Retreat Chef

I have spent this week-end down at the Isle of Palms (near Charleston, SC), being part of a team that cooked for a retreat.  I used to cook for larger groups more often, so I knew I could do it.  But I'm also relieved that we're coming to the end of the retreat, and it's been a success.

We were helped by the fact that it's a group of people who are easy to cook for:  no dietary restrictions, no allergies.  We made pork tenderloin last night, and everyone ate it, and many went back for seconds.  Most of the participants spend much time in caring professions and providing care for family members--it's been years since anyone cooked for them, and they haven't been shy about expressing their gratitude.

It's an amazing kitchen--that helps too.  The kitchen has 2 dishwashers, 2 stoves, and 3 refrigerators.  It's got lots of equipment and all the basics, like dishes and silverware, every type of pot and pan, baking containers in every size and shape.

It hasn't all been cooking.  There's been Bible study and worship and lots of great conversation.  Back in October, on a chilly morning walk, when I agreed to help with the retreat, I hoped it would be this kind of experience.

It's been interesting being back at this retreat center, which is one of two Lutheran retreat centers in South Carolina.  I first came here as part of a campus group long ago in 1983.  My family came here in 1984 with a church group; it was the beginning of summer, and I wondered how I would last without seeing my college friends for a WHOLE SUMMER.

Now I'm thinking about coming back here at some point this summer to reconnect with old friends. 

I haven't done much grading, but I still have time.  Grades are due on Monday and Tuesday--plenty of time, but as I tell my students in the waning days of a term, not as much time as we once had.  I haven't done much writing, but there is plenty of time--a WHOLE SUMMER.

The First Fish Fry of the Season

Yesterday afternoon, I finished teaching, drove from Spartanburg to Arden, where I live, and then, after changing clothes, drove from Arden to Bristol, Tennessee, where I am a part-time minister at Faith Lutheran.  Last night was the first of four spring fish fry events.

People pay $10 for a wonderful plate of food:  fish (fried or baked), mac-and-cheese, pierogies and caramelized onions, cole slaw, green beans, rolls, and an amazing assortment of desserts and drinks.  I use the word amazing because I know how many members we have and how many desserts we offer, and that means people are making a lot of dessert.

All of the money goes to local charities, primarily the local ones that deal with hunger.  But people come for the food.  That's what I thought until last night.

We arrived at 4:45, and the event was supposed to start at 5.  When we got there, people were already there, waiting for food.  Many of the people who came were so excited to be there.  They love the food, but more than that, they love the chance to sit and reconnect with neighbors from across the community (and a few of them are reconnecting with literal neighbors).

We had a steady stream of people coming and going, with almost every place in the smallish fellowship hall occupied for the first 80 minutes of the event.  We ran out of cole slaw, but we didn't run out of desserts.  

I thought about how past Kristin would have viewed this event.  She would have wondered why we were having this event, when so many people who come already have a church home.  She would have looked at the amazing amount of work that it takes to put on this event, and she would have suggested that we donate a chunk of money instead of buying the food and cooking it and selling plates.

But current Kristin has a glimmer of a different way of thinking about this.  People are hungry for community.  They want to have a chance to reconnect with people who live in the same geographical area.  They care less about people's religious or political beliefs.

I realize that what I observed last night may be more true in small towns than in big urban centers.  But I suspect that even in the big cities, people are longing for the kind of connection that a fish fry event can give them.

The Feast Day of Santa Lucia

Today is the feast day of Santa Lucia, a woman in 4th century Rome during a time of horrible persecution of Christians and much of the rest of the population, and she was martyred.  The reasons for her martyrdom vary:   Did she really gouge out her eyes because a suitor commented on their beauty? Did she die because she had promised her virginity to Christ? Was she killed because the evil emperor had ordered her to be taken to a brothel because she was giving away the family wealth? Was she killed because a rejected suitor outed her for being a Christian?  We don’t really know.  

She is most often pictured with a crown of candles on her head, and tradition says that she wore a candle crown into the catacombs when she took provisions to the Christians hiding there.  With a candle crown, she freed up a hand to carry more supplies.  I love this idea, but it wouldn't surprise me to find out that it isn't true.

