the church lady cooks

Why I love the internet

2011-05-14T09:46:00.001-05:00

Our Father and Mother Who Art.

Our Father and Mother,
Who are present in the world and in history,
Hallowed be your name
in all languages and religions.
May the message of your reign come to each of you
indigenous peoples, the humble peoples,
in the language of gospel
and not of the domination systems.
Let your will be fulfilled,
your will of sharing and peace,
for your indigenous peoples,
for the humble peoples,
even for our own society.
Let us live each day in the sisterly solidarity
that produces abundance
and living joyfully together
that all may have bread.
Forgive our massacre of cultures,
and our colonizing evangelism.
And let us not fall into the temptation of fearing to be engaged,
of fearing to offend, of fearing to suffer,
But deliver us from the violence of consumerism,
and the violence of the forces of power and domination.
For Yours is the Future, Yours the Reign
that is Coming,
Yours the Glory and Goodness for ever and ever.
AMEN

(Translated from the Spanish & doxology added, by the Rev. Grant Mauricio Gallup, Casa Ave Maria, Managua, Nicaragua, 1994)

I'm just going to stumble through this

2011-05-06T20:24:00.002-05:00

How you celebrate Mothers' Day is not just about how your mother parented (or not), but also about how you perceive and receive your mother's parenting. Too wordy? What I mean is, my mom is probably a great mom to lots of other people, and I actually really like that. But she was not a good mom for me. I love that there have been other young women in my mom's life that she has been able to competently mother. Be that as it may, I have a difficult relationship with her. I struggle with her. She forgets that she struggled with me. I repeat the same mistakes with my daughter, but I try to be a little more aware. I am certainly more vocal. We talk A LOT in our house. As a mother, you cannot be all things to your children. As a mother inadequately mothered, sometimes I think you have no way of knowing what's adequate and what's not.

There are memories that I absolutely treasure of my mom. She was fantastic in the middle of the night when I retched with coughing. She allowed me to follow my whims and she pushed me to keep swimming, even when I hardly had time for it. She drove me everywhere, or if not everywhere, she found someone to take me.

But my mother lacked boundaries. She lacked perception about other people. She asked too much of me.

I know how to drive now, I know how to drive my kids to do what they need to do and how to allow them do what they want to do. But knowing boundaries, self-awareness, where I end and they begin...those are places where I do not have an adequate template. Maybe none of us do.

So, as we approach this mom-tacular weekend, I want to do what I do every mothers' day. Make a quick call to my mom, preferably an email. And then ignore the whole thing.

A Field Guide to American Houses

2011-03-29T21:52:00.003-05:00

My week is full of silly stuff like fixing the broken strut on the car and coloring my hair and taking kids to the doctor's.

Free of encumbrances, I would set off, brave explorer, for the wilds of Bay St Louis. I'd flip expertly through these pages and tag each Craftsman, Prairie, Double-Shotgun, Dog-Run, Queen Anne, Greek Revival house as I passed by.

Assuming no wild weather had set me from my path, I would take myself off for a cup of coffee, a toast to myself, a nod to no one in particular. "Merci, chere Bryn Mawr, de me permettre, enfin, de profiter de ma langue vernaculaire!"

I have a confession to make.

2011-03-27T17:45:00.002-05:00

When David announced this morning that Clelie will be ordained on June 4th and that she will subsequently no longer be on our prayer list as "our seminarian" and moreover, she will be the curate at St Timothy's Southaven, I just about screamed. I did clench my hands. I made myself take a deep breath.

I am jealous.

More than jealous, I am covetous.

Once again, woman in the wilderness.

The night before...

2011-03-12T22:27:00.002-05:00

the first day of Sunday School.

Yes, it is the first Sunday in Lent. Yes, we have offered other formation programs, but not very well.

Yes, it is also daylight saving time.

Yes, I am totally screwed and will need an iv drip of java.

However, I know three things:

Nothing and no one is ever too late for God.

I have 2 rocking teachers along with my fine, if somewhat lame, self. They are just as loved and loving of God as I and equally okay with jumping in somewhat half-assed.

Tomorrow afternoon will involve wine and sunshine.

Shalom, ya'll!

Miserable misery me

2011-03-10T23:05:00.003-05:00

Well, not really. BOY have I been slacking in the blogging department.

Slacking everywhere, really.

I am going to endeavor to do better.

Nothing of note at the moment, but even logging back on is a start :)

Aarrggghhhh!!! or, my Oscars rant

2010-03-08T03:35:00.002-05:00

SHOULDERS BACK LADIES!!!

A little bit of lipstick won't hurt you, neither would a smile.

Skinny legged tuxedos are fab, but gentlemen, please. Facial hair must be groomed. Keanu Reeves, hello?

I so do.not.do nude colored clothing.

Thank you, Zoe Kravitz, for giving my daughter a perfect example of how to be daddy's girl.

found poem

2010-03-02T02:54:00.002-05:00

in cleaning out my gmail (because procrastination takes many turns)

The Bright Field
~R.S. Thomas

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receeding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

from my class for further thinking

2009-09-20T14:33:00.000-05:00

I hope I never stop growing in my understanding of the Gospel. God has always been the same, and the Gospel has always been with us--what changes is my understanding of the impact it has on me, my life, the people around me, etc. Perhaps 'emerge' is the backward way of seeing it. The Gospel exists and we enter into it. It 'emerges' to us as we learn to navigate through it--as we discover new doors and new hallways. What it has to reveal is waiting for us to discover. It's exciting, really, isn't it??
I think this was from Kevin Kinsey, week 1 question 1

kids and fooling around with picassa

2009-06-13T08:22:00.001-05:00

Ack! I actually looked at the date of the last entry and am SHOCKED to see it was in April!!
I don't even have a very good excuse for my laziness. Just bein' a slacker...

why in tennis is zero called love?

2009-04-30T01:02:00.004-05:00

Because love is more than zero, it is the opposite of zero, it is everything. When you love the world loves with you. Didn't someone famous say that? At any rate, I found something else to love. (Perhaps fickleness is a detrimental side-effect of love? And do you notice, as I did because I had to use spellchecker, that word det-ri-mental? It actually comes from the middle english/latin and means "loss" but as an adjective it looks more like a state-of-being, a place inside your mind.)

So here is where my fickle heart resides this morning:

Okay, my blogging skills are a bit thin - click to read this NYTimes blog

You rock, Maira Kalman.

I'd like to interview you and ask your favorite dessert and peek in your closet and run my hands over your paints and brushes.

Next Stop, Grand Central was a favorite of Wylie's for years. How could it not be? Rhyming, trains, New York?

Maira Kalman has an ear for the outrageous and a heart for the disenfranchised. There is nothing of loss and everything of mental spark.

Maira Kalman is the opposite of zero.

**I had forgotten that she redid The Elements of Style.

Is it possible to be in love with the comments on a strange man's blog?

2009-04-29T14:13:00.002-05:00

Well? Is it?
Head on on over to the Postulant's site and scroll down to "On not immanentizing the eschaton" and read the comments.

Swooning.

Come on, he had me at "immanentizing"...

Poetry schmoetry

2009-04-03T14:52:00.001-05:00

It fits the bill and we're goin'

Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Now it's Turkish delight on a moonlit night

Every gal in Constantinople
Lives in Istanbul, not Constantinople
So if you've a date in Constantinople
She'll be waiting in Istanbul

Even old New York was once New Amsterdam
Why they changed it I can't say
People just liked it better that way

So take me back to Constantinople
No, you can't go back to Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works
That's nobody's business but the Turks

Istanbul (Istanbul)
Istanbul (Istanbul)

Even old New York was once New Amsterdam
Why they changed it I can't say
People just liked it better that way

Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works
That's nobody's business but the Turks

So take me back to Constantinople
No, you can't go back to Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works
That's nobody's business but the Turks

Istanbul

Istanbul (not Constantinople) can be found on the They Might Be Giants album "Flood"

Didja know that They Might be from Lincoln, Mass?

Ohhhh

2009-04-02T06:19:00.002-05:00

NINE DAYS IN APRIL: VCCA
by Barbara Crooker

I
In Vermeer's paintings, light is always falling
just like here, in sweet Virginia, where spring's
already come, lilacs and phlox, soft air
on bare arms, descending. Peepers are calling
from the trees, there are dogwoods, white
and pink, everywhere, as if a cloud
of butterflies has come to ground. Haloed
in hazy green, the woods are coming back to life.
At twilight, the scent of lilacs drifts
through the open screen, the sky turns lavender,
and this first day's work is put away.
Nothing but false starts today,
first lines begun that simply go nowhere;
filling yellow paper with my erratic script.

II
Filling yellow paper, my erratic script
wanders over the blue ridges and green fields
where cows munch green grass, that yields
rich milk, like Vermeer's maid, whose hips,
wrapped in a thick blue apron, are rolling hills
themselves. The earthen jug, the crusty bread, the buttery
light glazes her face and arms, spills
onto the table and floor. The thing about memory's
that it's a thief, stealing what it should
preserve, the past, stop all the clocks.
I'm trying to remember what it felt like to be five,
first days of school, the smell of library paste, arriving
late, the stomach butterflied, new crayons in their box.
I'm trying to be good.

III
I'm trying to be good, write 500 words a day
even though outside the sun is streaming
like a thousand dandelions gleaming,
and the sky's the blue of washed chambray.
The purple prose of redbud trees is
scribbled and scrawled outside the lines.
Hidden in the grass, violets, buttercups shine,
but gosh, how hard this writing business
is--it's easy enough to just repeat, a slick
lyric, a villanelle or two--
What challenges are there that I've not tried,
that also calls to something from inside,
blends head and heart as Vermeer drew
the light? A crown of sonnets just might do the trick.

IV
A crown of sonnets sure would do the trick,
could capture this experience--away
from home, nine days to see if I could pay
attention to myself for just a bit.And so, today, I took a break and drove
to town, a thrift shop, bought a raw silk
blouse of Chinese blue, a tee shirt swirled in gilt
and glitter, earrings of gears and sequins that I love.
Came back, wrote for hours, went for a massage,
felt all the knots along my shoulder blades untie,
walked down the winding road, the mustard
blooming, thick as butter
spread on bread. All I
know is: a day like this is nothing but a blessing.

V
What a blessing it is, to be in this space,
no cleaning off the desk when school bus comes.
The only sounds, the birds and bees that hum
and dither-which flower should we light on next?
In the woods, light falls, reflects off dogwoods,
rafts of phosphorescence, illuminations, decrescendos
of lace. Each morning, I do yoga, get the blood
moving, then back inside to dig in memory's mine.
Each sonnet's getting harder now to write,
but the challenge has been thrown down like a glove
or crumpled petals littering the ground. I'd like to prove
that I can meet this task, and take delight
as one word, then another, falls in line.

VI
One word, and then another, falls in line
like geese wedging their way down the sky,
a vast scroll of paper yet unwritten. I
roll a sheet in the typewriter, and begin
again, to try and pin down what's elusive,
some insistent bird that whistles from a bush,
"Here, here, here I am," then vanishes,
while I am left to struggle with the narrative.
Like Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window,
I wish the light would flood in from the left,
paint me slickly gold, tell me what comes next.
But I am in the dark, no map, no text,
just following my heart as night falls soft,
covers us with her obsidian wing.

