Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Simple pleasures

Roasted delicata squash with parmesan

With

1 part lavender liqueur (homemade last fall)
1 part French dry vermouth
dash Angostura bitters
ice

And

a healthy chattering toddler

who unfortunately just poured out her water into her tray.

Have a kosher Easter!

Sugar Easter Charms (K)
Sugar Easter Charms (K)
( SKU Number: 5600-EA-AC-1 )


Charming is an understatement for these 1/2" - 7/8" miniature sugar charms. Your Easter treats will be too cute to eat!! A generous 24 pieces per package, includes 8 each of Chick, Egg and Bunny. Molded sugar. KOSHER - manufactured under the supervision of the Kashruth Division of the Orthodox Union.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Why Mary didn't blink

This morning one of our chickens, Meg, flapped her way out of their run. I heard a squawk, and turned to see her walking alongside the others, outside the fencing, puzzled. I went to pick her up and she hopped a bit away, flapped a little, and then settled down against my chest as I stroked her. She's used to my giving her food and treats, picking her up, smoothing her ruffled feathers.

As the baby continued to eat her breakfast (or toss her breakfast on the floor. Whatever.) our cat Jamba joined the throng beneath her chair to collect whatever manna might fall. I reached my hand down to stroke him. He didn't flinch, letting my hand graze his fur as he continued his pursuit.

We are often mystified -- even incredulous --at Mary's acceptance of the angel's presence. Some reject it outright, explaining it as a patriarchal view of a simperingly weak woman. Or as just not what a young teenager would do. Or even as a rape of sorts -- Leda and the swan.

Perhaps our response to Mary's equanimity reflects our own experience of God's loving provision. We doubt because we have not spent our lives knowing we were being fed, loved, cared for. We are the feral cats, the factory-farmed food, accustomed to scrounging or gulping, lost or confined.

But for Meg, and Jamba, and Mary, the Provider is loving, trustworthy, and ultimately safe. And the only response to the assuredness of love is: Yes.

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Sixth learning

Sometimes you're the one doing the interviewing.

(No, not a job interview. Ignatian exercises.)

Fifth learning

I don't have to be blissed out to know I've been with the Lord.

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Fourth learnings

The problem with greed is that the "too much" is never as good as the "enough", and lures us into believing that this is because it is not enough.

I can construct reasons for shame in the most benign of circumstances.

"At the end of the everlasting "why" there is a "yes" and a "Yes" and a "YES!" (poorly paraphrased from "A Room With a View")

My deepest, most authentic desire turns out to be what I thought it was: to be flooded constantly by the fire that burns but does not burn up, by the God who wants to know me even more than I want to know Them, by the unselfconsciousness that allows for the miracle of the intimate "I am the Lord's servant. May it be with me according to your will," and for the ongoing miracle itself. Yes, that's one desire.

Every day one must reopen the floodgates and keep the hinges oiled.

And the strangest learning today? Even me.