Truth often doesn't matter with these popular saints like Lucia, Nicholas, and Valentine.  We love the traditions, and that means we often know more about the traditions than we do about the saints behind them, if we know anything at all about the saints behind these popular days.

This feast day still seems relevant for two reasons.  First, Lucia shows us the struggle that women face in daily existence in a patriarchal culture, the culture that most of us still must endure.  It’s worth remembering that many women in many countries today don’t have any more control over their bodies or their destinies than these long-ago virgin saints did. In this time of Advent waiting, we can remember that God chose to come to a virgin mother who lived in a culture that wasn’t much different than Santa Lucia’s culture: highly stratified, with power concentrated at the top, power in the hands of white men, which made life exceeding different for everyone who wasn't a powerful, wealthy, white man. It's a society that sounds familiar, doesn't it?

On this feast day of Santa Lucia, we can spend some time thinking about women, about repression, about what it means to control our destiny.  We can think about how to spread freedom.

It's also an important feast day because of the time of year when we celebrate.  Even though we're still in the season of late autumn, in terms of how much sunlight we get, those of us in the northern hemisphere are in the darkest time of the year.  It's great to have a festival that celebrates the comforts of this time of year:  candles and baked goods and hot beverages.

I love our various festivals to get us through the dark of winter. In these colder, darker days, I wish that the early church fathers had put Christmas further into winter, so that we can have more weeks of twinkly lights and candles to enjoy. Christmas in February makes more sense to me, even though I understand how Christmas ended up near the Winter Solstice.

I made my traditional Santa Lucia bread last week, for a gathering where I wanted one slightly healthier treat to be available.  Today, I'm baking a different bread, but you could make a more traditional offering.  If you’d like to try, this blog post will guide you through it.  You could end with bread braids cooling on racks in just a few hours:

If you’re the type who needs pictures, it’s got a link to a blog post with pictures.  Enjoy.

Happy Santa Lucia day! Have some special bread, drink a bracing hot beverage, and light the candles against the darkness.

Sunday Update: Satisfying Sermons and Disappointing Pizza

Yesterday's worship service went well.  Come to find out, the seminarian who asked to give the sermon is at a Lutheran seminary, and her sermon was just fine.  She did not talk about some of the more polarizing parts of our society, like justice for Palestine or Trumpian politics.  She didn't talk about the assassination of Charlie Kirk.  Her sermon was much more universal, about the need to avoid writing people off, the way that God threatened to do with the Israelites when they worshiped a golden calf.  She tied in all the readings in a way that I rarely do; I usually focus on the Gospel alone.  Hurrah!

On our way home, we talked about the fact that the visiting seminarians will probably be eligible for ordination before I am, and we wondered if they would be interested in the job that Faith Lutheran could offer them.  My guess is that they probably have something different in mind, but I could be wrong.  If it would work out, I would be fine with that.  My goal has always been to be a good caretaker while they found something more permanent.

Our afternoon was more disappointing.  We got a pizza from the Ingles deli, and it was blah, blah, blah.  The one advantage:  it was quick to heat up.  We won't be doing that again.  My problem is that I want pizza made by one of our local places, in all its greasy glory.  My spouse objects to that kind of pizza on every level, primarily cost, but also, it's often structurally compromised (not cooked through, not enough toppings, too greasy).  So we get disappointing options, trying to work around those objections, and often, we're neither one of us happy with the meal.

I was surprised at how hard I had to work so that my disappointment didn't derail the whole rest of the day.  I could have ordered the pizza that I really wanted, but I had already eaten so many bad pizza calories that I didn't like.  My spouse took a nap, and I drifted around the house trying to decide what to do next.  I knew that I was still hungry, so I started a batch of focaccia.  I also made the lentil-barley combo that anchors my weekday lunch.  I'm always looking for ways to make it more interesting, so this time, I tried this recipe from Smitten Kitchen, the lime-cilantro dressing part of the recipe.  It wasn't as heavenly and sublime as the recipe makes it sound, but I decided to use it anyway.

And now it is time for another week to begin.  We are at that time in the semester where I feel a bit panicked about running out of teaching ideas, particularly in English 100, the class before the college level English Composition class.  But I know that I have plenty of ideas, and there's still plenty of time.    