VII
Night covered us with her blueblack wing,
but now it is the morning, the last day--
here, the closest thing to paradise on earth. May
I be truly grateful for this stay, though squeezing
these last lines is getting tougher.
Last night, we had a concert, Brahms
and Currier on grand piano, wine on the lawn,
Caesar salad, grilled tuna, and strawberries for supper.
The lilt of southern vowels, drawling--
But this last sonnet's waiting to be woven,
threading the radiance of spring, memory's snapshots,
pictures at an exhibition, birdsong snippets,
into the poem's loom, the descant of love.
In Vermeer's paintings, light is always falling.

April is the cruelest...no no is National Poetry Month!!

2009-04-01T03:13:00.002-05:00

Through an old, old friend, and in a roundabout way, I found a new poet today. Thanks to poets.org

The Sciences Sing a Lullabye
Albert Goldbarth

Physics says: go to sleep. Of course
you're tired. Every atom in you
has been dancing the shimmy in silver shoes
nonstop from mitosis to now.
Quit tapping your feet. They'll dance
inside themselves without you. Go to sleep.

Geology says: it will be all right. Slow inch
by inch America is giving itself
to the ocean. Go to sleep. Let darkness
lap at your sides. Give darkness an inch.
You aren't alone. All of the continents used to be
one body. You aren't alone. Go to sleep.

Astronomy says: the sun will rise tomorrow,
Zoology says: on rainbow-fish and lithe gazelle,
Psychology says: but first it has to be night, so
Biology says: the body-clocks are stopped all over town
and
History says: here are the blankets, layer on layer, down and down.

Friday 5

2009-03-28T05:22:00.002-05:00

Haven't really felt moved to respond to the Friday 5s at RevGalBlogPals in recent weeks. This week's 5 reminds me of why I love the blogosphere, as some of my dearest friends are connected across oceans and mountains via the web.

Here's the Friday 5 leader:
So for today's Friday Five, give us five blogs you visit regularly, and tell us briefly WHY you like them. These can be RevGal and Pal bloggers and others ... or news sites, knitting sites, etc. Who are you showing the love to on a pretty constant basis?

I'm surprised at how much my 5 have changed. I used to check Father Jake Stops the World all the time. When we moved out of the States I stopped reading Father Jake (and now there is no longer a "Father Jake") and I changed computers, so I didn't always remember to check on old friends like Maggie Dawn.

In no particular order:
Di at the Kitchen Door. Di, how did you and I start writing back and forth? I don't remember a specific moment, but I am so glad that we did!

Nancy at Big Harmony. Nancy and I lived next door to each other, a minor miracle in Navy housing: 2 Episcopalians, 2 academics, 2 kids apiece, 2 foodies...she's been in Japan for ever and I'm in Sicily. Nancy's voice comes through very clearly in her posts about life as an American in Japan. I am grateful that she started to blog rather than send emails. I crack up that we both read Cake Wrecks, which is how we started posting to one another. I am thrilled that Nancy and Di are friends!

Milton at Don't Eat Alone. Milton is very faithful about writing every day, which means I am guaranteed a meal each morning when I log on. I think I've been reading him almost since he started blogging and I value his perspective on church, food, and most of all, relationships.

Vicky at Beauty Tips for Ministers. I fell in love with the tag line: Because you are in the public eye and God knows you need it. I love Vogue and W almost as much as I love the Church. Reading Vicky's blogs gave me permission to talk about how we look and what that says, within a professional and theological framework. In addition, Vicky has always made herself (electronically) available to me and used her vast network of friends to answer questions. Thanks, Vicky!

"Sally Big Woods" at Grand Foret. Sally blogs about sacred spaces and sacred itentities that are created through art. She and I went to college together and I love that her blog keeps us connected.

Sally usually only posts once a week, so I am going to cheat a little bit here and add some more:
I don't have a personal connection with Elise at Simply Recipes or Daniel Clenedin at Journey With Jesus Foundation, but they both deserve a shout-out and I tend to check in with them once a week, too!

Finally, I've just found Roberta at Spiritually Directed. Thank you for your wonderful blog!

2009-03-26T00:34:00.002-05:00

Today is Joseph Campbell's birthday, according to Garrison Keillor at The Writer's Almanac. I've never really dug JC, but I remember the Bill Moyers interviews and how ga-ga everyone was about him. Was I merely not interested or had I already figured out the corporate-dream state of myths?
At anyrate, I was struck by the quote that Mr. Keillor used at the end of birthday note:

"We must be willing to get rid of the life we planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us."

Whatever it was that I was trying to say with the quote below, this one says it, too. I rely too much on plans, don't we all? But life, all life, is a blessing. Think Abram and Sarai, Moses, Miriam & Aaron, Ruth, Jael, even Peter as he denied the Lord and heard the rooster crow. Drop the limitations of your imagination and move into God's dream!

**I just reread Sister Joan Chichseter's comment about perfection holding us back. No one is perfect this side of paradise, perfection holds us back from God's work. (From Daniel Clenedin's Journey with Jesus Foundation reading for this week. Check him out, he also has the complete text of Psalm 51 and an amazing image of David and Bathsheeba.)

Origami

2009-03-25T01:47:00.003-05:00

What I like best about poetry
is that the words fold in on themselves
two simultaneous beings
looking one way and
without losing a set of truth
looking elsewhere:
distinct but not separate.

Washi paper-words:
one side is swirled black and green
the other tiny dogwood flowers.
What starts with a quote
paints the sky at early morning,
detailing the plodding nature
of our hope-filled lives.

A riff on Barbara Crooker's Poem on a Line by Anne Sexton, 'We are All Writing God's Poem'
**check out the mopheads behind her photo - lovely!!

more luscious words

2009-03-24T09:49:00.002-05:00

The White Museum, George Bilgere

My aunt was an organ donor
and so, the day she died,
her organs were harvested
for medical science.
I suppose there must be people
who list, under "Occupation,"
"Organ Harvester," people for whom
it is always harvest season,
each death bringing its bounty.
They spend their days
loading wagonloads of kidneys,
whole cornucopias of corneas,
burlap sacks groaning with hearts and lungs
and the pale green sprouts of gall bladders,
and even, from time to time,
the weighty cauliflower of a brain.

And perhaps today,
as I sit in this café, watching the snow
and thinking about my aunt,
a young medical student somewhere
is moving through the white museum
of her brain, making his way slowly
from one great room to the next.
Here is the gallery of her girlhood,
with that great canvas depicting her father
holding her on his lap in the backyard
of their bungalow in St. Louis.
And here is a sketch of her
the summer after her mother died,
walking down a street in Berlin
when the broken city was itself
a museum. And here
is a small, vivid oil of the two of us
sitting in a café in London
arguing over the work of Constable
or Turner, or Francis Bacon
after a visit to the Tate.

I want you to know, as you sit there
with your microscope and your slides,
there's no need to be reverent before these images.
That's the last thing she would have wanted.
But do be respectful. Speak quietly.
No flash photography. Tell your friends
you saw something beautiful.

This poem has fabulous construction. At the end it reminds me of the Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock, "in the rooms the women come and go, speaking of Michelangelo." That of course sends me instantly to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum where I spent many, many happy hours as a teen. Perhaps that is a distant connection? The rooms at the Gardner seem especially constructed for the deceitfully light chatter of ladies who lunch. I wonder at the poets who write these lines. Did they too spend impressionable hours in quiet houses peopled with oils and marble?

Tina Kelley

2009-03-11T02:54:00.000-05:00

When I'm Your Blood
I pull you like a tide
towards times you cry from happiness.

I flatten out like a bay,
you hear distant sounds.

I carbonate your heart
and keep it grasping.

I will
intoxicate you.

I clear your head so you thrill
at the cliffs, properly amazed
that by raising your eyes
murals of grandeur in precise detail
enter your mind.

When you make love I surf, crash,
swell and sway, I mirror and populate
your eager arms.

When you can't sleep I slow
my headlong bustling to help.

I help you praise yourself from within.
I move you nearer.

I keep myself inside you,
keep every favorite part warm and live,
and let you know with certainty
when sunset is over and it's time
to go in by the stove.

Invite me.

Take, Eat, and Inwardy Digest

2009-03-10T01:24:00.003-05:00

Long story short: we don’t get to make our lives up. We get to receive our lives as gifts. The story that says we should have no story except the story we chose when we had no story is a lie . . . Christian discipleship is about learning to receive our lives as gifts without regret. And that has the deepest political implications. Much of modern political theory and practice is about creating a society where we do not nave to acknowledge that our lives are gifts we receive from one another. (92-93) Living Gently in a Violent World: The Prophetic Witness of Weakness, Stanley Hauerwas from Milton @ Don't Eat Alone

Without returning, you can know that I think this is seismic to the way I approach life. Perhaps, if you return, I'll have something more to say.

day of auspicious births

2009-03-06T09:58:00.003-05:00

It seems human nature to be interested in those whose birth date we share. As far as I know, no one famous shares my birthday - and no one not famous does, either!
Today, however, is a different sort of day:

Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1928), Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806), and Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475)

I never knew this and it is only thanks to The Writer's Almanac that I know it now. But ignorance doesn't negate the fact that they are 3 of my favorite artists!

One Hundred Years of Solitude has stayed at the top of my desert island booklist since high school and I nearly flunked out of first semester freshman year in college because I could not put down Love in the Time of Cholera. I don't think I had ever read another piece of magical realism before Garcia Marquez, but I instantly took to it - it is my kind of world, where reality is a sideways glance from extraordinary and people move between the two like moving between the kitchen and living room. Would I have enjoyed Faulkner as much or even tried to read Master and Margarita if it had not been for Sr Garcia Marquez?

I was given an early copy of EBB's love poems as a wedding gift, but I confess I don't really care for her meter or rhyme or word-sense. That said, I love her spirit. She and Robert Browning had a mysterious and love-filled romance and marriage and she trod a path for others to follow. She disobeyed her father, trusted in the love of Robert, traveled to and lived in Florence, had a child at 43 (!!) and continued to publish in her own voice. One of my favorite poems is from Sonnets from the Portugeuse (his nickname for her, not an actual translation), where she describes his kisses, first on her hand and then the near misses on her hair, forehead, cheeks...it's rather flip for a poem written in the mid-19th century! (It's poem 38)

And finally Michelangelo. What can I say that hasn't already been said? I am not sure I'd want to meet him or have him for dinner or tea or whatever it is the teachers now have their students imagine of their heroes. However, I am in awe of his work and the Pieta in St Peter's is high on my list of must-sees. (Next week! Next week!)

John Updike, who died a few weeks ago, wrote a series of children's poems, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman called A Child's Calendar. The poem for November contains this line:

Tall God
Must see our souls
This way, and nod.

Perfect eloquence, in meter, magic and stone.

This one is for you, Di*

2009-03-03T12:25:00.002-05:00

A New Poet

Linda Pastan

Finding a new poet
is like finding a new wildflower
out in the woods. You don't see

its name in the flower books, and
nobody you tell believes
in its odd color or the way

its leaves grow in splayed rows
down the whole length of the page. In fact
the very page smells of spilled

red wine and the mustiness of the sea
on a foggy day - the odor of truth
and of lying.

And the words are so familiar,
so strangely new, words
you almost wrote yourself, if only

in your dreams there had been a pencil
or a pen or even a paintbrush,
if only there had been a flower.

from Heroes In Disguise, 1991
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, NY

*You seem as someone who would write a poem about finding a new poet!

cling, swing, spring, sing

2009-02-27T15:31:00.004-05:00

Children's voices in the orchard
Between the blossom- and the fruit-time:
Golden head, crimson head,
Between the green tip and the root.
Black wing, brown wing, hover over;
Twenty years and the spring is over;
To-day grieves and to-morrow grieves,
Cover me over, light-in-leaves;
Golden head, black wing,
Cling, swing,
Spring, sing,
Swing up into the apple-tree.

