I think they also were a bit afraid not to when they saw the leaf bags piled in not-quite-on-top-of the two-year-old.)
We got to grab a quick bit of dinner together at the Pita Pit (our favorite fast food in town) before I turned back around to head to campus for my evening class. Whew.
Days--weeks--months like these we've had of late both exhaust me and amaze me. Exhaust for obvious reasons, but amaze when I recognize the resiliance of my own body and soul and the awesome capacity of the people around me to keep going--laughing, talking, working, singing, grading (oh, the grading), and caring--in the midst of what feels a lot like chaos.
Tonight we'll watch a film that juxtaposes the order of the natural world with the frenetic pace of modern life (of thirty years ago--it's only faster now!). At the end, the filmmaker focuses in on individual faces, slowing for the first time in more than an hour to let us see individuals, humans, in the world that hardly seems human any longer.
Perhaps I'll be able to go home and realize that even pausing for a few minutes in the midst of the chaos can remind me that I am, in fact, human. And all of these folks around me struggling to keep up? They're human, too.
Monday, November 5, 2012
All Saints
We had lovely church yesterday.
On Saturday morning, we stopped by to set up for the weekend services, setting out sandboxes and candles for people to light in memory of loved ones, and counting out the blue votives for those beloved who have died this year and the white votives for those newly baptized.
Then, yesterday, after we sang "Behold the Host" and "For All the Saints," we came forward to light our candles, with Jo grabbing as many as her little hand would hold and then saying, "I want to do more!" The sanctuary glowed in the gloom of a November day.
On the way home, I told Jonathan that though I know Easter is the Queen of Feasts, and Christmas is such a marvelous celebration in the church year, I think All Saints may just be my favorite. I proposed that we should have an All Saints Season (at least so we could sing more of the fantastic hymns; that we sing "For All the Saints" only once a year is a terrible shame), beginning at November 1 and running until Christ the King Sunday, preparing us for the eschatological visions of Advent.
I propose this because we are too rarely reminded of the Communion of Saints--the comingling of the Church Triumphant and the Church Militant; we are too rarely reminded that we are all, even now, set apart for the work of God's kingdom which is every moment breaking in around us; we are too rarely reminded that the communion we share in the Communion of Saints is, indeed, the communion of the body of Christ--we ourselves are part of the sacrament that binds us together; we are too rarely reminded that sainthood is an ordinary calling that is part of the dailiness of our lives, not some rarified, exotic, and unreachable aspiration.
The witness of all saints is the proclamation most of us received as our entry point into the life of faith. We hear stories, listen to prayers, sing songs with people around us; we recognize love and compassion, joy in the midst of suffering, and perseverance in hope. Most of us receive the gift of faith not because of some startling event or dramatic cataclysm in our lives, but we bear witness to the hope that is in us because of ordinary gifts of time, laughter, food, tears, and pain.
And in the memory of those whose lives now continue as the great cloud of witnesses surrounding us, we affirm our own hope in the now-present-end (how's that for a paradox?) of God's dwelling place among his people.
On Saturday morning, we stopped by to set up for the weekend services, setting out sandboxes and candles for people to light in memory of loved ones, and counting out the blue votives for those beloved who have died this year and the white votives for those newly baptized.
Then, yesterday, after we sang "Behold the Host" and "For All the Saints," we came forward to light our candles, with Jo grabbing as many as her little hand would hold and then saying, "I want to do more!" The sanctuary glowed in the gloom of a November day.
On the way home, I told Jonathan that though I know Easter is the Queen of Feasts, and Christmas is such a marvelous celebration in the church year, I think All Saints may just be my favorite. I proposed that we should have an All Saints Season (at least so we could sing more of the fantastic hymns; that we sing "For All the Saints" only once a year is a terrible shame), beginning at November 1 and running until Christ the King Sunday, preparing us for the eschatological visions of Advent.
I propose this because we are too rarely reminded of the Communion of Saints--the comingling of the Church Triumphant and the Church Militant; we are too rarely reminded that we are all, even now, set apart for the work of God's kingdom which is every moment breaking in around us; we are too rarely reminded that the communion we share in the Communion of Saints is, indeed, the communion of the body of Christ--we ourselves are part of the sacrament that binds us together; we are too rarely reminded that sainthood is an ordinary calling that is part of the dailiness of our lives, not some rarified, exotic, and unreachable aspiration.
The witness of all saints is the proclamation most of us received as our entry point into the life of faith. We hear stories, listen to prayers, sing songs with people around us; we recognize love and compassion, joy in the midst of suffering, and perseverance in hope. Most of us receive the gift of faith not because of some startling event or dramatic cataclysm in our lives, but we bear witness to the hope that is in us because of ordinary gifts of time, laughter, food, tears, and pain.
And in the memory of those whose lives now continue as the great cloud of witnesses surrounding us, we affirm our own hope in the now-present-end (how's that for a paradox?) of God's dwelling place among his people.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away." Revelation 21.3-4
Friday, November 2, 2012
Another potluck note
I might as well stick with a theme for the week, right?
I have many inheritances from Grandma B. She was the only child of two immigrants who were the only members of their family to leave Norway. She was scrupulous about maintaining stories, traditions, and heirlooms. Because of her, I have the treasure of tea towels woven from flax grown on my great-great-grandfather's farm in Norway with dainty lace knitted by the great-grandmother for whom I am named. I am also honored to wear the same great-grandmother's engagement ring that served as my engagement ring, as well. And because of Grandma B., I also have the Potluck Spoon.
The Potluck Spoon is not a family heirloom in the traditional sense. It didn't live in the silver cloth, polished and protected with the other valuables. It's an ordinary stainless steel serving spoon. It doesn't match any pattern of flatware I have nor any that Grandma B. had, at least as far as I can recall.
But the Potluck Spoon is a treasure from a woman who knew her way around a church basement kitchen. Once upon a time in her life, I don't know when, Grandma B. got her hands on a metal engraver. We have evidence of this from many of her belongings. She was that kind of woman. So on the bowl of this ordinary serving spoon is engraved my maiden name--a fairly unusual one. Carefully, clearly, she identified the spoon she knew she'd always be able to retrieve from the bottom of the drained sink or from the drawers in the church kitchen.
Before she died, Grandma B. moved out of her house and distributed most of the heirlooms she had been saving. In her small retirement home apartment she kept only the necessities and the things dearest to her. I didn't even know about the existence of the Potluck Spoon until she died, and then it was one of the few things I particularly requested as we cleared out her belongings. A woven wall hanging from Norway, a batch of knitting needles, The Book of Concord and The Lutheran Church Basement Women's Cookbook, an orange mixing bowl, and the Potluck Spoon. These are the last things I carried with me from Grandma B.
And I can't tell you how many times I've rescued the Potluck Spoon from the bottom of a sink or a drawer since then.
I have many inheritances from Grandma B. She was the only child of two immigrants who were the only members of their family to leave Norway. She was scrupulous about maintaining stories, traditions, and heirlooms. Because of her, I have the treasure of tea towels woven from flax grown on my great-great-grandfather's farm in Norway with dainty lace knitted by the great-grandmother for whom I am named. I am also honored to wear the same great-grandmother's engagement ring that served as my engagement ring, as well. And because of Grandma B., I also have the Potluck Spoon.
The Potluck Spoon is not a family heirloom in the traditional sense. It didn't live in the silver cloth, polished and protected with the other valuables. It's an ordinary stainless steel serving spoon. It doesn't match any pattern of flatware I have nor any that Grandma B. had, at least as far as I can recall.
But the Potluck Spoon is a treasure from a woman who knew her way around a church basement kitchen. Once upon a time in her life, I don't know when, Grandma B. got her hands on a metal engraver. We have evidence of this from many of her belongings. She was that kind of woman. So on the bowl of this ordinary serving spoon is engraved my maiden name--a fairly unusual one. Carefully, clearly, she identified the spoon she knew she'd always be able to retrieve from the bottom of the drained sink or from the drawers in the church kitchen.
Before she died, Grandma B. moved out of her house and distributed most of the heirlooms she had been saving. In her small retirement home apartment she kept only the necessities and the things dearest to her. I didn't even know about the existence of the Potluck Spoon until she died, and then it was one of the few things I particularly requested as we cleared out her belongings. A woven wall hanging from Norway, a batch of knitting needles, The Book of Concord and The Lutheran Church Basement Women's Cookbook, an orange mixing bowl, and the Potluck Spoon. These are the last things I carried with me from Grandma B.
And I can't tell you how many times I've rescued the Potluck Spoon from the bottom of a sink or a drawer since then.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
A Theory of Potluck, expanded
I realized that the last entry may be misleading; as much as I love church cookbooks, I rarely consult any cookbooks when it comes to thinking of a specific meal or specific occasion, especially potlucks. As I mentioned, my most important consultation is what I might happen to have in the fridge and the cupboard at any moment. In the past fifteen years I have paged through so many cookbooks and cooking magazines (and, yes, watched so many hours of food television) that these days I am more likely to simply work with my impressions of dishes that simmer in the back of my head. Even when I do have a recipe to work with directly, I am an inveterate tinkerer in the kitchen, inevitably altering the recipe and even my given plan on most nights.