Saturday Snippets: the Prodigal Samaritan and Other Meanderings

Here we are, practically at mid-July.  Let me capture a few snippets that I want to be sure to remember:

--Last night, we had some folks over for dinner, some Music Week friends and family.  I offered invitations on Thursday, and the ability to be spontaneous made me happy.  I was also happy that my spouse was able and willing to take care of the important details, like buying the grillables, while I was at work.

--My spouse bought pork chops and country ribs because they were on sale.  Happily, all our friends and family eat pork.  But even if they didn't, we'd have had enough.  I finally made squash casserole, and we had watermelon too.  We had a pan of roasted potato pieces and a big salad.  One friend brought a bowl of peach chunks, which went so beautifully with pork and also worked for dessert with the chocolate chip oatmeal cookies I made earlier in the week.  

--We had seven people around the dinner table, which is about all we can fit comfortably.  It's a small table for our small space.  I'm glad we were able to make it work.  I'm grateful for friends who understand the challenges of a small space.

--I'm also grateful for a dishwasher, which made clean up so much easier.

--One early morning over oatmeal, I was talking about my dream coffee maker.  It would have several parts.  One would be a single serving, pod-like, machine.  One would be a traditional 10 cup coffee brewing contraption.  It would also make espresso and steam/froth milk (and the steamer needs to be detachable and dishwasher safe).

--Of course, such a machine would take up too much valuable counter-top real estate, even if I could bring myself to afford what a company would charge for such a contraption.  But it is the one counter-top appliance that I use every day.

--This morning I'm finishing my sermon on the Good Samaritan.  Earlier this week I said I was writing a sermon on the Prodigal Samaritan, and I have mused about what that parable might be.

--I have a lot to say about the Good Samaritan.  It's rare to have a Gospel reading that could go in multiple directions.  I often feel like I can barely eke out one sermon.  I'm grateful that this sermon came together easily, because it's been a jam-packed week.

--It's been a wonderful week.  I am not sure I could keep going at this pace, but I'm glad to know that I can hang in there for at least one jam-packed week.

Fish Fries and Mission Questions

Yesterday afternoon we went over the mountain to Bristol, Tennessee for the last fish fry of the season as Faith Evangelical Lutheran Church.  It's one of the community events that the church does, usually 4 of them throughout the spring.  

It's an amazing deal.  Ten dollars per plate, which includes fried or baked fish, green beans, pierogi, mac and cheese, cole slaw, and a roll.  That ten dollars also includes a beverage and a vast array of desserts.  While most people don't treat the event as an all you can eat extravaganza, we do give seconds if asked.  The money raised goes local charities, primarily the food pantry.

It's not an evangelical event, not in the traditional way.  Most of the people who come to the event already have a home church.  Most of the people who come already know about the church.  It's a small community, so most of the people who come have a personal connection to those of us at the church preparing and serving the food.

In a variety of classes and workshops on mission, I've been told that an essential question for churches is this one:  would your larger community miss you if you were gone?  Does the larger community even know that you are here?

Long before Faith Lutheran starts to advertise, the phone calls come in January, phone calls asking when the first fish fry will be.  Our church raises not only money for the food bank, but members work there, distributing food to the community.  We don't do the kinds of things that other churches might do:  no one uses our building but us, for example.  We don't offer computer literacy lessons or other kinds of classes that community members might want.  We are far from the legislative places where big decisions are made--we won't be demonstrating as a single church.

I often think of what I might do if I was their full-time pastor.  I'm not convinced that the church can grow much in terms of gaining new members.  There might be more to do in terms of being an essential member of the community, in terms of networking.  But again, it's a small community, so it's likely already happening, although perhaps not in a way that mission experts would be able to quantify.

How many members, how many individuals impacted?  I am grateful that I don't have to think in terms of these numbers.   I can just show up to enjoy a great meal, exchange stories with people who come, and give thanks for a wonderful community.

Gospel in Bread Sculpture

On Saturday, I worked on my sermon and made the dough for communion bread--it's not a special recipe, but it's the one that yields the most consistent results, King Arthur Baking's recipe for an oatmeal bread that I make without the cinnamon.