When we were little we had an oversize book with a blue cloth cover filled with photos of children of the world. Towards the back was a picture of a summer lake with a rope swing and boys jumping into the water. It could be the cover to A Separate Peace. I cannot look at a photo of a rope swing into a pond, nor see one in real life without thinking "cover me over, light-in-leaves."

We're not quite into the first week of Lent, technically still counting "days after Ash Wednesday" and I am still not quite sure of what I am taking up as a discipline. I'm reading an older book by Barbara Crofton Cawthorne, but it's not really snapping my socks. I don't particularly feel capable of giving up meat or changing my diet, although I am slovenly in my entitlement; I should try to be more accepting of saying no.

But poetry. I love poetry. I love the way words flow together, separate, become one whole and become owned by each reader. I particulary love the poetry of TS Eliot, whose poem New Hampshire is above and Gerard Manley Hopkins and Frank O'Hara - combinations of words that recreate God's flaming majesty in the oft-times ordinary.

Regardless of what else I take on, I am reading more poetry!

Bishop Robinson's Inaugural Prayer

2009-01-21T01:22:00.001-05:00

Opening Inaugural Event
Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC
January 18, 2009

Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God's blessing upon our nation and our next president.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will...

Bless us with tears - for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger - at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort - at the easy, simplistic "answers" we've preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience - and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be "fixed" anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility - open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance - replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity - remembering that every religion's God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln's reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy's ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King's dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters' childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we're asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand - that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN.

Think about it

2008-12-04T16:06:00.000-05:00

Went out to pre-paid dinner which included wine and water.

Drank lots of water, although not enough.

Drank no more than a sip of wine, so that I could taste the "newness" of it.

Didn't really enjoy my food, was a little bored with my company, drove home, ready for bed.

Would dinner have been better with libations?

Would it have mattered more who I was sitting with?

Would I ever have thought these thoughts, as opposed to simply drinking a lot of wine, if we didn't have the stringent drinking and driving rules that we do?

Huh.

meeting together, looking away to Christ

2008-11-24T01:49:00.002-05:00

This quote from A.W. Tozer came from Milton's Blog, Don't Eat Alone.

Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshipers meeting together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become "unity" conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship. Social religion is perfected when private religion is purified.

Milton was writing about the Communion of Holy Eucharist, and I agree whole-heartedly. I'd like to think this is the theology behind contemporary worship. I'm not sure. I think the key phrase is "looking away," as my experience in contemporary worship is that it is a "looking in."

Sometimes I wish I had a greater audience

2008-11-20T01:29:00.001-05:00

Advent Conspiracy

'nuf said

2008-11-05T07:46:00.002-05:00

PANTS!

2008-11-01T15:09:00.002-05:00

Will I ever be timely with the Friday 5?

2008-10-27T15:10:00.002-05:00

Last week's was on habitation:
5 places I have lived: what did I like, what kind of place was it, did anything special happen there.

1. I spent most of my life in one house, 211 Lincoln Road, Lincoln, Mass. I loved my growing-up house. I remember when we first moved and I couldn't see over the bathroom counter to the mirror and one day seeing my head in the mirror. I remember hiding in the large cupboard next to the stove, and climbing (with apparently prehensile toes) up to the top of the refrigerator, for whatever it was that my mom stored there. I remember the hot stillness of the crawl space before my mom renovated it into a master suite and the cool creepy basement with the coal chute, wood pile, and dark room. I think I thought all houses looked like mine, even when I knew plenty of houses that didn't.

2. From 9 on, we spent our summers in Westport, Mass, the town of my ancestors and where my mom now lives. I am rooted in my sense of place there: farms, fens, estuary, ocean. Westport was the perfect combination of cool trees, tall grass, balancing stone fences and water: river water that pulls in one direction or the other, slurping water in the shallow boat pond, salty water with the potential for jellyfish. I loved the sound of the waves lapping under Kate's boathouse and the smell of hot flowers: roses, rosehips, day lilies.

3. The room I lived in my senior year in college was papered in flowers. Posters, postcards, wallpaper strips - every wall had flowers and photographs. I also had 3 enormous windows with shutters. My room jutted out over the security office in the basement and it was almost as if it were it's own building. The ceiling was high and the windows went all the way up. I had a modern oak desk and a bed with drawers under the mattress. I fell out of my bed several times and sometimes slept on my futon. My desk was for show rather than work, as I had a carrel in library, but Felicity, the American Girl from colonial times, perched on top. That room was a sanctuary and I think I try to recreate it a little bit in every house we live in.

4. For 3 months Joe and I lived in a hotel suite in California, while he was going through his basic school for the Civil Engineer Corps. I can remember learning to make creamed corn and hanging out with my new Navy-wife friends. It wasn't so much of a place to remember as a time to remember: newly married, newly on our own, forging our own identity/ies. I also kept meticulous files!

5. I loved our house in Rhode Island. It was a raised ranch with few closets and little that charmed. But the landlady had the wall-to-wall ripped up and the entire living area was hardwood. There were ceiling fans in all the rooms and windows on each wall. The sunlight streamed into that house, especially the living room with its blousy white curtains. Ironic, isn't it, that I so disliked actually living IN Rhode Island?

**I've also lived in Brookline (when I was small); Nicaragua, where the rain pelted the tin roof and I could literally hear the cows come home past my window; Guam, more rain and a baby; California, where I tried my hardest to imbed myself in the ecology of the place as much as I was a part of my childhood homes; Indiana, where to my surprise I found I liked the Midwest, and had another baby; New Jersey and the absolute stillness of 9/11; Mississippi, where my home wasn't the address on my mail but the church building that bolstered me, buffered me, and made me see the world differently; and Sicily. I consider some friends' houses home, as in places where I have learned more about myself and who I want to be/am. St Anne's undercroft and choir room was my home for much of my elementary and jr high years and I was well-loved and cared for there. I consider some museums and the rehearsal space beneath Jordan Hall a type of home, as well. Being able to call more than a house a home prepared me well for a life that requires me to move.

6 Degrees of...

2008-10-22T15:05:00.003-05:00

Perhaps it's not fair when the degrees include the Navy and the Episcopal Church, but when they also include cake?!

The post below is from Cake Wrecks. Now, I don't know this woman personally, but I think she's funny and I like her dedication to cynicism in the kitchen. Sometimes I disagree with her - the post with the head-stealing eyeball dolls is a great example.
Aren't they great? I.MUST.HAVE.THOSE.CAKES.

Ahem. The eyeball people have NOTHING to do with degrees of separation. Well, there is some separation going on there, but it doesn't have anything to do with my post.

Back to Cake Wrecks. I like Cake Wrecks. I also like my friend Nancy. I was going to put a photo of her right here ** but I can't find any. I'm rather distraught, because although I am not the world's best correspondent, I do pride myself on being able to keep track of friends. I do have several very blurry photos of her younger daughter, but that's not quite the same thing, is it?

Nancy and I were neighbors in Rhode Island. We moved around the corner, she moved to Japan. She came back for a short visit, we picked her and the girls up on one end of Rt 91 and drove them back to the other...and then we moved to Sicily and they moved, well, from Okinowa closer to Tokyo.

Nancy sends great emails. She has put her quirky sense of humor and master's in French literary criticism to great use in detailing for us Americans the Japanese way of life.

A few months ago I received an email from Nancy telling me, and the rest of the recipients of her emails, that she had set up a blog. Big Harmony. (I don't get the title and I always look at it in my blogroll and think, "Do I know any polygamous families?")

Go on. Check out Big Harmony.

And scroll down on the right a little bit.

What's that you see? Cake Wrecks?

What a small world it is!

Ciao bella, Nancy!

(And, please! send me a photo!)

Far Out Man

2008-10-04T02:53:00.003-05:00

This photo comes to you via Grand Foret from Cake Wrecks and was created for the 2007 Kentucky State Fair by a woman named Heather.

Look at the photo I found

2008-09-18T11:20:00.006-05:00

I really need to send in my digitals to get printed - but I found this just floating around the desktop:

The Tao of being me

2008-09-18T11:20:00.002-05:00

Doesn't the tao teach that language is imperfect? That you can know something to be truth, but when you try to articulate it, it is no longer as true? My knowledge of Taoism is somewhat shaky, to be sure!

Well, that's what I always thought the Tao taught. And that's my problem right now. There's lots inside my head, but nothing in my fingertips!

I did make terrible bruscetta last night. How does one mess up bruschetta?! I don't know, but I managed it.

Off to dinner out in town, maybe something will zing through me at the table and what's inside my head will gel into words on the page.

For Di, as a lover of Paul

2008-09-15T00:32:00.002-05:00

Here is the epistle appointed for this Sunday:

²⁰It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be put to shame in any way, but that by my speaking with all boldness, Christ will be exalted now as always in my body, whether by life or by death.

²¹For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. ²²If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which I prefer. ²³I am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; ²⁴but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you. ²⁵Since I am convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in faith, ²⁶so that I may share abundantly in your boasting in Christ Jesus when I come to you again.

²⁷Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel, ²⁸and are in no way intimidated by your opponents. For them this is evidence of their destruction, but of your salvation. And this is God’s doing. ²⁹For he has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well— ³⁰since you are having the same struggle that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.

Without the benefit of historical analysis, we'll have to put off a discussion of what Paul meant by his "desire to depart." Was he ill? old? I can tell you that the majority of folks in my church on Sunday would say that he wanted to be with Christ for the End Days because this world is Evil.

But Oh! That first line: "...I will not be put to shame in any way, but that by my speaking with all boldness, Christ will be exalted now as always in my body..." Let us all speak with Boldness, believing that Christ is exalted through us!

Paul might prefer to die and live in Christ, but being Here and Now isn't such a bad thing. He doesn't whine or moan or talk about his bunions. He is convinced that he will remain in the flesh and continue to work for Christ with the people - sharing in their boasting of Jesus Christ. I tend to think about boasting about Christ as a particularly fundamentalist philosophy that forces the eschatology of Christ over the creation of Heaven on Earth.

It's the last paragraph that I like the most: put aside what is to come and LIVE NOW: stand firm in "one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel" and "in no way intimidated by your opponents." Be bold!

And now we're at the last line of the reading, and I would have to graciously disagree with Paul. I don't see where God says that we have "the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well." Yes, Jesus says, "Pick up your cross." But he doesn't say what that cross is, only we, as individuals, can say that. Yes, Jesus says that we must give up everything and follow him, but he doesn't ask us to suffer, just to follow. And, if in one place Jesus says that we must give up our families, in others he acts on behalf of suffering families: Mary, Martha & Lazarus, Jairus' daughter, the Syro-Phoenician woman...which speak loauder? Actions or words? Paul has just told us to "live your life in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ." Not to read or to write our lives but to LIVE them.

thinking

2008-09-05T13:29:00.000-05:00

Just as we are many people called to worship through one prayer book so might we be many people called to one ordination process. As I make the rituals and prayers of the Book of Common Prayer my own, might I not also make the ordination process my own?

Here’s where the analogy breaks down: We are called the People of the Book. Everything we do, as the people of God, on a Sunday morning is written in that book. I was once told that I could pray in any way I wanted on a Sunday morning, as long as the whole congregation had the same prayer in their hands. It is our communal actions in worship that define us as a community.

