Bluing

In this morning's meditation, I remembered a dream I had very early this morning.  In the dream is a beautiful dark haired young woman.  She has broken up with her now former boyfriend because someone new has come into her life.  The new suitor has given her a beautiful bracelet.  The thin cuff of the bracelet is sliver, and curves around a singular large, dark blue stone. The stone is oval shaped and is the color of a deep cloudless twilight.  The piece is simple, balanced, and stunning.  However, the former boyfriend decides he wants the bracelet. He seems convinced that he deserves it and he has another he can give her. His piece is far inferior, and really could not even be considered a piece of jewelry - more of a trinket or a souvenir.  In the dream I speak up:  "That bracelet was never yours. You have no claim to it nor can you offer any exchange for it."  I cannot remember if the young woman says anything, but I have a sense she is concerned, but seems to be having some difficulty taking a stand with the former boyfriend.  I feel committed to making sure he does not end up with this beautiful piece that in my mind, he neither deserves nor has any claim to.  

 

Humanity is in a time of deep transition.  The temptation to wish for being able to return to the way things were is strong, but that is illusionary thinking.  I believe we are being called into a new time. Despite the disease that is moving through the world, we are seeing that the earth is healing.  Let us not be deceived by old thinking that views the earth and all of life as only a resource to be plundered and hoarded.  I came across an interesting phrase today:  "hie homeward".  Hie is an archaic word that means quickly.  This phrase speaks to me not of trying to rush back into our former lives, but rather returning home to our essence with haste. For those of us who are sheltering in place, we are being called to prayer, to envisioning, to holding hope.  We each take on this task in our own way, but however we are called, we are being summoned to help roll the stone of fear and old thinking away.  

The Easter season is close and is eternal.  Let us begin our journey to move out of the tomb of deadening fear as we hear those ancient words, "Be not afraid."  Let us go forward into this new time.       

 

May your beauty shine today.    

   

Look, there was a great earthquake, for an angel from the Lord came down from heaven. Coming to the stone, he rolled it away and sat on it. Now his face was like lightening and his clothes white as snow. 

Matthew 28:2-3

A Happy Day

This morning Tyler was eyeing the two darkening bananas on our counter.  I said, "I can bake banana bread if you like."  Since the end of last year, as the kitchen was dismantled and re-mantled, I have not quite gotten back into the baking mode.   Yet, there is a big difference between just eating a banana and using the fruit for a bread, so this afternoon I baked.  Such a glorious feeling to chop the pecans.  As I moved the bread knife with its handy serrated blade through the pecans, I remembered a neighborhood friend of my parents whom Tyler and I got to get to know when my parents moved to Odessa.  She had a pecan tree in her backyard, and I can still hear her saying, "If I have pecans in the freezer, I do not worry."  I did indeed have pecans in the freezer.   I am not sure how someone who grew up in West Texas in the 50's and 60's who did not like pecans survived.  They appeared in everything.  Except, at least for my mother anyway, in the dressing for the turkey.  Honestly, I love them in dressing, but I do still feel my mother wince.   

 

Our kitchen refrigerator is still not repaired, so our cold food is being kept in our old garage refrigerator.  As we were shifting food, we discovered some leftover homemade buttered rum mix (sans rum) leftover from Christmas.  I was going to throw it out as our upstairs refrigerator had developed an unappetizing odor, but Tyler tasted the mix and announced it as still delicious.  I decided to use it in the banana bread today.  There are spices that are usually not in the bread, but they are quite compatible (cloves, allspice, and cinnamon).  We had just enough of the butter/spice mixture to both coat the pan and add to the flour, baking soda, eggs, milk, and yes, chopped pecans.  No extra salt was needed as that, too, was in the butter  mixture.  I just tasted the results:  I can taste the banana and the pecans, and also the spices.  The texture is good.  The bread is not too sweet. This will sustain for a couple of days.  Certainly longer than simply eating a banana while standing over the sink, although sometimes that is quite appropriate, especially when being pressured by the dog for the morning walk.     

 

This is the cooking that I was taught and that I love.  How to make the ingredients on hand stretch.   How to substitute when running to the grocery store is not feasible. Now that I think about it, this is what we are doing in our churches.  How to make use of what and who we have on hand.  How to mix all of that together to make it substantial enough to sustain us through these times.  How to taste for the new spice being offered right in our own midst.      

  

Love and blessings to you all,  

Sue Ann   

Landmarks

We woke this morning to learn that the refrigerator that we bought a year ago year had stopped working.  It is under warranty, and the warranty company, who seems to take pride in their "24/7 service", has been responsive.  But today is Saturday and the repair company is off for the weekend.   Fortunately, we have a second refrigerator in the garage.  It is much older and probably not particularly energy efficient, but we have had to completely rely on it more than once.  I will say that to lose your refrigerator just as a pandemic takes hold can be disconcerting.  However, we got most of our food shifted with the exception of a nice homemade chicken stock that I just completed yesterday. There were also some pot stickers in the freezer that were still cold but almost thawed.  After boiling the stock for several minutes, as a "just in case"  measure, I  added soy sauce, fish sauce, some lemon grass, and some vinegar (Unfortunately, we had no ginger.) to the stock and then added the pot stickers.  Quite a tasty breakfast, especially when paired with the thawing "potato puffs" that also needed to be roasted immediately.    

   

In times of confusion, I find comfort, as I have since I was in seminary, in a small book entitled Always We Begin Again,The Benedictine Way of Living by John McQuiston II.  It is based on the author's understanding of The Rule of St. Benedict. I have always appreciated McQuiston's straight forwardness, and I find strength in the knowledge that St. Benedict created his monastic rule in a tumultuous time.  Rome fell in A.D. 410, just forty years before St. Benedict's birth. Esther de Waal describes the time as "a world without landmarks" (Seeking God, the Way of St. Benedict, 2001, page 15).  I share the following with you today in case you, too, need a dose of practical reinforcement in our own tumultuous times.  I would suggest keeping ginger root on hand.  You just never know, and it does make a wonderful tea.  

The First Rule   

Attend to these instructions, 

Listen with the heart and the mind; 

They are provided in a spirit of goodwill. 

These words are addressed to anyone 

who is willing to renounce the delusion 

that the meaning of life can be learned;

whoever is ready 

to take up the greater weapon of fidelity 

to a way of living that transcends understanding. 

  

The first rule is simply this:  

 live this life 

and do whatever is done, 

in a spirit of Thanksgiving. 

Abandon attempts to achieve security, 

they are futile.  

  

Give up the search for wealth, 

it is demeaning, 

quit the search for salvation, 

it is selfish, 

   

and come to comfortable rest  

in the certainty that those who 

participate in this life 

with an attitude of Thanksgiving 

will receive its full promise.

      

Photograph was taken in San Leandro today, March 28, as  I paused in front of a house that I have walked by for over two decades.  I have never once seen anyone go in or come out of it.  It appears to be moderately well kept, and this is the rare weed that has shown up in the yard that knows no fence. There are still mysteries.