So, one of my other dishes for potluck this weekend was also an invention--and variation--of sorts.
---
Tamale Casserole
1 lb. ground turkey, browned
1/2 onion, diced and sauteed
1-2 bell peppers (any color), diced and sauteed slightly with the onion and turkey
1 15-oz. can of tomato sauce
1 15-oz. can of black beans, rinsed and drained
2-3 Tb. taco seasoning (to taste, depending on the brand you use)
Cook together and spread in the bottom of a 9x12 casserole. Top with 1/2 of a recipe of Basic Polenta, cooked, chilled, and sliced on top of the meat mixture. Top with 6 oz. cheese (montery jack is good; cheddar is usually what I have on hand). Bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes.
---
Variations
Had there been corn on hand, I would have included it (but there wasn't); had I been making it at home, I would have included some of our roasted Hatch green chile; sometimes I switch out black beans for pintos (or both, if there's more of a crowd); the recipe also adjusts well to a purely vegetarian offering, depending on the other veggies included (zucchini or summer squash works well with the peppers); and so you get the point.
---
This works well as a potluck dish also because it keeps well for leftovers, and since there's never any prediction about whether or not you might be taking home an empty dish or a largely full one, this is not an insignificant consideration.
So, one of my other dishes for potluck this weekend was also an invention--and variation--of sorts.
---
Tamale Casserole
1 lb. ground turkey, browned
1/2 onion, diced and sauteed
1-2 bell peppers (any color), diced and sauteed slightly with the onion and turkey
1 15-oz. can of tomato sauce
1 15-oz. can of black beans, rinsed and drained
2-3 Tb. taco seasoning (to taste, depending on the brand you use)
Cook together and spread in the bottom of a 9x12 casserole. Top with 1/2 of a recipe of Basic Polenta, cooked, chilled, and sliced on top of the meat mixture. Top with 6 oz. cheese (montery jack is good; cheddar is usually what I have on hand). Bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes.
---
Variations
Had there been corn on hand, I would have included it (but there wasn't); had I been making it at home, I would have included some of our roasted Hatch green chile; sometimes I switch out black beans for pintos (or both, if there's more of a crowd); the recipe also adjusts well to a purely vegetarian offering, depending on the other veggies included (zucchini or summer squash works well with the peppers); and so you get the point.
---
This works well as a potluck dish also because it keeps well for leftovers, and since there's never any prediction about whether or not you might be taking home an empty dish or a largely full one, this is not an insignificant consideration.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Church Cookbooks
Yesterday was a potluck at church--a celebration for Reformation Sunday, new members, and some recently married couples all rolled into one.
Have I mentioned that I love potluck? And church potlucks are my favorite.
I have fond recollections of dinners from my childhood in the Beech Wing Fellowship Hall with its grey asbestos tile floors and the cold, testy, noisy folding chairs. I remember the church family of my childhood in part through the dishes they could be depended upon to bring to potluck. Dishes that even seemed exotic to me (deviled eggs, casseroles with corn chips on top, and homemade baked beans).
Okay, so my childhood definition of exotic is weak, but I still look forward to sharing other people's cooking at church potluck. It helps that our congregation now has at least four or five folks who can be relied upon to bring homemade baked beans--and they're all good.
And when it's my turn to think of what to prepare for potluck, I consider what I have on hand (since the project seems counter to actually buying special ingredients for some reason) and what might be both like enough and different enough to find some space on the communal folding table.
For this potluck, I turned to one of my church cookbooks--an archive of church potlucks, if you will. This one, in particular, is my favorite: a treasure from Grandma B.'s church. It's a second edition, with the 1967 recipes included among the 1992 recipes. My copy is also amended by Grandma B. to include a few more recipes particular to the family that weren't included for the congregation. I love paging through to find the ones she included--some I wasn't even familiar with--and I also love recognizing the familiar names of her good friends. She and Grandpa B. missed being charter members of that congregation by only a matter of months, Dad told me, and she was a faithful and active there for the rest of her life.
One of my favorites out of this particular cookbook has none of the sentimental attachments of family or friendships. It's a 1992 recipe submitted by a family whose name I don't recognize. It has become one of my staples, both for potlucks and for other occasions, though; it's also a handy recipe for a dessert that doesn't require eggs. (Yes, I have a few cookie and bar recipes filed away that fill in otherwise hard-to-fill requirements that occasionally arise. For example, this is also one that can be made vegan by substituting margarine for the butter.)
---
Oatmeal Jam Bars
1 C. butter, melted
1 C. brown sugar, packed
1 1/2 C. flour
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
3 C. oatmeal
Combine butter and brown sugar, thoroughly mix in dry ingredients, and combine oatmeal until thoroughly incorporated. Press 2/3 of the mixture in a greased 9x13 pan, top with 5 oz. of jam (strawberry is usually what I have on hand, but apricot is also quite good) whisked with 1/4 C. warm water, and crumble the remaining oatmeal mixture over the top. Bake at 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes, until thoroughly browned. Cool thoroughly before cutting, otherwise the bars tend to crumble.
Have I mentioned that I love potluck? And church potlucks are my favorite.
I have fond recollections of dinners from my childhood in the Beech Wing Fellowship Hall with its grey asbestos tile floors and the cold, testy, noisy folding chairs. I remember the church family of my childhood in part through the dishes they could be depended upon to bring to potluck. Dishes that even seemed exotic to me (deviled eggs, casseroles with corn chips on top, and homemade baked beans).
Okay, so my childhood definition of exotic is weak, but I still look forward to sharing other people's cooking at church potluck. It helps that our congregation now has at least four or five folks who can be relied upon to bring homemade baked beans--and they're all good.
And when it's my turn to think of what to prepare for potluck, I consider what I have on hand (since the project seems counter to actually buying special ingredients for some reason) and what might be both like enough and different enough to find some space on the communal folding table.
For this potluck, I turned to one of my church cookbooks--an archive of church potlucks, if you will. This one, in particular, is my favorite: a treasure from Grandma B.'s church. It's a second edition, with the 1967 recipes included among the 1992 recipes. My copy is also amended by Grandma B. to include a few more recipes particular to the family that weren't included for the congregation. I love paging through to find the ones she included--some I wasn't even familiar with--and I also love recognizing the familiar names of her good friends. She and Grandpa B. missed being charter members of that congregation by only a matter of months, Dad told me, and she was a faithful and active there for the rest of her life.
One of my favorites out of this particular cookbook has none of the sentimental attachments of family or friendships. It's a 1992 recipe submitted by a family whose name I don't recognize. It has become one of my staples, both for potlucks and for other occasions, though; it's also a handy recipe for a dessert that doesn't require eggs. (Yes, I have a few cookie and bar recipes filed away that fill in otherwise hard-to-fill requirements that occasionally arise. For example, this is also one that can be made vegan by substituting margarine for the butter.)
---
Oatmeal Jam Bars
1 C. butter, melted
1 C. brown sugar, packed
1 1/2 C. flour
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
3 C. oatmeal
Combine butter and brown sugar, thoroughly mix in dry ingredients, and combine oatmeal until thoroughly incorporated. Press 2/3 of the mixture in a greased 9x13 pan, top with 5 oz. of jam (strawberry is usually what I have on hand, but apricot is also quite good) whisked with 1/4 C. warm water, and crumble the remaining oatmeal mixture over the top. Bake at 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes, until thoroughly browned. Cool thoroughly before cutting, otherwise the bars tend to crumble.
Friday, October 26, 2012
The Feast to Come
This week has been better than last, though I think in the recovery from last week, we're still feeling embattled. There's hope that the new year will be better, but it may be a bit of a slog until then.
Part of the recovery efforts have been food, of course. Over fall break I didn't bake cookies, but I did try this recipe with some squash we got from the CSA. We've also had lasagna cupcakes again (thanks to Auntie Mary for the idea!) and Asian Chicken Soup. Last night was turkey bratwurst with sweet and sour cabbage and roasted turnips, sweet potatoes, and red potatoes. I don't know what the plan is for tonight (Going out? Taking in? Something that won't dirty up the kitchen again?), but I know it helps--even heals--me to be able to sit around the table with my family and be well fed.
It's a shadowy glimpse some days, but I'm convinced nonetheless that it is a glimpse of the feast to come.
---
Asian Chicken Soup
6 C. water and appropriate amount of "Better than Bullion" or 6 C. chicken broth
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced or grated
1 tsp. powdered or 1 Tb. fresh grated ginger
1-2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 C. cooked chicken (or diced and poached in the broth)
1 package rice vermicelli
Combine and simmer together until chicken is cooked, carrots are tender, and noodles are cooked.
Garnish with lime juice (fresh would be great, but I rarely have it), hot sauce (Frank's Red Hot is the sauce of choice at our house) and fresh cilantro.
---
Sweet and Sour Cabbage
Simmer together 1/4-1/2 C. cider vinegar, 3-4 Tb. sugar, 2 tsp. salt, and 1/3 C. water
add
1 head of purple cabbage, chopped (green works as well, but purple is prettier)
1 apple, peeled, cored, and chopped
Cook until cabbage is tender or until the rest of the dinner is ready (as little as 15 or 20 minutes and as much as an hour or more).