The ordination process is hidden. Its rubrics are only seen by the chosen few. We as followers can’t make ourselves in its image because we can’t see the image – we can’t even imagine the image. To hide the process away, like pre-Vatican II priests turned away from the congregation, creates a hocus pocus effect on the transformative nature of the Sacrament of Ordination.

After a year of worshiping in a non-denominational chapel, I know the value of knowing what comes next. The Book of Common Prayer is the skeleton that allows us freedom of movement. Wouldn’t it make sense that the ordination process be the same?

Wade in the water

2008-09-05T00:20:00.004-05:00

God's gonna trouble the water...

I love that gospel hymn. We used to sing it on Wednesday evenings at St Patrick's. I love it because it is so simple and yet confounding. At first it seems an invitation to play (at least to these beach-raised ears), but why invite someone into troubled waters? When I sing it, not very often anymore, I find it tantalizing. Where are the waters that are still that will be troubled? All around me? My home life often seems still, or like a river, fast-moving but smooth. Lakes, at least the lakes of my New England childhood, are dark on the bottom, and unknown, even as the surface is mirror-still. My church life has always had the assumption of the stillness of a large lake - it's so large that nothing can stir it up too much.

For the past 13 years the reality of my life, home and church together, has resembled nothing so much as the ocean. We move often, change the pieces a bit: where we worship, where we learn, what we eat, like waves constantly on the shoreline. Sometimes a neap tide sweeps out and leaves what we thought to be hidden, airholes and slime trails and the imprints of waves. As a child I spent summer nights in a boathouse, where the river met the Atlantic. Spring tides, the opposite of a neap tide, would wash right up to the foundation, to the base boards! The house would rock, gently, secured in it's concrete moorings. On those sticky summer nights the spring tide felt gentle and soothing, certainly not troubling! But most frequently, the waves are just there, rolling in and rolling out.

Surely we know where this analogy is leading? Neap and Spring tides are a constant, occurring month in and month out. But hurricanes are out of the ordinary. The waves of a hurricane break foundations and change shorelines, both under the water and at the water's edge, forever. My beloved clapboard St Patrick's, where I first learned that God invites us into the water and invites us into the trouble, was washed away by a hurricane.

I don't want to speak for the people of St Patrick's, as by the time of their trouble, we had already moved on - the current of Navy life taking us away. But from afar, the troubled waters of Katrina, of homelessness, of government ineptitude were what showed that the foundations of the community of St Patrick's are solid, drilled deep in the sub-strata, and while shaken, unbroken.

In community, we all live in waters that can be troubled: by the policies of our government, the choices of our church leadership, the actions of our neighbors.

But what about as individuals? A few weeks ago the Gospel lesson from Matthew showed Peter stepping out on the smooth water, to be like the apparently calm Jesus. Peter steps out and the waters are troubled, he falters, and Jesus catches him. I'm not going to take the time to go into the normal exegesis of this passage. Rather, I was caught by the discussion at RevGalBlogPals about the troubling of the waters that occur when someone steps out of the boat. Peter steps out, towards Jesus yes, but away from his fellow fishermen. That rending of relationship causes waves. I'm not advocating NOT rocking the boat. I'm struck by the truth of the fact. We need the people who travel with us in our boats; in our boats we can weather the troubling waters.

Church people get this, on many levels. I've sat in many churches, particularly those on the eastern shore, whose ribbed naves (the very word means ship!) mirror the boats at rest in the harbor. Church people believe in communal worship and fellowship "to give us strength and courage to do the work You have given us to do." BCP p. 365 In the tradition of the social gospel, being together in worship allows us to walk into the waters of the troubled world and be the change that troubles complacency.

The Episcopal Church takes the water analogy even further. The Episcopal Church encompasses many people who are called into worship through the Book of Common Prayer. It is our communal actions in worship that define us. I was once told that I could pray anything I wanted, as long as all the congregants had the same prayer in front of them. We believe that we are made members of the family of God at baptism. We are the one member of the Anglican Communion that creates a covenant with each member at baptism. Baptism transforms us from ordinary individuals into the body of Christ, able and affirmed to do Christ's work in the world. The rubrics of our prayer book instruct that when a priest baptizes, it must be with the whole congregation as witnesses. Only in extreme need may we baptize in private. Everyone in the congregation repeats the baptismal vows together, and we repeat them again at Easter. Each time we repeat them, we firm up our boat a little more. And we compel that boat further out into the waters of the world.

My own little boat seems to be leaking a bit. I haven't had the gracious good fortune to share in a baptism or repeat my covenant at Easter in a long while. I am not buoyed enough to brave the troubled waters of our society, nor am I brave enough to delve into my own complacency.

Lord, help me to find the waters that I can wade in and be with me in troubling.

young michael phelps

2008-08-30T04:02:00.002-05:00

Apologies - I have no idea where this came from, but I love it.

And on a different note entirely

2008-08-29T01:06:00.003-05:00

From the Way of the Fathers

You’re St. Jerome!

You’re a passionate Christian, fiercely devoted to Jesus Christ and his Church. You are willing to labor long hours in the Lord’s vineyard, and you have little patience with those who are less willing or able to work as you do. Your passions often carry you into temptation zones of wrath, lust, and pride.

Find out which Church Father you are at The Way of the Fathers!

don't let me forget

2008-08-29T00:57:00.004-05:00

Here's my reading list, for whenever it is that I get around to reading critically:

Not My Mother's Sister: Generational Conflict and Third-Wave Feminism, Astrid Henry
ManifestA: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future, Jennifer Baumgarder, Amy Richards
Third Wave Feminism: Expanded, second edition, Stacy Gillis, Gillian Howie, Rebecca Munford, eds.

I feel as though I am struggling against my own 2nd-wave feminist upbringing as well as the very traditional culture of the Navy. Neither of these communities are unloving, they just don't get it.

Girls with Croziers

2008-08-03T11:39:00.005-05:00

I've been searching for the photo of the women bishops from Lambeth. I've found it, but it belongs to others, so I am going to have to link you forward. Not a bad thing, as I've really enjoyed reading her blog immensely:

Please go to Allie's Lambeth Steward blog.

You'll have to scroll a bit and the photo's awfully tiny...but I can't help but smile when I look at it.

In the larger, all-bishops + some photos that are also available (Mark+ of Ohio, also Dave Walker's Cartoon Church) the bishops are smiling, frowning, waving (in Mark's case), looking bored...

I love to look at Bishop Wolfe, laughing and Bishop Cate with her hair in her face - both women have led dioceses of mine - they are all clearly have a great time just BEING THEMSELVES.

And for that, I praise God.

Thank you, Allie!

twice in one day?

2008-08-02T14:34:00.002-05:00

Couldn't help it - ran across this list and had to follow-through:

This is from something called ‘The Big Read’, from the NEA came up with a list of their top 100 books and they estimate that the average adult has only read 6 of these books. I've bolded the ones I've read.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (most of them, anyway)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

But what about Candide? What about Mary Shelley's Frankenstein? Ivanhoe? Moll Flanders?

Why Da Vinci Code?!

I guess I have a list to take to the library with me :)

Tarot?

2008-08-02T00:29:00.002-05:00

I have never believed in, listened to, or read tarot cards. But I was intrigued after reading Snow on Roses' post.

This just sums up being me - unbelievably, but truly:

You are The Star

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Star is one of the great cards of faith, dreams realised

The Star is a card that looks to the future. It does not predict any immediate or powerful change, but it does predict hope and healing. This card suggests clarity of vision, spiritual insight. And, most importantly, that unexpected help will be coming, with water to quench your thirst, with a guiding light to the future. They might say you're a dreamer, but you're not the only one.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Lovin' Spoonful Friday 5

2008-06-20T09:21:00.002-05:00

I confess I love the Lovin' Spoonful because they unabashedly remind me of my dad. I don't know anyone else in the world who listens/ed to them!

Here's the RevGalBlogPals Friday 5:

Think summer......are you there? Below you will find five words or phrases. Tell us the first thing you think of on reading each one. Your response might be simply another word, or it might be a sentence, a poem, a memory, a recipe, or a story. You get the idea:

1. rooftop
Matthew 10:27 (no, really, this was the first thing I thought of) "What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops." I think because I was researching for Wednesday night midweek children's ministry (that's a mouthful) and read that the flat roofs of the Levant were natural places from which to shout.
2. gritty
Food at the beach. Has there ever been a day at the beach when you didn't eat sand? When Wylie was a baby he used to shove whole fistfuls into his mouth. That makes for icky-sticky diapers, let me tell you!
My father and mother, both city dwellers, use/d the word "gritty" to describe certain neighborhoods in Boston, and it has a negative connotation for me - a sort of wasted, gang-land vibe.
3. hot town (yeah, I know, it's two words)
New York in August!
4. night
Ditto, only because I can hear them together. I love cities at night in the summer.
5. dance
Eh, nothing comes to mind. Except, "not me!"

Friday Five - Beach Trip

2008-06-12T23:58:00.002-05:00

More from the RevGalBlogPals:

So in honor of summer, please share your own beachy memories, plans, and dreams with a "Beach Trip" Friday Five.

1. Ocean rocks, lake limps? Vice versa? Or "it's all beautiful in its own way"?
I think it's all beautiful, but for swimming it has to be the ocean. There's something icky about fresh water that reminds me of swimming in blood. And those snapping turtles of my camp youth...

2. Year round beach living: Heaven...or the Other Place?
I love the beach all year. No place is more beautiful than the beach in November. I'm not sure I'd want it for eternity. However, Heaven surely includes insta-maid service, so beach tar and sand wouldn't be a source of irritation...

3. Any beach plans for this summer?
Most beaches here are shingle, no sand castles. So, the Lido perhaps (that's the Italian version where beach chairs are lined up with precision and you pay a few euro to rent your chair for the day). I haven't really thought about the beach much, here. Perhaps I should plan? Mmmm....Greece....

4. Best beach memory ever?
We spent the summers at the beach when I was growing up. When I was a tiny thing we lived in a double house (two ancient houses that had been smooshed together in the kitchen) with an older couple in Yarmouth, Mass, my mom's hometown. We took swim lessons every day, but the beach was special. The beach involved chairs and buckets and a stop at Village DoNut. It was a short drive and a long walk over the dunes. They had a clam shack that always smelled deliciously of forbidden french fries, although occasionally we bought a Chunky bar. While I have vivid memories of the hot sand and the smells and the sharp sounds of gulls, I don't remember being in the water at all.

5. Fantasy beach trip?
I think Greece qualifies. I'd like a house/apartment across the street from the beach, with a little restaurant. Like the town in His Dark Materials where all the adults' souls have been eaten (not that I want that, I just like the way the town is imagined). Best part of the fantasy: everyone speaks English.

Bonus: Share a piece of music/poetry/film/book that expresses something about what the beach means to you.

Another try at the Friday Five - very late

2008-05-18T19:49:00.004-05:00

Friday Five: Grand Tour

In honor of these upcoming trips, herewith your Grand Tour Friday Five.

Name five places that fall into the following categories:

1) Favorite Destination -- someplace you've visited once or often and would gladly go again
I have been really digging NYC recently. I think because my sister has lived there for such a long time, I always felt intimidated by the City. There was just no way I could ever get around like she does. Lately, though, I've been much more comfortable with my own unknowing, a point of view I've always held while in other places. Aside from the cost of just BEING in NYC, there is so much to do - and in the warmer months, there is so much to do just outside.

