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.
Friday, September 28, 2012
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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