Part of the recovery efforts have been food, of course. Over fall break I didn't bake cookies, but I did try this recipe with some squash we got from the CSA. We've also had lasagna cupcakes again (thanks to Auntie Mary for the idea!) and Asian Chicken Soup. Last night was turkey bratwurst with sweet and sour cabbage and roasted turnips, sweet potatoes, and red potatoes. I don't know what the plan is for tonight (Going out? Taking in? Something that won't dirty up the kitchen again?), but I know it helps--even heals--me to be able to sit around the table with my family and be well fed.
It's a shadowy glimpse some days, but I'm convinced nonetheless that it is a glimpse of the feast to come.
---
Asian Chicken Soup
6 C. water and appropriate amount of "Better than Bullion" or 6 C. chicken broth
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced or grated
1 tsp. powdered or 1 Tb. fresh grated ginger
1-2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 C. cooked chicken (or diced and poached in the broth)
1 package rice vermicelli
Combine and simmer together until chicken is cooked, carrots are tender, and noodles are cooked.
Garnish with lime juice (fresh would be great, but I rarely have it), hot sauce (Frank's Red Hot is the sauce of choice at our house) and fresh cilantro.
---
Sweet and Sour Cabbage
Simmer together 1/4-1/2 C. cider vinegar, 3-4 Tb. sugar, 2 tsp. salt, and 1/3 C. water
add
1 head of purple cabbage, chopped (green works as well, but purple is prettier)
1 apple, peeled, cored, and chopped
Cook until cabbage is tender or until the rest of the dinner is ready (as little as 15 or 20 minutes and as much as an hour or more).
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
We talked about food in class today . . .
and I'm not sure what my students thought of it. We read biblical narratives of hunger and feasting (including stories of the Israelites in the wilderness, Elijah and the widow, water into wine, the feeding of the five thousand, and the road to Emmaus.
But one of the things we talked about was our tendency to abstract these passages into spiritual metaphor without stopping to think about the ordinariness and reality of Actual Food.
The class meets at 12:00, and a number of my students have both 11:00 and 1:00 classes surrounding it; most days this means that as many as a third of my students go without lunch (though some of them bring food along with them--and I'm glad they do). And I confessed that most days I eat my lunch hurriedly at my desk while I prepare for the afternoon's classes.
But when faced with the biblical stories that suggest food is, in fact, important to our lives, how do we respond? How do these stories change our response (and responsibility) to food? And how does food change our understanding of the story of salvation?
If you're interested, these are the passages we read. Perhaps I'll come back to these questions again. In the meantime, there's a potluck at church this weekend, and I'm looking forward to it.
But one of the things we talked about was our tendency to abstract these passages into spiritual metaphor without stopping to think about the ordinariness and reality of Actual Food.
The class meets at 12:00, and a number of my students have both 11:00 and 1:00 classes surrounding it; most days this means that as many as a third of my students go without lunch (though some of them bring food along with them--and I'm glad they do). And I confessed that most days I eat my lunch hurriedly at my desk while I prepare for the afternoon's classes.
But when faced with the biblical stories that suggest food is, in fact, important to our lives, how do we respond? How do these stories change our response (and responsibility) to food? And how does food change our understanding of the story of salvation?
If you're interested, these are the passages we read. Perhaps I'll come back to these questions again. In the meantime, there's a potluck at church this weekend, and I'm looking forward to it.
Hunger and Feasting in the Bible
- Exodus 12-13, 16
- Numbers 11
- 1 Kings 17-18
- Matthew 14-15
- Mark 6, 8.1-21, 14.1-25
- Luke 9.7-20, 22.1-23, 24.13-49
- John 2. 1-12, 6
Friday, October 19, 2012
Taking a Break
This weekend will be a little longer for us, with our much-longed-for fall break (albeit with the accompanying due date for midterm grades). I'm hopeful for time to read something on my own, time to cook some more fall food, and time to recover my senses that seem to have been misplaced in the rush of the past few weeks.
This will also be our last week of the annual CSA subscription, though the farmers market will be open through the last Saturday in October. We'll be getting more storage vegetables (though the squash have already piled up), and now comes the time of seeing how long we can stretch the taste of our farmer-veggies into the winter. The first week of May is a long way off.
The impending break will also be a time to winterize the house, since once November hits, the possibility of winter weather is very real in our part of the world. This year, we even have a snowblower to prep!
Most of all, I'll spend a few days hunkered down near my teapot, perhaps with a batch of cookies on hand. Adding dried cranberries to the Oatmeal Chocolate Chip always makes for a great fall cookie, though pumpkin (or other squash) cake may also be the direction.
I'll let you know on Wednesday. It's time for a break.
This will also be our last week of the annual CSA subscription, though the farmers market will be open through the last Saturday in October. We'll be getting more storage vegetables (though the squash have already piled up), and now comes the time of seeing how long we can stretch the taste of our farmer-veggies into the winter. The first week of May is a long way off.
The impending break will also be a time to winterize the house, since once November hits, the possibility of winter weather is very real in our part of the world. This year, we even have a snowblower to prep!
Most of all, I'll spend a few days hunkered down near my teapot, perhaps with a batch of cookies on hand. Adding dried cranberries to the Oatmeal Chocolate Chip always makes for a great fall cookie, though pumpkin (or other squash) cake may also be the direction.
I'll let you know on Wednesday. It's time for a break.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Birthday Brownie Pudding
Jo's MorMor has been here for a fall visit, coinciding with her birthday, so last night we got to pause and celebrate. Jo has been rather obsessed with birthdays since her second birthday in May, when she realized the joy of cake and candles and presents and friends and singing all rolled into one event focused on her.
Most of the summer, Jo has randomly sung happy birthday to us, followed with the question, "What's your number?" (or, nearly as often, "What's your letter?" while meaning number, since she tells us her "letter" is "Two in May").
Auntie Mary (also been along for the visit) tended to the birthday dinner, and I contributed the requisite birthday Brownie Pudding.
While Matt loves cake, I am fondest of my MorMor's Brownie Pudding recipe and have requested it for my birthday nearly as long as I can remember. In high school, it came to the point that my friends would be expected to come for dinner on my birthday largely for the dessert, and I still have a dear friend who bids me happy birthday each year with the instructions to eat some Brownie Pudding for her.
So last night, filled with a lovely lasagna, we nevertheless tucked in to what always looks like an uneven gooey mess of chocolate. I balanced the candles in it precariously (since Jo insisted on helping MorMor blow out her candles), and we dished it up warm with vanilla ice cream.
I've seen a few other recipes that come close, but this is a classic that has remained a birthday tradition for our family.
It's always someone's birthday; try it sometime to share!
---
Brownie Pudding
Melt together 1 square unsweetened baking chocolate and 2 Tb. butter
Mix
1 C. flour
3/4 C. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 C. milk
Add melted chocolate and butter, mix thoroughly, and pour into a 9x12 baking dish.
Mix together 1/3 C. white sugar, 1/3 C. brown sugar, and 1/3 C. unsweetened baking cocoa and spread over the brownie batter. Pour 1 1/2 C. water over all.
Bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes.
Most of the summer, Jo has randomly sung happy birthday to us, followed with the question, "What's your number?" (or, nearly as often, "What's your letter?" while meaning number, since she tells us her "letter" is "Two in May").
Auntie Mary (also been along for the visit) tended to the birthday dinner, and I contributed the requisite birthday Brownie Pudding.
While Matt loves cake, I am fondest of my MorMor's Brownie Pudding recipe and have requested it for my birthday nearly as long as I can remember. In high school, it came to the point that my friends would be expected to come for dinner on my birthday largely for the dessert, and I still have a dear friend who bids me happy birthday each year with the instructions to eat some Brownie Pudding for her.
So last night, filled with a lovely lasagna, we nevertheless tucked in to what always looks like an uneven gooey mess of chocolate. I balanced the candles in it precariously (since Jo insisted on helping MorMor blow out her candles), and we dished it up warm with vanilla ice cream.
I've seen a few other recipes that come close, but this is a classic that has remained a birthday tradition for our family.
It's always someone's birthday; try it sometime to share!
---
Brownie Pudding
Melt together 1 square unsweetened baking chocolate and 2 Tb. butter
Mix
1 C. flour
3/4 C. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 C. milk
Add melted chocolate and butter, mix thoroughly, and pour into a 9x12 baking dish.
Mix together 1/3 C. white sugar, 1/3 C. brown sugar, and 1/3 C. unsweetened baking cocoa and spread over the brownie batter. Pour 1 1/2 C. water over all.
Bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Grounded.
The weather is in the midst of turning--again. Where I live these days, that means not knowing from day to day if the woolens will be needed (sweaters and mittens and socks) or if the short sleeved t-shirts will be all we can handle.
This adjustment also means that while soup season is techincally in full swing (we had a lovely chicken stew after church yesterday), sometimes cooler food is in order. Summer's over, and fall is clearly here, but that only means that all of the bodies are in transition--the trees, the plants, the ground, and our own.
It's also midterm week, and all of the students and faculty are looking pretty frayed around the edges. One of my colleagues pulled an all-nighter grading session last night, and another bemoaned the fact that she didn't--and still has about a hundred left to go. We're all beat.