2) Unfavorite Destination -- someplace you wish you had never been (and why)
Truly, there is not one place that I have visited that I would refuse to go to again. That said, why go back? There is SO MUCH OUT THERE!

3) Fantasy Destination -- someplace to visit if cost and/or time did not matter
In high school I thought the ideal trip would be Istanbul, Ravenna and Rome. I still think that's a fairly fabulous trip. And if that falls through, North Africa: Tunisia, Morocco...

4) Fictional Destination -- someplace from a book or movie or other art or media form you would love to visit, although it exists only in imagination
Tolkein's Middle Earth. I am sure there are other places...to be amended!

5) Funny Destination -- the funniest place name you've ever visited or want to visit
I can't believe I never made it to Hot Coffee, Mississippi. It's a little town just off the main route North from the Coast - too far, apparently, as I was always in a hurry. It started out as a farm with a sign nailed to a tree at the crossroads.

I've sort of made it a mission to visit as many underground places as I possibly can. So, they're not really funny, but high on my list of places are the Roman catacombs, the catacombs beneath San Giovanni in Siracusa and the Etruscan tombs in Tuscany.

Phew!

Friday 5 - a wee bit late

2008-04-20T00:41:00.002-05:00

Friday I was consumed with a tween party, so I read but didn't play. Yesterday I completely forgot. Sunday morning it is!

This is certainly a strange way to start out a Friday Five but it made me think about what I might like to do if I knew it would only last for 24 hours. There are no reality boundaries to these imaginings. So here are the five things for you to consider...

1. If you could dramatically change your physical appearance for 24 hours, what would you do?

I'd be flat-chested. Like, an A-cup. And then I'd (also rather magically) be able to go for a really long run. And then I'd have the energy to go out dancing. I'd like to know what it feels like to do those physical things without big gazongas, and I'd like to know if folks really pay attention to them.

2. If you could live in another place for 24 hours, where would you go?

As it is only a day, I'd go to the Antarctic. Generally speaking it's too cold for me - but I can do anything for a day!

3. You get to do somebody else's job for a day...

Hmmmm....I'm not convinced I want anyone else's job. Maybe Archbishop Tutu. Obviously, he works, but he doesn't work as a priest, necessarily. So, he uses his priestly role to do other stuff. (No, not particularly articulate, but you get the idea!)

4. Spend the day with another person from anywhere in time and space...

Abraham Lincoln. He's the first person to come to mind. See #5.

5. A magical power is yours. Which one would you pick?

Time travel! I'd be a fly on the wall in all the places I've wanted to "see." And, as it is a magical power, I wouldn't have to do it all in 24 hours, I could stretch out those hours to fit it all in :)

I love me some fried chicken

2008-04-14T13:55:00.002-05:00

Which is good, cuz that's what we had for dinner tonight.

Easy-peasey!! And makes a great lunch the next day...

*cut chicken breasts into chunks
*soak in buttermilk until you remember to take them out and start dinner
*heat oil in skillet
*toss together whole wheat flour, thyme, salt & pepper (oooh, some cayenne would have been great!)
*take dripping pieces of chicken out of buttermilk, toss with flour and place in hot oil
*let fry until golden on one side (about 3 minutes) and then turn over and cook another 2-3 minutes
*keep warm in the oven while you make up the rest

We ate ours with fresh green beans and fresh crusty bread. I had a nice fruili, the kids drank milk.

Tomorrow, they'll have chicken-wrap sandwiches: spread ranch dressing on a tortilla, add shredded lettuce, sliced chicken and a little Parmesan (if you are feeling fancy). Roll. Slice in 2. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap (I recommend stretch tite, always), then in foil. Make sure there's something else cold in the lunch box, add some goldfish crackers, maybe some beans or carrots and a piece of chocolate.

Almost makes me want to repeat 5th grade!

Friday 5

2008-04-11T00:50:00.002-05:00

MOVING
Mother Laura over at RevGalBlogPals writes:
We are right in the middle of a move--only twenty minutes away, but we're still a mix of busy, excited, nervous and surprisingly full of grief about what we're leaving, for me at least. So this week's Friday Five asks about your experience of the marvels and madness of moving...

1. How many times have you moved? When was the last time?
We moved twice when I was a child, but for most of my young life we lived in one lovely house in the Boston subarbs. Considering the tumultuous nature of my childhood, never having to physically move was a blessing.
Since I've been married, we've moved 8 times (in 13 years). Those are duty-station changes. We've also moved 3 times within those moves, creating a grand total of 11 moves, 2 overseas!

2. What do you love and hate about moving?

3. Do you do it yourself or hire movers?
The Navy moves us - thank God! There is such freedom in knowing that it's not up to you - either where to go or how to get it all there. It creates a different attitude towards "stuff." The one time I freaked out and had to have my scrapbooks in the car with me, I was paranoid the entire time that someone would steal the car or they'd get wet, or whatever. Other than the photographs, nothing is that important to me that I would worry about stuff more than peeps. (And I still don't have a solution for the photos. Although the new ones are all online, the old ones are the baby pics...)

4. Advice for surviving and thriving during a move?
Don't worry about it. Really. It's just stuff.

That said:

Do know what you have and don't leave things of value out-and-about.

Know what is allowed. (Years ago, movers would empty all rubbermaid-type containers, pack that stuff in cardboard, and then ship the empty containers. I would always have to ask that the movers NOT unpack the nicely-organized boxes.)

Keep an eye on your movers; when there are more than 2 movers in your home, particularly in one room, get a buddy to help you.

You can also always UN-do a box. I had to rescue Joe's Scotch from the last move.

I like to pre-position for a move: I put all knick-knacks in one room, all books in one room (except kids' books, those stay in their rooms), all wall-stuff in one room. As we move often, we don't keep the same things in the same room. It's nice to know that I won't open a box full of clothes and find my icons, ya know?

Finally, your movers may not be the brightest of guys (or girls). But they're taking care of your stuff. So, buy them lunch, give them your liquor if you are moving overseas, chat with them, introduce your friend who is helping you, and make sure they understand you. In the kitchen boxes of our most recent move were opened boxes of goldfish crackers and moldy cookies. The guys who did our kitchen DID NOT hear me when I showed them where to pack and where not to pack.

**things that you should pack in your car: chargers, corded phone, screwdriver & hammer with claw, toilet tissue.

5. Are you in the middle of any inner moves, if not outer ones?
We are always in the middle of a move! No, not really, but sometimes it seems that way. Which can be good - you can live with anything for a short time, even a teal bathroom - and I like moving my furniture around to fit the next-new-place. But, it takes time and energy - not just to pack and unpack, but also to get accustomed to a new place, new faces, new routines...and thus, I often don't get other, internal-move stuff done.

The physical move has also taken away from my vocationally settling down. Did you know that the Episcopal church does not look favorably upon people who move around a lot?

Bonus: Share a piece of music/poetry/film/book that expresses something about what moving means to you.
mmmm....I'll have to come back to this one!

THIS is my new favorite meal

2008-04-09T04:59:00.002-05:00

Quinoa Salad - Mediterranean style *props to the Silver Palate Basics cookbook, as that was where this started.

1 cup boiling water
2 cups quinoa

boil quinoa 10 minutes, covered

stir in 1/2 cup raisins, cook 5 more minutes, uncovered, until liquid is evaporated

spread quinoa mixture on baking sheet to cool

when cool-to-touch, mix in large bowl with:
1 -2 blood oranges, peeled and cut into small chunks
2 scallions, sliced white - 1" green
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pistachios, unsalted, unroasted
1/4 cup new (fruity) olive oil
2 tsps fresh globe (spicy) basil, shredded
salt & pepper to taste

Serve as a side dish or a luncheon salad. Will keep, covered, several days in fridge.

Grilled meat is very popular here, this side would go well with grilled pork. I think both times we've had this we've eaten it mushroom-stuffed flank steak.

RegGalBlogPals' Friday Five

2008-04-04T11:57:00.005-05:00

OMG - I can't believe I am actually playing this week.

Maybe I need another glass of wine before I start to type...

Well, for some reason I can no longer access rgbp, but I'll try to muddle along to the best of my abilities!

The story of the road to Emmaus is one of my favorites in scripture.

How has God revealed him/herself to you in a:

1. Book
Sigh. When was the last time I read a book?! Okay, this might sound weird, but I really, really loved His Dark Materials (the Golden Compass trilogy), and I kept reading pieces of social gospel into the books, especially the second two.

2. Movie
The Last Temptation of Christ was really the first time I watched a movie and felt that it was telling me something. But that was 20 years ago! Surely there have been movies, tv even, that speak God to me now? I don't know. I don't think I am that much of a "watcher." I like to watch to escape!
Actually, I love House, M.D. I think there is amazing insight in the dramatization of a crochety old diagnostician. The last episode we watched was the one where the sick man mirrors the personalities of the doctors helping him. The woman who killed the dog was mirrored as being scared and not knowing what to do. When House asks her what she heard, she says "nothing." Of course she's scared. But that's not going to get in the way of her ministry. At the very end of the episode Hugh Laurie's character tells Omar Epps' that he was the only one who "heard" his persona and did something about it. He's changed. Isn't that the nature of scripture and gospel? We see in these characters people we do/not want to be, we see ourselves, and we see who we can be and turn toward the light. (Yes, influenced by children's church this week which is all about the conversion of Paul!)

3. Song
Lord of All Hopefulness, p. 482 1982 Hymnal Especially verse 3, which I shouldn't even bother to sing, as it makes me cry great big Alice-in-Wonderland tears every time!

4. Another Person
I see Christ in a lot people, particularly people who help me see Christ. Joe, Beatrice, Wylie, Deacon Debi, Father Peter, Bud...

5. Creation
I can't live here and not see the incredible JOY of GOD in creation. Just watching the clouds gives me Joy.

bonus(es): On Easter Sunday I witnessed the power of music to take us place we never thought we could go (again). We belong to a small chapel community with a Presbyterian preacher. He's trying his best, but he is not a liturgical chaplain. As a result, our Easter service had no "Alleluia, He is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed." Nor did we have any alleluias (they weren't missed, no one had to hide them during Lent!) or any of the other aural indicators of Easter. However, we sang "The Day of Resurrection" as our recessional. I turned to look at Beatrice and she had tears just streaming down her face. She came and sat on my lap (my almost-11-year-old) and cried and cried. Oh, how she misses her old church and the power of the organ and her little muscles lifting her voice in prayer. It touched me deeply, to see how much closer to God she is through music.

I would add that there are place in scripture where, over years and years, I have continually found the presence of God:
Hebrews 13 "Be not afraid to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."
Micah 6 "and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?

And the '79 BCP, particularly Eucharistic Rite II, prayer C
"Open our eyes to see your hand at work in the world about us. Deliver
us from the presumption of coming to this Table for solace
only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for
renewal. Let the grace of this Holy Communion make us one
body, one spirit in Christ, that we may worthily serve the
world in his name.
Risen Lord, be known to us in the breaking of the Bread."

finally, feeling privileged

2008-03-31T00:50:00.002-05:00

Actually, I always feel my privilege.
**Do you know when you type "privilege" more than two time in a row, it loses all sense of a word - there's too many i's or something. Which prompted me to look it up:

privilege (n): ME from the OF fr L privilegium - law for or against a private person: a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor.
privileged (adj): 1) having or enjoying one or more privileges (~ classes) 2) not subject to the usual rules or penalties because of some special circumstances

Right here we see the effects of privilege. The very use, putting aside understanding, of a dictionary connotes a level of education that is only attained with privilege.