My spouse made this bread creation to illustrate the Gospel for Sunday, July 1, 2024, about Jesus and the bleeding woman who touched the hem of his garment for healing.  I wrote this Facebook post:  "Today's Gospel, Mark 5: 21-43, in bread form (touching the hem of Jesus). I made the dough, but Carl Berkey-Abbott is the artist who shaped it. Just another fun Saturday at the Berkey-Abbott house."

An Old-Fashioned Friday Fish Fry at Faith Lutheran

Last night we went to an old-fashioned fish fry, the kind that a church does when it's a Friday in Lent.  We're not Catholic, but at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, TN, we do have members who grew up in other parts of the country, so they have fond memories of the fish fries done by their local churches every Friday in Lent.

In fact, in our first meeting, we were on a Zoom call.  I was in D.C., the Synod rep was in Atlanta, and the church was in the fellowship hall, getting ready for one of the fish fries.  I was impressed then, and I remain impressed after participating last night.

We headed out about 2:15, which meant we got there early enough to do a bit of helping with the last of the set up.  

I helped put pieces of cake in plastic clamshell containers, and my spouse got the fish fry area ready.  And then we hit the ground running.

I was one of the servers on the line.  When we started, I couldn't imagine we'd serve all the food, but we ran out of rolls and green beans, which after a quick run to the store, we had more to offer.  The same was not true of the macaroni and cheese.  We had enough for most people, but the church people who waited until the end didn't have any.  We had plenty of fish, both fried and baked, and a wide variety of desserts.

The fish fry started at 5, and the biggest crowds came at 5:15, and then again at 5:30 and periodically after that.  We didn't run out of seats, and everyone was seated in the fellowship hall, which isn't a huge space.

It was great to sit at a table at the end and eat with the team that pulled it all together and did the bulk of the work.  There was no political discussion, no theological discussion--we mainly talked recipes, since all of the food was prepared from scratch, not by the chemists at Costco.

It was a fun event, and seemed to pull from many parts of the community.  The church has 3 more fish fries scheduled, and I'd be willing to go to them all.  

A Colonial Lunch

Yesterday's weather was pleasant for January, and the Colonial Williamsburg info line told us that the Christmas decorations would be up until January 7, so we headed over for lunch.  Unfortunately, we got there just as they were finishing the process of taking them down, but happily, we still got to see a few.  We expected crowds, so we headed over to the King's Arm Tavern to get there just as the restaurant opened.

We took in the atmosphere and looked over the menu.  Our server put water glasses on our table, reminding us that we had clean water, safe to drink, which wouldn't have been the case in colonial days.  A nearby table asked what the colonial people would drink, and the answer was beer for all, even the children.  The father told his daughter that no, she couldn't have beer.

The child was actually more interested in her book than in beer or any other part of the lunch.  It did my heart good, although I understand how it was probably frustrating to her family. She made the kind of bargain that you might with younger children:  "If I eat 5 bites of my lunch, then can I read?"  I was that kind of reader too, and with the right book, I still can be.

The meal was full of historical information.  We learned that colonial gentlemen would try to impress women with their shapely calves, and if they didn't have shapely calves, they would put fabric in their socks or a wooden form--this led to the phrase "putting your best foot forward" because men would doff their hats, put a foot forward, and bow, while ladies surreptitiously surveyed their calves.  We learned about people traveling with huge napkins which they would tie around their necks (tying up loose ends) to protect their clothes from food.  We also had a lovely mini-concert on the Irish harp, and we learned that only Ireland has a national instrument, which is the Irish harp.

The other table was a family speaking Spanish, and I thought about how far the country has come:  we have water that is safe to drink, little girls who want to read, and more food than colonists could dream of.  We have dining rooms where people who can afford it can have a meal, all of us mixed together in ways that wouldn't have happened in the U.S. until late in the 20th century.

We decided to have onion pie for our lunch.  It was a mix of potatoes, onions, and apples, with a pie crust on top, and an egg on top of that.  I thought the chunks of potatoes, onions, and apples would be distinct from each other, but they were boiled into a mush.  It was a delicious mush, like a savory applesauce.  We had carrots and skinny beans on the side.

I made this Facebook post:  "When in Williamsburg, one should eat like a revolutionary. This onion pie is made from one of Martha Washington's recipes."