The exhaustion creeps in other ways, too, as we negotiate the steadiness of our lives interrupted by decisions and events (others' and our own) that move us to joy and frustration and pain and anticipation and excitement, turning (or returning) us to the source.
Paul Tillich often referred to God as "the ground of Being," and in our contemporary use, we often speak of being "grounded" in psychological as well as theological senses. When it comes to the fall, I think of groundedness also in terms of what our farmers market turns us to, as we see more root vegetables come out, stronger (and uglier) and weightier than the summer produce. We've come from the ground, the creation story tells us, and to it we'll return. In the meantime, the ground is where we live; it is the constant from which we can't easily separate ourselves.
In many ways, the recent days feel like they've returned me to the ground--in exhaustion, in rockiness, in steep climbs and sharp corners. But the ground is also the certainty and the absolute of what matters. God's presence isn't up above my head; it's the ground underneath my feet. And when I fall down, I'm even closer to it.
This adjustment also means that while soup season is techincally in full swing (we had a lovely chicken stew after church yesterday), sometimes cooler food is in order. Summer's over, and fall is clearly here, but that only means that all of the bodies are in transition--the trees, the plants, the ground, and our own.
It's also midterm week, and all of the students and faculty are looking pretty frayed around the edges. One of my colleagues pulled an all-nighter grading session last night, and another bemoaned the fact that she didn't--and still has about a hundred left to go. We're all beat.
The exhaustion creeps in other ways, too, as we negotiate the steadiness of our lives interrupted by decisions and events (others' and our own) that move us to joy and frustration and pain and anticipation and excitement, turning (or returning) us to the source.
Paul Tillich often referred to God as "the ground of Being," and in our contemporary use, we often speak of being "grounded" in psychological as well as theological senses. When it comes to the fall, I think of groundedness also in terms of what our farmers market turns us to, as we see more root vegetables come out, stronger (and uglier) and weightier than the summer produce. We've come from the ground, the creation story tells us, and to it we'll return. In the meantime, the ground is where we live; it is the constant from which we can't easily separate ourselves.
In many ways, the recent days feel like they've returned me to the ground--in exhaustion, in rockiness, in steep climbs and sharp corners. But the ground is also the certainty and the absolute of what matters. God's presence isn't up above my head; it's the ground underneath my feet. And when I fall down, I'm even closer to it.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
I knew I was forgetting something.
To my credit, I did make it to all of my conferences today; I went to class. (I had even done the reading!) And I'm in the midst of a short break in the line of student conferences and recall that I didn't have a post scheduled for today.
My mind has been elsewhere lately, but I'm still hoping to keep this practice of blogging, since it calls me (even a bit late) from the distractions of so many other things.
I've been meal-planning today--for other events, for caterers. And what I've eaten has been my hastily packed lunch of random bits. (I decided a while ago that I don't often care for sandwiches, so my school lunches tend to be baggies of snack food in varying arrangements: today it was cherry tomatoes, cheese, two pieces of salami, some rye crackers, a box of raisins, and a yogurt. Random, yes, but I hit on at least most of the food groups.) Most of my school lunches are also haphazardly eaten at my desk, trying not to get cracker crumbs in my keyboard or yogurt on student papers. I'm largely successful, or at least I like to think I am.
Maybe this is why I do so often enjoy cooking on the weekend, when I have a proper amount of time to plan for it and to enjoy the process rather than hurridly putting together some of this and some of that.
Midweek dinners, especially this close to midterms, can be hit and miss at this point. We still eat at home, and I still cook most nights, but planning ahead for what we might be able to put together before everyone's blood sugar sinks into crankiness is not something I've pursued. My tastes change too easily with my mood to know a week (or more!) in advance what I'd like to make and eat for dinner.
My solution is a well stocked (if simply stocked) pantry of flexible ingredients and a willingness to prepare less-than-wonderfully-creative meals much of the time. With this, however, we manage pretty well most of the time.
For tonight? It's either leftovers or the old Pittsburgh staple of cabbage and noodles, with a little smoked turkey sausage thrown in for flavor. It'll get us through for now.
Unless I'm forgetting something.
My mind has been elsewhere lately, but I'm still hoping to keep this practice of blogging, since it calls me (even a bit late) from the distractions of so many other things.
I've been meal-planning today--for other events, for caterers. And what I've eaten has been my hastily packed lunch of random bits. (I decided a while ago that I don't often care for sandwiches, so my school lunches tend to be baggies of snack food in varying arrangements: today it was cherry tomatoes, cheese, two pieces of salami, some rye crackers, a box of raisins, and a yogurt. Random, yes, but I hit on at least most of the food groups.) Most of my school lunches are also haphazardly eaten at my desk, trying not to get cracker crumbs in my keyboard or yogurt on student papers. I'm largely successful, or at least I like to think I am.
Maybe this is why I do so often enjoy cooking on the weekend, when I have a proper amount of time to plan for it and to enjoy the process rather than hurridly putting together some of this and some of that.
Midweek dinners, especially this close to midterms, can be hit and miss at this point. We still eat at home, and I still cook most nights, but planning ahead for what we might be able to put together before everyone's blood sugar sinks into crankiness is not something I've pursued. My tastes change too easily with my mood to know a week (or more!) in advance what I'd like to make and eat for dinner.
My solution is a well stocked (if simply stocked) pantry of flexible ingredients and a willingness to prepare less-than-wonderfully-creative meals much of the time. With this, however, we manage pretty well most of the time.
For tonight? It's either leftovers or the old Pittsburgh staple of cabbage and noodles, with a little smoked turkey sausage thrown in for flavor. It'll get us through for now.
Unless I'm forgetting something.
Monday, October 8, 2012
A weekend list
- Tea
- Mittens
- Egg Bake
- Tomatoes, Cauliflower, Squash, Broccoli
- George the Monkey and Dora
- Cinnamon Bread
- Cheese
- Slippers
- Chicken Noodle Soup
- Blankies
- Tea
- Music
- Cookies
- Dishes
- Crock Pot
- Quilts
- Leaves
- Carrot Cake
- Dust
- Sweaters
- Agatha Christie
- Roast Pork
- Tea
Friday, October 5, 2012
Fall Food (I)
Indeed, the weather turned here this week, and this morning we all left the house wearing sweaters and jackets, the car spent the night in the garage, and the furnace-guy is coming for the annual cleaning and inspection this morning.
Perhaps this shift is one of the loveliest to me (though the first day of wearing no coat is also a remarkable thing in this part of the world), since it also ushers in the season of fall and winter food--known at our house as "soup season."
We have had one batch of chili already this fall, but so far no other soups. I've been planning a sausage-potato-kale soup, since we've had kale both from the church produce table and our CSA share, but most of the kale has been roasted and/or included with other dishes, so we haven't gotten around to it yet.
Yesterday we had a batch of Garam Masala stew, which is new to our repertoire of soups and stews just last year, but it quickly became a favorite. (It also is one of my myriad recipes that are variations on rice and beans.)
Cool mornings, bright days, and warm food. Happy fall!
---
(Made-up and probably inauthentic) Garam Masala Stew
(all amounts are approximate)
1 C. boneless chicken (or cooked chicken) (or optional, for vegan option)
2 C. tomato sauce (or crushed tomatoes or diced tomatoes--whatever you prefer)
1 sm. onion, sliced
2 sweet potatoes, in large chunks
1 can (rinsed and drained) garbanzo beans/chick peas
1/2 c. raisins
2 C. cauliflower, in large chunks
1-2 Tb. (to taste) Penzey's Garam Masala seasoning or 1/4-1/2 tsp. each of black pepper, cumin, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, and cloves
1-2 tsp. salt (to taste)
Put all ingredients together in the crock pot for 4-8 hours depending on your crock pot and level. (If you use cooked chicken, reserve it until the end of the cooking.) Serve with basmati rice.
Perhaps this shift is one of the loveliest to me (though the first day of wearing no coat is also a remarkable thing in this part of the world), since it also ushers in the season of fall and winter food--known at our house as "soup season."
We have had one batch of chili already this fall, but so far no other soups. I've been planning a sausage-potato-kale soup, since we've had kale both from the church produce table and our CSA share, but most of the kale has been roasted and/or included with other dishes, so we haven't gotten around to it yet.
Yesterday we had a batch of Garam Masala stew, which is new to our repertoire of soups and stews just last year, but it quickly became a favorite. (It also is one of my myriad recipes that are variations on rice and beans.)
Cool mornings, bright days, and warm food. Happy fall!
---
(Made-up and probably inauthentic) Garam Masala Stew
(all amounts are approximate)
1 C. boneless chicken (or cooked chicken) (or optional, for vegan option)
2 C. tomato sauce (or crushed tomatoes or diced tomatoes--whatever you prefer)
1 sm. onion, sliced
2 sweet potatoes, in large chunks
1 can (rinsed and drained) garbanzo beans/chick peas
1/2 c. raisins
2 C. cauliflower, in large chunks
1-2 Tb. (to taste) Penzey's Garam Masala seasoning or 1/4-1/2 tsp. each of black pepper, cumin, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, and cloves
1-2 tsp. salt (to taste)
Put all ingredients together in the crock pot for 4-8 hours depending on your crock pot and level. (If you use cooked chicken, reserve it until the end of the cooking.) Serve with basmati rice.