I had no idea it was such a legalistic word, although "rights and privileges" is a legal phrase.

From the older form of the word, when we say we are privileged, it means we take on the immunity granted to our socio-economic class. This fits well with underlying assumption taken on in sociology of education, that regardless of where you start, your education will lift you to the privileged ranks. Education (in the United States) is more than book-learning, it has a lot to do with fitting in to the class system. In many ways, education white-washes all of us, even those who did not start out bland or those who try to chafe against their education.

Anyway, on to that meme:

From What Privileges Do You Have?, based on an exercise about class and privilege developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. If you participate in this blog game, they ask that you PLEASE acknowledge their copyright.

1. Father went to college *not only was going to college non-negotiable, 80% of my high school went on to 4-year college
2. Father finished college
3. Mother went to college
4. Mother finished college
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor
6. Were in the same or higher class than your high school teachers
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home (I had more than 50 books in my childhood room!)
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
9. Were read children's books by a parent (all the way through high school, baby!)
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively (it's taken me a while to parse this sentence, but yes, of course!)
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18* this is one of those questions that is generational more than indicative of class, I think. We just didn't USE credit cards. But my mom let me use hers if I needed to. That is privilege!
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs *another caveat, while I am sure that my parents would have been able to pay for a lot of my college costs, I cannot be sure of this. A trust did pay for my college, thank God, but it was the payout from my father's life insurance/social security benefits.
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs. *technically, no, as I had to work to pay for many of my books and all of my clothes and "fun" stuff - like getting home for breaks!
16. You went to a private high school *no, because the public high school was better than most private schools. I think if I had wanted to, I could have gone
17. Went to summer camp
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels *no, but doesn't "family vacation" connote privilege? Even more, we "summered" somewhere. Talk about a word loaded with privilege!
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them (car?! what car?!)
22. There was original art in your home as a child
23. You and your family lived in a single-family house
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
25. You had your own room as a child
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18 (see above #13)
27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course
28. Had your own TV in your room in high school (see above #13)
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college (see above #14)
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
31. Went on a cruise with your family
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up *I am willing to agree that this connotes privilege, however, museums were free when I was little, so it was cheap entertainment
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family

I find it interesting that no one is able to do this without commenting or caveats. Clearly, we all feel guilt/pressure/unease when it comes to class/privilege/money

It's just a flesh wound...

2008-03-28T01:31:00.004-05:00

Something needs to be written!

I'm playing with Sunday's lectionary readings, Thomas and the need to "see it to believe it."

The chapel service I attend is led by a Calvinist. We hear a lot about sin and, well, sin. (Even on Easter. Thank God for ministers who posted their Easter joy online!) More than wishing I could hear less about sin and more about grace, I miss the style of sermon that asks us to look at the text as our own. I miss hearing personal stories that link the text to real life, and then encourage us to search for our own connections.

I won't hear the Calvinist preach this Sunday, but I am fairly certain I'd be hearing about faith saving us. That we MUST believe, it's our only hope. Yup, I get that.

That's not what I'd preach on.

I think I'd mention that there's not a lot of admonition. Thomas' need to see and touch (sound like a psalm, anyone?) doesn't damn him. Jesus chides, but welcomes, too. He allows for Thomas' questions and then moves on. We need Thomas, he's like us. We're not Peter, jumping in feet first, not looking for the stump in the shallows. We're not Mary, so relieved that love lives again we see the man and not the divine. We want to weigh, we want to think, we need a little time. (Could that be part of Thomas' "problem"? He wasn't there to begin with; he had time to think.)

John ends the interaction with Jesus' words "blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." And then the Gospel writer tells us that he has written this down so that we, without seeing, may believe and have life in His name.

Thomas is our foil: Thomas, an ordinary, after-the-fact believer has "seen and believed" and now we can believe, too.

I find it interesting that Thomas' role in Christian mythology continues after his Johannine encounter with Christ. His Gospel offers another view on Christ; people read his account and know that he wasn't one of the codified, and yet it tells the same story. Thomas was the apostle who carried the Good News to India, where there are still Thomasine churches. The Church in South India is one of the most varied and cohesive multi-denominational groups today. Peter's church has rigid lines of belief and unbelief. Thomas' is fluid and encompassing.

So, if I were preaching, that's where I'd start.

But that's not all that I see in this story. I see a shift in culture and the culture of belief. I wish I knew more Millenial preachers, as I think my viewpoint is on the younger side. The traditional read on Doubting Thomas is that we need to move out of our comfort zone - we should not need to see to believe.

As the United States has always been a "See it to believe it" kind of place. Doubting Thomas "works" for us. We need to hold, touch, talk, be WITH. We're consumers, we like to hold on to something. Even charitable donations, require a gift, a letter, some tangible sign that we've reached out. Along with our need to hold on to stuff, Americans are reserved. Combining reserve with seeing and believing, we've created a working system that rewards knowing people. We believe in codified belief-systems and institutions. Knowing where someone comes from, which schools, which company, which church...Old Boy Networks work because their world views were similar. There's not that much of stretch between the 3 Presidents who went to Yale. Clinton and Bush were members of the same secret society there. The general beliefs are the same, because the institutions are the same. (This is Thomas - we see ourselves in him, so it's okay to believe in his belief.)

Here's the culture shift: and like my Easter Joy, it comes from the Web.

I don't believe we, these younger generations, need to see to believe. We live in a very connected world, but our connections are through faith, not physicality.

Only a few years ago, it was important to delineate between "real life" friends (IRL) and on line friends. I don't hear that as much anymore. Just last month I asked a favor of an on-line friend I'd never met before, asking her to help another friend, one from down the street, find a new home in her area. In that transaction, there was no difference between believing in someone I could shake hands with and one I texted.

Several months ago, 60 Minutes did an interview with Mark Zuckerberg. The Boomer-something interviewer is clearly of the "see and believe" mentality. I could hear in her voice the disbelief in social networking. "A waste of time." "This is made for alumnae, but you didn't even graduate from Harvard." Both lines, that social networking might be a waste of time and that where you graduated from is of importance to who you are, imply the need to be concrete. They are Thomasine. Now, I am not saying that anyone else in Jesus' posse was any less concrete. They were all physically present with Jesus in his ministry and, at one point or another, his resurrection.

(Interesting, isn't it, that the person who spread the Gospel the furthest wasn't there at all? He's that outer link on the Friend Wheel, the one with his own massive wheel.)

If this culture shift is true, that who we are and what we believe is sufficient, without "old school" connections, without the need to see to believe, what does that mean for Thomas? In a new paradigm, where does Thomas stand? If we don't need him to touch for us, what do we need Thomas for?

Like Mary Magdalene last week, this is a story of ASKING FOR and RECEIVING FROM Jesus. 2000 years ago, Jesus' answer explained our generation's status: We are blessed to not have to see to believe. We can do it, and Jesus knew we'd get here. But Thomas' searching allows to keep searching, too. Those small questions of Thomas' led him to India, to a church which encompases many different ways of acting on Truth.

For today, let us recognize ourselves in Thomas: brave enough to ask for what we need and strong enough to carry it on to others.

Holy Crap!!

2007-06-07T13:11:00.000-05:00

It hit me as I drove home from running errands this morning...the movers are coming on Monday. All along I've bee saying "yeah, yeah, they'll pack it all up and move it all out, no biggie."

But that's not quite the whole story, is it?

Of course not. That doesn't include this afternoon's foray into party stuff for B's birthday party. Or tomorrow's activities that appear to be running on late into the night. Or the birthday party on Saturday. Or that both my mom and sister will be here for part of it and most likely stay a while. Or church on Sunday, when the kids are singing, B is reading and W is receiving his cotta...

Moves aren't really that big a deal. And moving to Sicily isn't really any different than moving to California.

Except that we have fully 2/3rds of our household goods going into long-term storage, and that means dancing with furniture and watching the movers so that they don't pack up something we really don't want.

I'd like to sigh, but my chest is too tight.

Guess I just need to power on through!

And pray!

What Shrek the Third has taught me

2007-05-21T07:27:00.000-05:00

And all that I refuse to learn...

The heavy-handed lesson from S/3rd is that people will label you what they will, but it's only true if you let it be. Shrek is an ogre, but he doesn't need to be an ugly, mean monster. Artie does his own thing, but he's only a loser if he doesn't believe in himself. Sort of Eleanor Roosevelt's "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent," dressed up for a modern audience.

This is a lesson that I insist on. In college I repeated like a mantra that I was there to learn all I could, not necessarily to earn the best grade that I could. I taped Eleanor's words to my desk as I wrote my thesis. I tell it to my kids. I fiercely believe that I am doing what is right for me.

But I can only believe it for so long.

Once a quarter the Alumnae Bulletin finds it's way to my mailbox. Inevitably, I put aside everything else and turn to the class notes. I am fixated on all that these incredibly industrious women do with their time and talent. And I begin to shrink inside of myself. Have I made poor choices? What am I doing here, a stay-at-home mom with too much education? It's not even that I want my achievements posted; at that moment, I can't see any achievements. I can't ask myself if someone would be interested in my lessons from the mom-front. I jump too quickly to castigation: Why am I not in there, tearing up the world doing...something!

That day came last week and I did not feel quite as badly as I read about the doings of the class of '93. I think that's because there really wasn't that much to tell. I am irritated that my notes, the notes I dutifully typed up, painfully reviewed (gosh, I hope my life of volunteer work and homemade bread doesn't sound too dumb), and sent it, didn't get published. But I gave myself a pat on the back that I wasn't letting others' achievements bring me down.

My college classmates are more and more in my position: they have kids, they stay at home, they rely more on their partner's involvement than previously, they are tired, frustrated, and grouchy. I have less to feel bad about; I know those feelings intimately. I even give advice. More than one friend has called me in a panic when their child has been chastised in preschool. They know I've been there and survived. It's a twisted point of pride in our family: there is no way that their kid could be as bad as W was - only he has been kicked out!

So why I am typing this?

By 8:15 this morning, I had checked Joe's haircut and his exam; fed, lunched, and put on the bus both kids; done the dishes and started a load of laundry. Cup of coffee beside me, I proceeded to the read the blogs on my list. There are a few cooking pages, but mostly I read church-y stuff: the news, the hype, the analysis (who says being Episcopalian is dull?!) and the endless list of women-in-religion blogs.

And it hit me. These women, women whom I respect, applaud, and hold up in prayer, feed that inner ogre. I couldn't read very far this morning before I started to hit myself about the shoulders: why don't I write like this; if only I were ordained; everyone else is at the party but me...

Here's the truth.

My path is different. I have never done things the way others do, whether by forethought or by circumstance. I hold up the edges for others: I am a mom who reads the news and talks about it with her kids; I am the mom who has taught her kids to cook; I am the woman who has already been there when it comes to contraception, marriage, babies, children. Because I believe that education is in the learning, whether I get an A+ or not, I am easy-going.

If I feel I am the only one walking, it doesn't mean the path isn't true.

I've spent a lot of this year being quiet, staying small. I think it's time to reclaim my status as trail marker. Not trailblazer: I follow other people. I just want others to know that we can get there, too.

Oh, Happy Day!

2007-02-12T17:02:00.000-05:00

Harvard's new president is a Bryn Mawr Alumn.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/12/education/12harvard.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Is there anything women can not do?

And, my favorite quote of the week, from another rockin' woman, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori "Life is too short to get too flustered."

I just wish I could remember that more frequently!