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Trees (II)
It's October, and they're beautiful. In our new yard (we just moved to a new place in June), the front tree is glowing gold, and when I went out to rake this evening, Jo spread out in the pile of leaves as if a crinkly mattress.
We've had lovely days lately, though the weather is supposed to turn colder on Thursday. I'm still praying for rain, too--though the sunshine is bright on the reds and oranges. But as we drove north last week, the cornfields stood thirsty, and I know that the leaves are falling even faster than ususal because of the drought.
I don't know when rain will come, but there's faith. I don't know how deep the roots are on the trees that surround me, but they stretch down, far below the surface. There's faith, too.
I'm coming to believe that faith doesn't so much lift us up as pull us down, deeper into the places we live, deeper into the ground from which we were formed, closer to one another, to the stuff of our creation, and to the creator.
That's the only way trees stand, especially in drought times. Deeply rooted underneath and glowing in the sky above.
We've had lovely days lately, though the weather is supposed to turn colder on Thursday. I'm still praying for rain, too--though the sunshine is bright on the reds and oranges. But as we drove north last week, the cornfields stood thirsty, and I know that the leaves are falling even faster than ususal because of the drought.
I don't know when rain will come, but there's faith. I don't know how deep the roots are on the trees that surround me, but they stretch down, far below the surface. There's faith, too.
I'm coming to believe that faith doesn't so much lift us up as pull us down, deeper into the places we live, deeper into the ground from which we were formed, closer to one another, to the stuff of our creation, and to the creator.
That's the only way trees stand, especially in drought times. Deeply rooted underneath and glowing in the sky above.
Monday, October 1, 2012
Cookies at School
<Whew.>
How did it get to be October so fast?
While the term is going well, I do feel rather like the pace on the treadmill has been set much higher than I can functionally accomplish, without a clear sign of rest in sight.
We've had many good--even great--opportunities that contribute to this, including field trips, guest speakers, the local festival of books (with Sherman Alexie giving the keynote last Wednesday) and a classroom visit from one of the visiting authors. This week, the state Supreme Court is on campus, hearing arguments and deliberating in our Performing Arts Center. This means that I'm sharing my office for a few days with my displaced husband, whose office wing is shut down for the justices.
When Jonathan hiked upstairs with me to the English Department suite, he noted a few of the leftover cookies from the author's Friday afternoon talk. I had asked the department chair if there were budget funds for some treats, since it was something of a special event, so I got to order a tray of our catering department's fine cookies.
I did have to invite people to take the cookies, but many of them did make their way out of the classroom on Friday, and the visiting author even snagged an extra to take back during her book-signing afternoon. She was a delight, and I was pleased to meet someone unashamed to take an extra cookie for the road.
It's a small thing, but I'm glad to be able to offer hospitality, even in a stuffy classroom with ancient desks. Cookies manage to make it special.
I hope they bring some for the Supreme Court justices.
How did it get to be October so fast?
While the term is going well, I do feel rather like the pace on the treadmill has been set much higher than I can functionally accomplish, without a clear sign of rest in sight.
We've had many good--even great--opportunities that contribute to this, including field trips, guest speakers, the local festival of books (with Sherman Alexie giving the keynote last Wednesday) and a classroom visit from one of the visiting authors. This week, the state Supreme Court is on campus, hearing arguments and deliberating in our Performing Arts Center. This means that I'm sharing my office for a few days with my displaced husband, whose office wing is shut down for the justices.
When Jonathan hiked upstairs with me to the English Department suite, he noted a few of the leftover cookies from the author's Friday afternoon talk. I had asked the department chair if there were budget funds for some treats, since it was something of a special event, so I got to order a tray of our catering department's fine cookies.
I did have to invite people to take the cookies, but many of them did make their way out of the classroom on Friday, and the visiting author even snagged an extra to take back during her book-signing afternoon. She was a delight, and I was pleased to meet someone unashamed to take an extra cookie for the road.
It's a small thing, but I'm glad to be able to offer hospitality, even in a stuffy classroom with ancient desks. Cookies manage to make it special.
I hope they bring some for the Supreme Court justices.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Vegetables
Though the title of this blog indicates my preference for cookies, I really do love vegetables. (My dislike of lima beans doesn't diminish this--really, Jonathan.) Cauliflower--roasted and mashed--has been a favorite in this turn to fall, but every week we get something new to taste from our CSA farmer, pushing us toward more vegetables.
It's late in the season to consider summer rolls, but when I saw this article on NPR last week, I thought about a few of the salad vegetables that had been getting ignored in this turn toward cooler weather. The truth is, however, that I love summer rolls and rarely get to have them, so I was excited by the thought that I might be able to do something with them on my own.
Yesterday morning, in our crisp September air, Jo and I walked to the HyVee and managed to track down rice paper in our few shelves of ethnic food. After we got home, I made a morning salad snack of cabbage, lettuce, carrots, and peppers (all lingering from last week's CSA share) rolled into the dampened rice paper. A product of our semi-annual Trader Joe's trek (the nearest store is three hours away), the stashed bottle of Thai sweet chili sauce was perfect for dipping.
Perhaps it seems strange to make a summer roll discovery at the end of September, it may just give me one more push to eat my vegetables, and love them.
It's late in the season to consider summer rolls, but when I saw this article on NPR last week, I thought about a few of the salad vegetables that had been getting ignored in this turn toward cooler weather. The truth is, however, that I love summer rolls and rarely get to have them, so I was excited by the thought that I might be able to do something with them on my own.
Yesterday morning, in our crisp September air, Jo and I walked to the HyVee and managed to track down rice paper in our few shelves of ethnic food. After we got home, I made a morning salad snack of cabbage, lettuce, carrots, and peppers (all lingering from last week's CSA share) rolled into the dampened rice paper. A product of our semi-annual Trader Joe's trek (the nearest store is three hours away), the stashed bottle of Thai sweet chili sauce was perfect for dipping.
Perhaps it seems strange to make a summer roll discovery at the end of September, it may just give me one more push to eat my vegetables, and love them.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Trees (I)
There's a tree outside of the window at the gym, just in front of my favorite elliptical machine. Or, I should say, in front of the elliptical that's my favorite because of the tree.
Either way, when I'm panting and counting and hoping that my allotted time will pass quickly as I get the arms and legs moving in the morning, I also spend some time contemplating the tree.
It's not a large tree; in fact, even for a newly planted neighborhood, it's on the small side. It's deciduous, and I'm a decidedly evergreen girl. (Though, now as the proud owner of a home with four large evergreen trees on its lot, I may be a little less confirmed in that. I haven't had to pick pine cones or rake needles for a long time, and this weekend reminded me of just how prickly and tedious those tasks are.) But this tree catches my attention.
Perhaps what this one is, more than a stately example of strength and fruitfulness, is my prayer tree. This little tree is a focus for me: to look outside, rather than down; to see the world as it is, rather than as it's presented on the TV screens that line the walls; to identify with the created, rather than the made.
The tree and I have more in common than do the clocks and machines and even the piped-in music that surrounds me in the gym. The tree and I, relatively insignificant in our own ways, nevertheless grow and change with the seasons, marking time and place with our own lives. Progress of a type, perhaps--but toward a goal not of progress but of being, instead.
I think of this little tree as my prayer tree because it stays in the same place, and I return to it regularly--even religiously--and it reminds me that prayer is about focusing my view, not down, not around, not ahead, but toward. The attention of prayer is attention to relationship. And while my prayers continue throughout even the days that I bypass the gym (which outnumber the days I'm there, at least at this point), the tree reminds me to keep breathing through the hard parts, that changes come for us all, and even live creatures go through barren times.
It makes for a good view.
Either way, when I'm panting and counting and hoping that my allotted time will pass quickly as I get the arms and legs moving in the morning, I also spend some time contemplating the tree.
It's not a large tree; in fact, even for a newly planted neighborhood, it's on the small side. It's deciduous, and I'm a decidedly evergreen girl. (Though, now as the proud owner of a home with four large evergreen trees on its lot, I may be a little less confirmed in that. I haven't had to pick pine cones or rake needles for a long time, and this weekend reminded me of just how prickly and tedious those tasks are.) But this tree catches my attention.
Perhaps what this one is, more than a stately example of strength and fruitfulness, is my prayer tree. This little tree is a focus for me: to look outside, rather than down; to see the world as it is, rather than as it's presented on the TV screens that line the walls; to identify with the created, rather than the made.
The tree and I have more in common than do the clocks and machines and even the piped-in music that surrounds me in the gym. The tree and I, relatively insignificant in our own ways, nevertheless grow and change with the seasons, marking time and place with our own lives. Progress of a type, perhaps--but toward a goal not of progress but of being, instead.
I think of this little tree as my prayer tree because it stays in the same place, and I return to it regularly--even religiously--and it reminds me that prayer is about focusing my view, not down, not around, not ahead, but toward. The attention of prayer is attention to relationship. And while my prayers continue throughout even the days that I bypass the gym (which outnumber the days I'm there, at least at this point), the tree reminds me to keep breathing through the hard parts, that changes come for us all, and even live creatures go through barren times.
It makes for a good view.