Breaking News - redeemed

2007-02-10T10:22:00.000-05:00

Diana Butler Bass has a wonderful essay on Anna Nicole Smith and our commitment to see the face of Jesus in everyone, per our Baptismal Covenant.

Thanks to Rick Lord at World of Your Making!

Breaking News

2007-02-08T16:34:00.000-05:00

First, I am on the "new" blogger - courtesy of my gmail. How fancy-schmancy.

But my inspiration for changing over was due to other "breaking news" and a gripe I have had for a few weeks now.
Is the death of Anna Nicole Smith BREAKING NEWS?!

This is not the first time msnbc.com has headlined a minor incident. And even NPR got into the act yesterday when they (albeit briefly) noted the psychotic break of Lisa Nowak. Good grief, the poor woman was clearly out of her senses, is that worthy of the national news?

I now take on, as my duty, pointing out when we are being unduly assaulted by BREAKING NEWS.

Now back to the happy-happy joy-joy of google-driven blogging.

Eve of St Brigid

2007-01-31T21:58:00.000-05:00

I wish I had the skill of giving things away. Instead, I seem to pile them up.

Tonight it is cookies, 100 extra-large chocolate chip and 88 extra-large sugar cookies.

Why did I say I would provide the cookies for Grandparents' lunch?

Another month?

2006-12-03T08:17:00.000-05:00

No, another Church year.

I promise to get my blogging butt in gear and actually write something.

Really.

Truly.

Later - it's time for pancakes at church.

someone has to speak

2006-11-08T13:09:00.000-05:00

I keep looking for chatter regarding yesterday's election. Not the people losing power or gaining power. Not the switch from moderate Republicans to conservative Democrats. Not referenda on abortion, the lives of pigs, or constitutional changes. These are all issues that will be played out on the big screen of our common life in the weeks and months to come.

What I wanted to hear is more immediate, and more pressing. What I want to hear, I caught out of the side of my ear while on the way home last night: this election, up to the moment of polling, cost $1.4 billion.

How many vaccines could we provide?
How many children could we educate?
How many innovative and incredible ideas could we foster?

So I am waiting for the chatter, and I haven't heard it.

The Mitre Makes the Outfit

2006-11-07T09:41:00.000-05:00

I spent Saturday at a discernment retreat. At first I was bummed that I would miss the webcast of the investiture of our new Presiding Bishop, Katharine. It turned out to be the perfect place to watch. A group of younger people and a lot of women, who better to watch with?
There was lots of color, lots of movement, lots of singing, lots of voices. The celebrants wore yellow. The liturgical dancers were amazing. The next time someone complains, I am going to send them over to the Omega Liturgical Dancers at the Cathedral of St John the Divine in NYC. They truly enhanced the liturgy.
I was relieved to see ++Katharine smiling during the sprinkling of the waters of baptism. I pray that she will continue to see God's grace during her tenure.
What I loved best was her mitre. It was hope-filled, colorful, and inviting, just as I see the Episcopal Church. I hope she continues to wear it and that we, the sheep of her flock, continue to see the Joy made manifest in this body of Christ, the Episcopal Church.

14% fat

2006-10-18T08:08:00.000-05:00

Years ago, I worked at an ice cream shop, the Vermont Creamery. No, not the Newport Creamery, that's a chain famous for coffee cabinets called Awful Awfuls. The Vermont Creamery was an independent ice cream shop in Concord, Mass. Like most employers of teenagers, it was a terrible place to work but it taught great lessons. One was "always put the cream in the coffee first." 20 years later and I am still a slave to milk-on-the-bottom coffee. I also have great compassion for other ice cream scoopers. Hard ice cream can pop tendons. I learned how to make real whipped cream (regardless of how close to closing up, we were required to offer freshly whipped cream for sundaes, is it any wonder the shop closed?). I learned how to mop, how to clean coffee carafes, how to make change and balance a register at the end of the day. I also learned that the customer is not always right. I did my best not to argue with the man who insisted that our pistachio was not really pistachio (without ever tasting it) because it wasn't green. Finally, I offered to direct him to the Brigham's down the street, where their pistachio was as green as the colorant could make it.

At some point in my ice cream career I decided it was better to work in the kitchen than face more touristy customers. I loved that kitchen. It most likely wasn't as clean as it should be, but it was spacious and tidy. Most of the space was taken up by a worktable and an enormous ice cream mixer. The walk-in freezers and fridge took up most of the space. I rode my bike to work most summer days and made sure I arrived early so that I could stand in the freezer for a few moments before starting work. The guy who made ice cream when I first started was the emperor of the kitchen. I had to stand at the door and ask for what I wanted. Not only was he the only one, other than the owner, to make the ice cream, he (was his name Andy?) was the only one allowed in the freezer to pick up the 10 gallon buckets to take upstairs. The rumor: he made gin and tonics in those buckets, labeled innocuously "vanilla" and delicious in a whole 'nother way. The rumor was true, and the drinks were great, far more refreshing than merely standing in the coolers

The ice cream dude left and the owner had to find other folks to make ice cream, pour molds of ice cream cake, scoop cookies, and muffins, and later make salads and sandwiches. I loved being in the kitchen. We never actually "made" the baked goods; they were scooped from buckets much like ice cream. And I don't think I was terribly successful at salads (I distinctly remember slicing through my fingertip with the spinach)...but ice cream was fun. Upon being hired, the owner went through a litany of ice cream: what ours was and wasn't (homemade, all-natural, no colorants...), and how the fat content compared to Brigham's (11%), Hagan Daz (15%), and Ben & Jerry's, at that moment as small, Vermont-only company. The owner's uncle lived in Vermont and as new employees, we were all required to taste the coveted Guys From Vermont's wares.

Yum, a perfect 14% butterfat.

14% has the perfect mouth feel. It glides without coating. You can be satisfied with a tiny scoop (the diet sundae) but not be overwhelmed if you inadvertently eat the whole pint. It makes a delicious vanilla, but carries other flavors well.

We also had a small paperback book from Ben & Jerry's, now widely available, that had their basic ice cream recipes. The ice cream makers at Vermont Creamery had a lot of fun making up new and exciting recipes. Like B&J's, ours had funny little names that were oh-so-apropos. Most of them were flops, or lasted only a few weeks - the run of a batch. My favorite was a delightful little ditty I called Moose Tracks: milk chocolate, white chocolate, whipped cream, and grape nuts cereal.

Imagine my delight when our Vermont vacation took us right past the Ben & Jerry's factory!! Heedless of the dire distress 14% would cause the dairy-allergic in our family, we HAD to go. 14% is alive and well in our lives once again.

3-Layer Outrage, Better with Age

2006-10-04T06:44:00.000-05:00

Cook's note:
This is quite rich and you might need to schedule some time with the punching bag or go for a run after ingesting.

This morning's settling of the Rep. Foley stew includes, yes, you guessed it:

1) Under the influence of alcohol.
When baking, the alcohol burns off but the flavor remains. Could that explain why after more than a year, the good Rep. didn't every apologize directly to his prey?

2) Gay.
Big whoop. So are a lot of people. Do you see them acting in this manner?
And, yes, the pressure to stand up under the weight of "speak for all of them" could drive you to drink, but drinking doesn't take away your responsibilities, see above.

3) Molested as a child by his priest.
Good Lord! Do you think this dish tastes better piled this high?

But, of course, he does not blame his actions on any of this. He just wants us to know.

**annotated: NPR has a small piece on their website re: girl pages and the sexual misconduct of congressional members

3-Layer Outrage, Simmered

2006-10-03T08:06:00.000-05:00

1) A man accused of inappropriate attention to teenagers is allowed to continue without reprimand.

Yesterday I heard that no one had done so because they felt it was a delicate balance between "accusing" him of being gay and accusing him of inappropriate communication.

2) This man is declares he has a drinking problem.

Fine, drink away. But claim your repsonsibility. There are a lot of alchoholics out there who do NOT cross sexual boundries with teenagers. Teenagers, by the way, who work for him. That would be another boundry, would it no?

3) Every news report to which I have listened or read, including the liberal press, has repeated this story as though pages were only young men.

Yes, Rep. Foley, most likely gay, only approached the male population.

I'd like someone to ask the girl pages how often they'd been inappropriatly approached.

This is not a gay issue.
This is not an alcoholic's issue.
This is INAPPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR, simmering in a culture of power and prestige.

Where is the love?

2006-09-28T07:32:00.000-05:00

Apparently, I have had a bad case of the blogging blahs.

My apologies.

I did just discover a fabulous blog - because being called by God does not mean you can't also be called by your MaryKay lady.

Truthfully, I have been too involved in back-to-school (x3, as J is also in school) to cook much and too involved in the Annual Fund to think much.

*sigh*

One can only hope that my brain opens up and I go back to writing.

too hot for pie?

2006-08-03T11:15:00.000-05:00

Never!

I'll admit it's been hot. Stick-to-your-seat hot. But if your skin already has a sheen to it, why not really get busy?

So I've been in the kitchen with pastry.

The first pie was for dinner on Tuesday night. It was "whatever pie." Perhaps not what to have when you've got first-time guests? It should have been delicious: peaches, rhubarb, and brown sugar in a double-crust glazed with milk and sprinkled with sparkly sugar. But it wasn't. Well, not for dinner. It makes fabulous breakfast pie.

The second pie was blueberry. The blues were bland, but they held their shape remarkably well. Far better, in fact, than the crust. It's not the heat, it's the melting point of butter. My lattice kept slipping. So I kept sticking it back in the freezer. And then it would crack. And then it would slip...you get the idea. I tried not to work it too much, so it looked fairly ridiculous. A giant blob of dough melted before it got blasted in the oven, so the pie looked as though it had a goiter. I can say it was a good-tasting goiter :)

The raspberries are looking good...but biscuits are sounding good, too. Is it too hot to fry up some bacon?

Exactly how hot is it?

2006-08-02T09:48:00.000-05:00

Apparently, hot enough to stick your head in the sink.

In Memorium

2006-06-10T14:20:00.000-05:00

Emmanuel Church, Newport, celebrated the sparky life of Frannie Minifie this morning. Frannie sat on the other side of the aisle, a few pews down. I could see her whispy white hair when I turned to hear the Gospel. Mostly, I tried to keep Wylie's high energy legs and arms from her fragile hands and cane. Two Sundays ago she was in the hospital, last Sunday she was gone and today, Saturday, we laughed until tears came and cried until we could laugh again. The woman was a wit and I shall miss her.

"Mrs. Minifie, what do you see is your role in the church?"
"I think I am most like a casserole."

Neither Church nor Kitchen

2006-05-08T11:11:00.000-05:00

But David Hockney!

Hockney has been an abiding passion of mine nearly as long as liturgical aerobics and swinging in the kitchen. My sister worked for the Andre Emmerich gallery in the 80's and I was exposed to Hockney's fabulous landscapes. And then the local museum carried a show of his photo collages and I was completly smitten.
Imagine my happiness when the Museum of Fine Farts announced a retrospective of portraits! I don't even really like the portraits, but a junky must get her fix...

Caveat: I am not an art writer, please bear with me.