Monday, September 24, 2012
To Question (I)
Yesterday, Pastor Lori didn't talk. Thankfully, we were aware of this ahead of time, so we could prep Jo in her going-to-church litany. "Tammy's gonna talk today."
The gospel lesson took us through the disciples' infighting about greatness and landed right next to us, in the second-to-the last row, surrounded by crayons and color books and another two-year-old going at a hymnal with yellow-green.
Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me." (Mark 9.36-37)
And so we were called to think both about and alongside children yesterday, particularly in reframing the questions. The disciples raise the question earlier, "Who is the greatest?" But the point is not the question--not that question, anyway. The point is the asking.
What is the question? Too often, we seek the answer. And, short of that, we spend our lives trying to get the question right. Maybe it's neither the right answer nor the right question.
But the process of asking--and asking, and asking, and asking (as any parent of a two-year-old knows)--is the process of, on the one hand, coming to know the world, and, on the other, confirming over and over that there is someone there, listening to the questions.
Jo's has a few favorite questions of late, including, "What are we wearing?" (for bedtime pajamas), "What's his name?" (for everyone from Thomas and Percy the trains to all of the people at the grocery store), to "What are we gonna do now?" (waking words after yesterday's nap). The questions themselves are good to consider, but greater still is the questioning itself.
The gospel lesson took us through the disciples' infighting about greatness and landed right next to us, in the second-to-the last row, surrounded by crayons and color books and another two-year-old going at a hymnal with yellow-green.
Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me." (Mark 9.36-37)
And so we were called to think both about and alongside children yesterday, particularly in reframing the questions. The disciples raise the question earlier, "Who is the greatest?" But the point is not the question--not that question, anyway. The point is the asking.
What is the question? Too often, we seek the answer. And, short of that, we spend our lives trying to get the question right. Maybe it's neither the right answer nor the right question.
But the process of asking--and asking, and asking, and asking (as any parent of a two-year-old knows)--is the process of, on the one hand, coming to know the world, and, on the other, confirming over and over that there is someone there, listening to the questions.
Jo's has a few favorite questions of late, including, "What are we wearing?" (for bedtime pajamas), "What's his name?" (for everyone from Thomas and Percy the trains to all of the people at the grocery store), to "What are we gonna do now?" (waking words after yesterday's nap). The questions themselves are good to consider, but greater still is the questioning itself.
Friday, September 21, 2012
On Church (III)
Jo doesn't sit with us much at church.
She sits behind us, with KentandLuanne, who have adopted her as a granddaughter that they don't have. (Their grown and single sons have mentioned that they appreciate Jo, since she takes the pressure off.) We have adopted them, too, since Jo's nearest relatives live more than a thousand miles away; we need all the family we can get.
Jo is not the only child in the row, however; and through the service, at least a half dozen kids will stop by, since Luanne brings two or three bags with her to church: one purse, one bag of toys and stickers, and one bag bursting with fruit snacks, baggies of goldfish crackers, marshmallows, and occasionally frosted circus cookies. Luanne has church snacks down.
And let's face it, who hasn't gotten part way through the sermon and realized that breakfast was a bit too long ago and we didn't get to church until after all of the coffee hour remnants had been put away? Who doesn't need the occasional package of fruit snacks to get all the way to the closing hymn without the stomach growling?
I remember Grandma Ryan, who seemed impossibly old when I was a child but who died only six years ago, who always had candy in her purse for us at church.
She was amazing.
Though it may be bribery or manipulation to sweeten an otherwise dull hour, I am grateful for Luanne's gift. I am grateful that Jo is excited about church because she knows that there are good things for her there. She knows that there are people there who love her. She knows that while Mom and Dad are there, too, we are not the focus of attention. There exists a wider world for her already because of church.
And we don't buy fruit snacks for home.
She sits behind us, with KentandLuanne, who have adopted her as a granddaughter that they don't have. (Their grown and single sons have mentioned that they appreciate Jo, since she takes the pressure off.) We have adopted them, too, since Jo's nearest relatives live more than a thousand miles away; we need all the family we can get.
Jo is not the only child in the row, however; and through the service, at least a half dozen kids will stop by, since Luanne brings two or three bags with her to church: one purse, one bag of toys and stickers, and one bag bursting with fruit snacks, baggies of goldfish crackers, marshmallows, and occasionally frosted circus cookies. Luanne has church snacks down.
And let's face it, who hasn't gotten part way through the sermon and realized that breakfast was a bit too long ago and we didn't get to church until after all of the coffee hour remnants had been put away? Who doesn't need the occasional package of fruit snacks to get all the way to the closing hymn without the stomach growling?
---
I remember Grandma Ryan, who seemed impossibly old when I was a child but who died only six years ago, who always had candy in her purse for us at church.
She was amazing.
---
Though it may be bribery or manipulation to sweeten an otherwise dull hour, I am grateful for Luanne's gift. I am grateful that Jo is excited about church because she knows that there are good things for her there. She knows that there are people there who love her. She knows that while Mom and Dad are there, too, we are not the focus of attention. There exists a wider world for her already because of church.
And we don't buy fruit snacks for home.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
On Church (II)
Last week our quiet midwestern community was disrupted by terrible violence: a kidnapping at gunpoint, the senseless murder of a courageous witness, and the suicide of the one at the center of it.
I cannot imagine the trauma of those directly involved in this. As with many in the community, I know only what I've read in the newspaper and heard through the stories passed through the grapevine of what is, ultimately, a very small town posing as a city.
But last week, I did receive a message from the church secretary, that one of those directly affected by the violence has recently joined our congregation. The call for casseroles and cookies was set before us all.
I made oatmeal chocolate chip.
More than ten years ago now, some friends and I gathered to build lasagna (why does "build" always seem the right verb for lasagna?) for one undergoing treatment for cancer. "Christians must believe casseroles can cure cancer," he later suggested in an e-mail that included some of us on its distribution list. "We're running out of freezer space."
He's a survivor of more than twelve years now.
My parents have told the story of some challenging years they lived when we were small. For one or two years--I don't know how long--they would receive a twenty-dollar bill, wrapped in plain typing paper, in an otherwise blank envelope that had their typed name and address on it.
"Someone from church," they say; otherwise, they yet don't know.
At a few months past two years old, my daughter runs through her going-to-church litany in the backseat while we drive the two miles. "My boys are gonna be there. KentandLuanne. Pastor Lori. Bruce. Kyle. Pastor Lori's gonna talk." When we get to the front door, Ron and Marlene always greet her. She gets to choose her crayon bag, stocked by some gracious soul who makes sure that the coloring books get updated. And she's got the run of the place. She has even taken to greeting the congregation following the service, making sure she's out of the row quickly enough for Pastor Lori to pick her up before she has shaken too many other hands.
At Orpha's funeral, when one of the choir members was holding her, introducing Jo to one of the visiting family members, I heard her say, "She belongs to the church."
And week after week. Month after month. "Take and eat. This is Christ's body."
In the impossibly tiny crackers at Leavenworth Nazarene. In the bread homemade at Franklin Community Church. In the loaves broken at Emmanuel Lutheran Church. In the airy wafers at First Lutheran. In the crumbly (and sometimes frozen) pieces at St. Paul. In the honeyed discs at St. Mark's.
I taste bread of life in every one.
Church feeds me.
I cannot imagine the trauma of those directly involved in this. As with many in the community, I know only what I've read in the newspaper and heard through the stories passed through the grapevine of what is, ultimately, a very small town posing as a city.
But last week, I did receive a message from the church secretary, that one of those directly affected by the violence has recently joined our congregation. The call for casseroles and cookies was set before us all.
I made oatmeal chocolate chip.
---
More than ten years ago now, some friends and I gathered to build lasagna (why does "build" always seem the right verb for lasagna?) for one undergoing treatment for cancer. "Christians must believe casseroles can cure cancer," he later suggested in an e-mail that included some of us on its distribution list. "We're running out of freezer space."
He's a survivor of more than twelve years now.
---
My parents have told the story of some challenging years they lived when we were small. For one or two years--I don't know how long--they would receive a twenty-dollar bill, wrapped in plain typing paper, in an otherwise blank envelope that had their typed name and address on it.
"Someone from church," they say; otherwise, they yet don't know.
---
At a few months past two years old, my daughter runs through her going-to-church litany in the backseat while we drive the two miles. "My boys are gonna be there. KentandLuanne. Pastor Lori. Bruce. Kyle. Pastor Lori's gonna talk." When we get to the front door, Ron and Marlene always greet her. She gets to choose her crayon bag, stocked by some gracious soul who makes sure that the coloring books get updated. And she's got the run of the place. She has even taken to greeting the congregation following the service, making sure she's out of the row quickly enough for Pastor Lori to pick her up before she has shaken too many other hands.
At Orpha's funeral, when one of the choir members was holding her, introducing Jo to one of the visiting family members, I heard her say, "She belongs to the church."
---
And week after week. Month after month. "Take and eat. This is Christ's body."
In the impossibly tiny crackers at Leavenworth Nazarene. In the bread homemade at Franklin Community Church. In the loaves broken at Emmanuel Lutheran Church. In the airy wafers at First Lutheran. In the crumbly (and sometimes frozen) pieces at St. Paul. In the honeyed discs at St. Mark's.