The show is an investigation of Hockney's ability to work in many mediums with many faces. What I liked most was the feeling that the viewer was really allowed to get up close to the work and LOOK at it. I don't know if it was because the show was hung salon-style or because the write-ups were focused on technique, or if it was just my giddiness, but I really appreciated getting right up next to the paper.
The curators did a great job of showing off Hockney's appreciation of and internalization of Picasso. One piece is part of a series of sketches riffing on Wallace Steven's poem that was inspired by Picasso's painting The Old Guitarist. I am not a fan of Cubism (in fact, I nearly ran through the Cubist show a few galleries past the Gund Gallery), but I was captivated by the bold pieces of almost rearranged faces on one of the last walls. And, peaking around that free-standing wall, there were the photo collages! The are truly a movement of Cubism, but more emotionally attached. In all of Hockney's portraits you see the person as the painter sees: motion, expressions, postures, all at once. As such, the photo collages are a perfect expression of vision: all-at-once singularity of multi-faceted personalities. I could have sat in that little alcove all day!

Except that I got hungry and toddled off to the basement cafe.

But on the way home, I remembered that Milton, over at Don't Eat Alone had blogged about the blue guitar during Lent. So, in a way, my day was a little bit about theology and food.

The Kitchen Blues

2006-05-01T07:32:00.000-05:00

If April is the cruelest month, does May become more cheerful by default?

Early Spring in New England is a difficult time for the cook. Who wants a hearty stew, or even more soup when that's what we've been slurping for months now? We're tired of roasts and starch-heavy dishes, especially considering how near the ocean lies, and how close the warmer months seem. Produce in the grocery looks anemic and dull and has driven who-knows-how-many-miles to find the shelf, but not even sorrel is poking it's head up through the newly turned fields.

Sigh.

At least we can celebrate Cinqo de Mayo with margueritas!

A-Z meme

2006-04-26T07:50:00.000-05:00

Too good (and easy) to pass up:

Accent: upper-middle class New England (i.e. no flat a's and r's)

Booze: local white wines, vidal blancs are at the top of my list

Chore I Hate: vacuuming

Dog or Cat: two cats

Essential Electronics: radio, laptop, digital camera

Favorite Cologne(s): Aquolina Pink Sugar

Gold or Silver: gold? silver? can't decide

Hometown: Boston

Insomnia: never - it's the night terrors that drive me insane

Job Title: well, this is depressing, I apparently don't have one

Kids: 2, witty, beautiful, irksome

Living arrangements: lots of windows, wood floors - wait, I think this means: husband, 2 kids, 2 cats

Most admirable trait: welcoming

Number of sexual partners: why would you ask?

Overnight hospital stays: only for my babies

Phobias: rodents - the very thought of a guinea pig makes me itch

Quote: "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it."
or in the language of the Message:
"Why, some have extended hospitality to angels without ever knowing it!"

Religion: Christian, Episcopalian, liturgical

Siblings: the younger of two girls

Time I wake up: 6:36 a.m.

Unusual talent or skill: bread baking, but only buttermilk sandwich bread

Vegetable I refuse to eat: brussel sprouts, but I keep trying

Worst habit: rush to judgment

X-rays: teeth, hands

Yummy foods I make: lots!

Zodiac sign: Virgo

We've been on a bear hunt

2006-04-21T19:06:00.000-05:00

And it was a beautiful day. Actually, it was a beautiful few days. The kids and I took off for NYC on Monday and came home on Thursday. The weather could not have been better: not too hot, a little breeze, nice and sunny...the whole city was cheery!

It's spring vacation week here on Aquidneck Island, and for the past few years we haven't done much during vacations. The kids love the City - from street vendors to subways to eating out all the time and always far later than they would at home. While we could have gone anytime, recent art world stirrings made me want to go NOW.

We arrived later than hoped-for on Monday, mostly due to my futzing around at home, but also because we got caught in the slowest traffic from the NY State line all the way off the BQE. A quick trip to the Village Chip Shop (have you had a deep-fried Mars bar lately?) and we were ready for bed.

Tuesday dawned bright and beautiful and after a trip to the bank with Aunt G, we hopped the F train and stepped out at the Met. I promised the kids that if they behaved for the Kara Walker show, we'd eat at the museum cafeteria and then hit the Temple of Dendur and the Astor Court, B & W's favorites, respectively. After the Deluge was thought-provoking and difficult but interesting and in many ways very beautiful. Kara Walker's cut paper works, especially the large-scale ones, are incredible. The space is small, and it wasn't too crowded (is the Modern Art wing ever crowded?), and it was full of well-heeled women with inquiring minds. I totally needed a book to go along with the show, as I wasn't quite sure what I was supposed to be pondering. There's lots of white space on the walls and on the floor, and Kara Walker's own pieces were hung with others from the Met's collection. I really enjoyed stepping back from the subject matter and just looking at how she hung pieces together. All in all, I am really happy that I got to go.

It was a long day inside the grand art palace. The Modern Art wing is removed from most other stuff and at one far corner, the Temple of Dendur on the far side. The new cafeteria leaves a lot to be desired (including an exit sign once you are finished eating!). The Costume Institute is closed, so trying to reach the Astor Court, was, well, trying. At one point we got lost in the Egyptian Catecombs and then again in a web of musical intruments.

Thank God we could carouse in the park when we made it out at the end of the day! We went in search of a moderatly-priced ice cream and started off into the park. The kids had their photos snapped on Hans Christian Anderson's kneee and we stopped at the boat pond and watched the remote-controlled sailboats for a while and then meandered over to Bethesda Terrace, a favorite of ours, even with the fabulous tunnel mosaics under wraps as they are renovated. We settled on frozen fruit bars from the carts and let the mist from the fountain cool our faces. Good thing, too, to be so refreshed, as we got lost once again, in the Ramble!

We finished our day with pizza with Aunt J and Cousin A. I don't think the kids have ever met their Aunt and she is a true New York character. Perhaps I can figure out how to link photos and insert one of the clan.

Wednesday's ruminations will have to wait for another post.

What are the roots that clutch

2006-04-16T13:51:00.000-05:00

What branches grow out of this stony rubbish? ... 'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;	35
'They called me the hyacinth girl.'
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,	40
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Od' und leer das Meer.

The first soft days of Spring, with the jonquils and forsythia vying for our attention, yearly recalls T.S. Eliot's the Waste Land. Like Spring, like the Resurrection, this litany creeps to my conciousness.

for we are the sheep of His hand

2006-03-30T08:58:00.000-05:00

I start every morning facing the sink, facing East, fixing coffee. As a ritual, it is extremely satisfying - not much changes in the phsyical functions, even sickness or cranky children can't stop the flow of water from faucet to pot, the fine grains of coffee from bag to filter. The view framed by my window remains the same: cul-de-sac, 3 large neighbor-houses, hedgerow, field, sky. Within those confines, everything changes. 6:40 am is always different. Some mornings I watch raucus crows and gulls argue their wake up calls. Many days it's the creep of fog up from the river that focuses my attention. The February field is tan stubble, but the May field is verdant. Last fall brought orange globes of pumpkin shining through the mist, this fall it may be tall corn. After the harvest I see porch lights, and know the houses by their dark shadows. Each day requires fine adjustments. The sun wheels 'round the edges, its meniscus higher now than 3 months ago.

This morning's 6:40 was blue and yellow, the sun already above the far banks of the out-of-sight river, the field tipped with green. Cold water filling the coffee pot, I pushed on the radio. Today is a very different morning than it was 3 months ago for the family and friends, the coworkers and the unknown supporters of freelance reporter Jill Carroll. Her freedom broke my heart open, and what I didn't know was locked was free, too. This woman that I don't know and never will touched me deeply.

Ms. Carroll is young, articulate, intelligent, and committed to telling a story she knows she can tell. I will be interested in reading her account of her confinement by captors who never told her what they wanted. I will be interested in her return to writing, and I hope her return to the streets and the people of Iraq.

This morning, at 6:41, as water flowed and coffee dripped and the sun stretched warmth westward, I was sure the Psalmist got it right:

Come let us sing to the Lord; *
let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving *
and raise a loud shout to him with psalms.

For the Lord is a great God, *
and a great King above all gods.
In his hand are the caverns of the earth, *
and the heights of the hills are his also.
The sea is his, for he made it, *
and his hands have molded the dry land.

Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee, *
and kneel before the Lord our Maker.
For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. *
Oh, that today you would hearken to his voice!

Roast-Alt

2006-03-26T13:35:00.000-05:00

I hate leftovers. I know they are lurking in the fridge, ready to stink up a storm, make me toss the tupperware, and feel guilty for waste all at the same time. So imagine my gratitude, when during a silent moment in church this morning, I realized I could swing leftovers for lunch this afternoon out of last night's dinner!

Cauliflower leftovers:
Heat 1 Tbsp olive oil in medium saucepan. Add 1 chopped onion and one smooshed-and-chopped clove of garlic until soft. Pop open can o' chicken stock, bring to a boil. Add leftover cauliflower and simmer until heated-through, about 5 minutes. Toss in flavoring of your choice: I happen to have some almost-moldering basil that needed to be used.
An immersion blender is great for soups. This is the moment when I would plug it in and let it whirl. And I did. Except it didn't work. There were still plenty of little cauliflower florets afterwards. Oh well, a regular blender would work better but make more mess...
I plopped in a spoonful of butter, just to make is silky and yummy and let it sit on the stove at barely-a-simmer while I went about the rest of the meal.

Pork Quesadillas:
The best quesadillas are made on a skillet, but really, who has time for that? Turn your oven on to 350 or use the broiler if you are good about remembering. I tend to get sidetracked and the broiler often burns more than it broils.
Shred whatever assortment of cheese your fridge drawer holds. We had low-fat cheddar and jalapeno monterey jack. Also shred, or small dice, leftover pork - sans the bread topping, that just sounds gross! If you have some salsa, use that, too. Arrange toppings on tortilla and pop in oven for 3-5 minutes (less if you are using that broiler!). Fold over, cut in half, and top with salsa.

If leftovers were always this easy, we'd have a clean fridge!

Roasted Dinner

2006-03-25T19:11:00.000-05:00

I ate before thinking, so there's no photo to accompany the delicious meal we just finished. One of my favorite roasts is from the Joy of Cooking, a boneless pork loin with some Florentine-y title. I can only remember that it is subtitled "Arista" which is useless when you are trying to use the index! I have been riffing on the roast for years, but tonight's was the best:
1 boneless pork loin plonked into a small roasting pan
pour over 1/4 cup of homemade champagne-vinegar-based salad dressing with lots of garlic, pepper, and parsley
Preheat the oven to 450 and let the roast sit while you try to figure out the rest of the meal...

I had bought a lovely orange cauliflower last week, and as that was quickly going to go bad and was too expensive to toss, that was definatly on the menu. I cut it into tiny florets and tossed it with olive oil, salt, and pepper.

The roast works best if you roast it at high heat for a short while, so let it cook for 10 minutes in the 450 oven.
While it's in there, mix 1/2 cup fresh breadcrumbs with 1 or 2 Tbsp melted butter and some of the goodies from the salad dressing already used.
Lower the oven to 275 and pat breadcrumb crust on top of roast. Continue cooking until thermometer registers 160. Remove from oven to platter, tent with foil for 5 minutes, slice and serve.

Well, that's how it should work, except I had to get that cauliflower in the oven at a higher temperature, and we needed to eat within the next hour...so after 1/2 hour at the lower temperature, I bumped the temperature up to 350 and popped the cauliflower in on the top rack. When the roast registered an approximate temperature, I took it out and raised the temperature to 400 to finish those poor veggies.

Too much roasted food? We served it with a bag o' salad and bubbly water!

The Blank Screen Ovewhelms

2006-03-25T16:40:00.000-05:00

When I look back on this, I will be humbled. Welcome to my blog, folks!