I taste bread of life in every one.
---
Church feeds me.
Monday, September 17, 2012
On Church (I)
Somewhere in Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich's investigative journalism volume about low-wage workers in America (sorry, I can't remember just where--and the book's in my office while I'm at home), Ehrenreich records an interview she carried out with a worker who lived the life she was putting on for a few months. She reports that the woman's advice upon arriving in a new city was, "First, find a church."
By this time in the narrative, Ehrenreich has already clearly communicated her own agnostic atheism and her general disinterest in and even distaste for organized religion. But she reports the woman's instruction and, vaguely, as I recall, affirms the wisdom in it for those living within such ecomonic vulnerability.
I admit that I have been largely privileged in many ways throughout my life, and though there has not often been plenty, there has always been enough. And though I have not moved all that many times in my life (only six major city changes and only a handful of moves within cities), I contend that the rule holds true: first, find a church.
The vulnerability I have experienced in my moves has not been largely economic (though I have had a few gracious pastors delicately inquire into the economic status of a struggling graduate student--and one offer groceries). But I could not have survived without church.
At various points in my life,
church has been the one place I could go apart from the office where people knew my name;
church has been beautiful in the midst of ugliness;
church has provided free entertainment--and free food;
church has brought me into conversation with unrelated people sixty years my elder and thirty years (now more!) my younger;
church has allowed me--a rank amateur--to make music;
church has counseled and prayed with me in making significant decisions;
church has witnessed my triumph and my loss;
church has bade me farewell;
church has stabilized my life with order and disrupted it with unexpected chaos;
church has made me feel at home when I am, in fact, very far away;
church has taught me humility by allowing me to enter others' stories; and
church has frustrated, angered, excited, saddened, and thrilled me by what it can accomplish--good and evil--in the lives of the people touched by it.
I can count on one hand the number of Sunday services I've missed in the past--probably two--years. We're the couple who showed up at Sunday services after our wedding on Saturday afternoon. The pastor paused when he realized we were at the communion rail and told us the next day that only one other couple in his lengthy career had done such a thing--and they were in their sixties at the time.
I love church. And while I realize that the church I love has also harmed many, many people in its abuses of power, past and present, I grieve not only for the wrong done but for the good lost. For the loss of the gift I have received that weekly--even daily--brings me into a family I would not otherwise be part of. That asks of me my time and willingly gives in return. That draws me out of and restores to me my self.
First, find a church.
By this time in the narrative, Ehrenreich has already clearly communicated her own agnostic atheism and her general disinterest in and even distaste for organized religion. But she reports the woman's instruction and, vaguely, as I recall, affirms the wisdom in it for those living within such ecomonic vulnerability.
I admit that I have been largely privileged in many ways throughout my life, and though there has not often been plenty, there has always been enough. And though I have not moved all that many times in my life (only six major city changes and only a handful of moves within cities), I contend that the rule holds true: first, find a church.
The vulnerability I have experienced in my moves has not been largely economic (though I have had a few gracious pastors delicately inquire into the economic status of a struggling graduate student--and one offer groceries). But I could not have survived without church.
At various points in my life,
church has been the one place I could go apart from the office where people knew my name;
church has been beautiful in the midst of ugliness;
church has provided free entertainment--and free food;
church has brought me into conversation with unrelated people sixty years my elder and thirty years (now more!) my younger;
church has allowed me--a rank amateur--to make music;
church has counseled and prayed with me in making significant decisions;
church has witnessed my triumph and my loss;
church has bade me farewell;
church has stabilized my life with order and disrupted it with unexpected chaos;
church has made me feel at home when I am, in fact, very far away;
church has taught me humility by allowing me to enter others' stories; and
church has frustrated, angered, excited, saddened, and thrilled me by what it can accomplish--good and evil--in the lives of the people touched by it.
---
I can count on one hand the number of Sunday services I've missed in the past--probably two--years. We're the couple who showed up at Sunday services after our wedding on Saturday afternoon. The pastor paused when he realized we were at the communion rail and told us the next day that only one other couple in his lengthy career had done such a thing--and they were in their sixties at the time.
I love church. And while I realize that the church I love has also harmed many, many people in its abuses of power, past and present, I grieve not only for the wrong done but for the good lost. For the loss of the gift I have received that weekly--even daily--brings me into a family I would not otherwise be part of. That asks of me my time and willingly gives in return. That draws me out of and restores to me my self.
First, find a church.
Friday, September 14, 2012
There Will Be Cake
I've had a lot going on this week. In lieu of a new post, here's a short essay I wrote last year as an exercise in spiritual biography.
Matt loves cake.
---
Matt loves cake.
No, that’s not quite right. To say Matt loves cake makes it sound like Matt has a dessert preference. Truth be told, his dessert preferences tend more toward ice cream than cake, but Matt loves cake not for its sugar content but for its ceremonial function.
You see, cake means more than sugar, butter, eggs, and flour. Cake is no longer an everyday kind of sweet for most of us, as cookies and candy might be. Even the most everyday forms of cake that persist in our culture—the church potluck cake comes to mind—signals a party. That’s why Matt loves cake. Because where there is cake, there’s a party. And, where there’s a party, there needs to be a cake.
Birthdays? They’re obvious.
Weddings, too—which are his favorite: really big cakes there.
Baptisms? Cake.
Mother’s Day? Cake. Valentine’s Day? Christmas? The Fourth of July? All cake-worthy occasions. And the gaudier the grocery store icing, the better Matt likes it.
---
Pies don’t suffice. Neither do brownies (which I like better, myself), nor cobblers or other kinds of desserts. Cupcakes are okay, but better still is a proper cake, a surface for frosting and food coloring in the service of the occasion. One glance at a well decorated cake, and you’ll know what it’s about. Cake as communication as well as cake as ceremony.
---
A few years ago, Matt carried out his own archival project. He poured over the file boxes of family photographs that go back twenty years or more and carefully retrieved all of the pictures of cake. Collecting these into a single album, he produced an anthology of pictures that tells a fascinating family story. Grandpa’s 75th birthday; Mark’s high school graduation, Jenny’s college graduation, Dad’s birthday, Mariana’s going-away party, Mother’s Day after Mom’s cancer diagnosis, Karen’s wedding.
No one knew he had compiled this album until he was finished. We knew that he loved cake, but we didn’t know entirely what cake meant.
---
I’m still not sure that we do know entirely what cake means to Matt. He doesn’t have the means to sit down and analyze the social and ritualistic functions of cake. He communicates largely through pictures; the weekly grocery advertisements with their parade of bakery cakes marking the upcoming holiday are rarely far from his reach. But because we do know this much, we can learn to think about cake differently ourselves.
What does Matt think about God? About faith? About grace? Original sin? Redemption, sanctification? All of these abstractions with which we surround ourselves; knots of doctrine into which we tie ourselves.
What does Matt believe?
What we have in our lives together is a series of moments—small and large gatherings—that bring us into relationship with one another: celebration, joy, grief, sorrow, relief, comfort. And when we gather, there’s usually a cake.
Perhaps Matt is right, the cake matters. The cake signals that we intend something to happen in this moment—we intend to share something meaningful with the people around us. Is cake a glimpse into the resurrection?
The gospel writers use the image of the wedding banquet as an image of the resurrection. And what kind of wedding would it be without cake?
This is the grace Matt knows and the grace he has taught me: In the community of faith, there’s always reason for a party—even when it’s a party shaped by mourning. The grace of God calls us to gather together, to sustain one another, to eat and drink beyond the ordinary.
I don’t know much about what the afterlife will be. But I believe, as Matt does, that there will be cake.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Singing Practice
I'm still muddling through my practicing in these early days of the school year. (And what does it say about my practice that already I'm counting down the weeks of the semester--when we're only on week two?) But I am still trying to attend to incarnation. To what it means to be a body. And what it means to live gracefully as a body.
One of our bedtime routines, along with the almost-endless George the Monkey stories, recently joined by "Ham and Eggs," the Dr. Seuss classic Jo has renamed, has become a set of songs. I can't recall when I started singing "Children of the Heavenly Father" to her, but it has been nearly a year now, I suppose. One night, I mixed things up by adding the more contemporary "Let It Be Said of Us," which has stuck as "The Cross Song" in her lexicon. In late summer, I added a few other rotating hymns, including "This Is My Father's World," "Have No Fear Little Flock," and "All Who Hunger, Gather Gladly."
As we moved into September, I wanted to add a few new ones to the rotation, so I pulled a hymnal off my shelf at school and moved it to the dresser near her rocking chair. After a few nights of "My Life Flows on in Endless Song," she realized that the new book was a songbook. And so she has decided to choose her own.
I'm a terrible sight-singer, but I have a strong foundation in hymnody and a great love for the singability of most hymns. There's a pretty good bet that I can sing something on one of the pages she flips to.
Tonight, she landed in the Trinity section, so we sang "Come Join the Dance of Trinity" and "Holy, Holy, Holy."
It's good for me to practice, even with a tired and cracking voice, the sound of my own singing, the sound of singing while my child rests her head on my chest.
One of our bedtime routines, along with the almost-endless George the Monkey stories, recently joined by "Ham and Eggs," the Dr. Seuss classic Jo has renamed, has become a set of songs. I can't recall when I started singing "Children of the Heavenly Father" to her, but it has been nearly a year now, I suppose. One night, I mixed things up by adding the more contemporary "Let It Be Said of Us," which has stuck as "The Cross Song" in her lexicon. In late summer, I added a few other rotating hymns, including "This Is My Father's World," "Have No Fear Little Flock," and "All Who Hunger, Gather Gladly."
As we moved into September, I wanted to add a few new ones to the rotation, so I pulled a hymnal off my shelf at school and moved it to the dresser near her rocking chair. After a few nights of "My Life Flows on in Endless Song," she realized that the new book was a songbook. And so she has decided to choose her own.
I'm a terrible sight-singer, but I have a strong foundation in hymnody and a great love for the singability of most hymns. There's a pretty good bet that I can sing something on one of the pages she flips to.
Tonight, she landed in the Trinity section, so we sang "Come Join the Dance of Trinity" and "Holy, Holy, Holy."
It's good for me to practice, even with a tired and cracking voice, the sound of my own singing, the sound of singing while my child rests her head on my chest.
Monday, September 10, 2012
Making things up as I go along
School has started.
And now it's my job to stand in front of classes on a regular basis, convincing students that I know what I'm talking about (which I do, most of the time, even when they are not convinced). Most of the time, however, I feel like I'm winging and bluffing, thirteen years of higher education notwithstanding, and the now twelve (TWELVE!?) years of teaching experience that suggest that I might actually know what I'm doing.
But this fall is a new experience of imposter syndrome for me, since I am, in fact, teaching two classes I've never taught before, and one that is a rather wholesale experiement on campus for which I am ultimately responsible.
I can tell already that these sixteen weeks will be an extended exercise of invention.
More like life, I suppose, than my carefully structured syllabi often suggest.
There will be digression. Maybe even regression. There will be accidental successes and marvelously executed failures.
And I will revel again in the joy of teaching that is thoughtfully preparing beforehand, putting hand to the classroom door, and following the wind instead.
The great hope of learning? That we all end up where we need to be.
In this spirit, I offer my made-up back-to-school breakfast from this past week:
Baked Oatmeal
2 C. rolled oats, combined with
1 3/4 C. boiling water; let stand while
Blending together:
2 overripe bananas, mashed
1/2 C. applesauce
1/2 C. plain yogurt
2 Tb. canola oil
1 egg
1/4 C. brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. Penzey's Baking Spice (or cinnamon, or whatever concoction of baking spices you prefer)
1/4 C. ground flax seed
Add the oats and water to the wet mixture, pour into a greased (glass) baking dish, and bake at 375 for 45 minutes or until set in the center. Make the night before, and eat chilled, or reheat in the microwave before running out to school.
And now it's my job to stand in front of classes on a regular basis, convincing students that I know what I'm talking about (which I do, most of the time, even when they are not convinced). Most of the time, however, I feel like I'm winging and bluffing, thirteen years of higher education notwithstanding, and the now twelve (TWELVE!?) years of teaching experience that suggest that I might actually know what I'm doing.
But this fall is a new experience of imposter syndrome for me, since I am, in fact, teaching two classes I've never taught before, and one that is a rather wholesale experiement on campus for which I am ultimately responsible.
I can tell already that these sixteen weeks will be an extended exercise of invention.
More like life, I suppose, than my carefully structured syllabi often suggest.
There will be digression. Maybe even regression. There will be accidental successes and marvelously executed failures.
And I will revel again in the joy of teaching that is thoughtfully preparing beforehand, putting hand to the classroom door, and following the wind instead.
The great hope of learning? That we all end up where we need to be.
---
In this spirit, I offer my made-up back-to-school breakfast from this past week:
Baked Oatmeal
2 C. rolled oats, combined with
1 3/4 C. boiling water; let stand while
Blending together:
2 overripe bananas, mashed
1/2 C. applesauce
1/2 C. plain yogurt
2 Tb. canola oil
1 egg
1/4 C. brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. Penzey's Baking Spice (or cinnamon, or whatever concoction of baking spices you prefer)
1/4 C. ground flax seed
Add the oats and water to the wet mixture, pour into a greased (glass) baking dish, and bake at 375 for 45 minutes or until set in the center. Make the night before, and eat chilled, or reheat in the microwave before running out to school.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
A poem for the first day of school
"Finding Poems for My Students," by Mojha Kahf
O my students,
I scour the world of words
to bring you poems like the rocks
my girls dig up in riverbanks
and come running to show me
because the notches in them
say something true, something
that an ancient Wisdom
wanted us to see.
I run to you, pockets full of poems.
I select: This poem will help you pass a test.
Here is one that is no help at all,
but it is beautiful; take it, take it.
O my scroungers after merely passing grades,
I bring you poems I have hiked high
and far to find, knowing
they will mostly end up like the rocks
my daughters find, tossed in drawers
with old batteries, mislaid keys,
scraps bearing the addresses
of people whose names
you no longer recognize or need.
Your current glazed-eye indifference
doesn't bother me. One day,
when you are either cleaning house
or moving (and sooner or later
everyone must do one or the other),
you will shake the drawer and the poem
will fall out. And may the poem be for you
the one phone number in the universe
you were looking for, and may it be
for you the mislaid key
to your greatest need.
On that day,
you will read.
from E-mails from Scheherazad, Gainsville: U P of Florida, 2003. 46.
O my students,
I scour the world of words
to bring you poems like the rocks
my girls dig up in riverbanks
and come running to show me
because the notches in them
say something true, something
that an ancient Wisdom
wanted us to see.
I run to you, pockets full of poems.
I select: This poem will help you pass a test.
Here is one that is no help at all,
but it is beautiful; take it, take it.
O my scroungers after merely passing grades,
I bring you poems I have hiked high
and far to find, knowing
they will mostly end up like the rocks
my daughters find, tossed in drawers
with old batteries, mislaid keys,
scraps bearing the addresses
of people whose names
you no longer recognize or need.
Your current glazed-eye indifference
doesn't bother me. One day,
when you are either cleaning house
or moving (and sooner or later
everyone must do one or the other),
you will shake the drawer and the poem
will fall out. And may the poem be for you
the one phone number in the universe
you were looking for, and may it be
for you the mislaid key
to your greatest need.
On that day,
you will read.
from E-mails from Scheherazad, Gainsville: U P of Florida, 2003. 46.
Monday, September 3, 2012
Labor Day
It's Labor Day, and I'm in the office this morning. My job is labor-but-not-labor, which sometimes puts me at frustrating odds with wondering what I actually accomplish in a given day. (This is one of the reasons why I've learned to love cooking so much; there is great satisfaction in doing something tangible that has meaningful material results for people around me. Though I do not do it for pay, and I don't always love it, cooking has taught me that my hands are skilled at some labor.)
Today I do want to honor those who labor, however--in particular, those who labor for the food that I cook and eat.
I'm not always as conscious of this honor as I would like to be, but we do make an effort (in our small way) to put our money where our mouths are in terms of the food we eat and the ways we eat it.
We have a community supported agriculture (CSA) subscription through our local farmer's market, and the farmers keep us in lovely vegetables throughout the growing season (which they stretch remarkably long for our northern climes). We shop some at our local co-op though more at our regional chain grocery, itself an employee-owned business and one of the best grocery chains I've ever had near me. I am thankful for all of the people who grow, transport, and sell the food that I have such ready access to.
And though we eat out more often than we should, we do strive for locally owned restaurants, particularly those that offer diverse ethnic food in our overwhelmingly white, midwestern city. These are small but more numerous than one might expect in our small city, and they're largely the best restaurants in town. I am thankful that these small businesses take on the risks, challenges, and long hours of bringing other parts of the world to this one in their food.
This week, when I'm laboring at my desk a bit more than usual, getting ready for the school year to begin in a crash on Wednesday, it's good to remember others at work and others whose work blesses my soul and body with good food. And maybe someone else will cook dinner tonight.
Happy Labor Day!
Today I do want to honor those who labor, however--in particular, those who labor for the food that I cook and eat.
I'm not always as conscious of this honor as I would like to be, but we do make an effort (in our small way) to put our money where our mouths are in terms of the food we eat and the ways we eat it.
We have a community supported agriculture (CSA) subscription through our local farmer's market, and the farmers keep us in lovely vegetables throughout the growing season (which they stretch remarkably long for our northern climes). We shop some at our local co-op though more at our regional chain grocery, itself an employee-owned business and one of the best grocery chains I've ever had near me. I am thankful for all of the people who grow, transport, and sell the food that I have such ready access to.
And though we eat out more often than we should, we do strive for locally owned restaurants, particularly those that offer diverse ethnic food in our overwhelmingly white, midwestern city. These are small but more numerous than one might expect in our small city, and they're largely the best restaurants in town. I am thankful that these small businesses take on the risks, challenges, and long hours of bringing other parts of the world to this one in their food.
This week, when I'm laboring at my desk a bit more than usual, getting ready for the school year to begin in a crash on Wednesday, it's good to remember others at work and others whose work blesses my soul and body with good food. And maybe someone else will cook dinner tonight.
Happy Labor Day!
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