After lunch, we made our way down the street, being careful to avoid the horse poop from the carriage that had gone ahead of us.  We wanted to see the Bruton Parish Church; on previous trips, we hadn't been able to go inside.

It was truly beautiful (later, when I've uploaded the photos from my phone, I'll add them to this post).  The decorations were still in place, all made the way they would have been made in colonial times, which is to say, they were made from natural materials like magnolia leaves and pods and flowers.

I've been in historical churches before, always as a visitor, and I always wonder what it would be like if one was a regular worshipper there.  I imagine that sooner rather than later, one forgets the history, except when the building needs repair.

We made our way back to the car, a chillier walk as we faced the breeze.  I was glad to sink into the car, even as part of me wanted to be riding in a carriage.  I wondered what it would be like to work as a server in the restaurant or the people who walk around the town in character and in costume.  It looks like a fun job to me, a former drama club kid, but I realize in the end, it would be a job similar to other jobs that happen without the costumes and the colonial overlay.

It was a delightful lunch, both a trip back in time and a look to the future.  We returned home, nourished in all sorts of ways.

The Feast Day of Santa Lucia

Today is the feast day of Santa Lucia, a woman in 4th century Rome during a time of horrible persecution of Christians and much of the rest of the population, and she was martyred.  The reasons for her martyrdom vary:   Did she really gouge out her eyes because a suitor commented on their beauty? Did she die because she had promised her virginity to Christ? Was she killed because the evil emperor had ordered her to be taken to a brothel because she was giving away the family wealth? Was she killed because a rejected suitor outed her for being a Christian?  We don’t really know.  

She is most often pictured with a crown of candles on her head, and tradition says that she wore a candle crown into the catacombs when she took provisions to the Christians hiding there.  With a candle crown, she freed up a hand to carry more supplies.  I love this idea, but it wouldn't surprise me to find out that it isn't true.

Truth often doesn't matter with these popular saints like Lucia, Nicholas, and Valentine.  We love the traditions, and that means we often know more about the traditions than we do about the saints behind them, if we know anything at all about the saints behind these popular days.

This feast day still seems relevant for two reasons.  First, Lucia shows us the struggle that women face in daily existence in a patriarchal culture, the culture that most of us still must endure.  It’s worth remembering that many women in many countries today don’t have any more control over their bodies or their destinies than these long-ago virgin saints did. In this time of Advent waiting, we can remember that God chose to come to a virgin mother who lived in a culture that wasn’t much different than Santa Lucia’s culture: highly stratified, with power concentrated at the top, power in the hands of white men, which made life exceeding different for everyone who wasn't a powerful, wealthy, white man. It's a society that sounds familiar, doesn't it?

On this feast day of Santa Lucia, we can spend some time thinking about women, about repression, about what it means to control our destiny.  We can think about how to spread freedom.

It's also an important feast day because of the time of year when we celebrate.  Even though we're still in the season of late autumn, in terms of how much sunlight we get, those of us in the northern hemisphere are in the darkest time of the year.  It's great to have a festival that celebrates the comforts of this time of year:  candles and baked goods and hot beverages.

I love our various festivals to get us through the dark of winter. In these colder, darker days, I wish that the early church fathers had put Christmas further into winter, so that we can have more weeks of twinkly lights and candles to enjoy. Christmas in February makes more sense to me, even though I understand how Christmas ended up near the Winter Solstice.

I always thought that if I had a more flexible schedule, I'd spend December 13 making special breads, but that will have to wait.  My schedule is flexible, but much of today and tomorrow will be spent working on my final paper for Systematic Theology class.  But on Friday, once the paper is turned in, I have a vision of creating small Santa Lucia braids of bread, one for each family at Faith Lutheran, which I'll distribute on Sunday.

You could do baking too! If you’d like to try, this blog post will guide you through it. If you’re the type who needs pictures, it’s got a link to a blog post with pictures.  Enjoy.

Waning Days of Summer

 In later years, when I look back on this blog, will I wonder at what I left out?  For example, there's no analysis of the first presidential debate--in part because one needed cable to watch, in part because it started at 9, but in largest part, because I have no desire to watch this madness.  Another example--will I look back and see the plane crash in Russia as bigger news than it seems today?  I figured that the man who attempted a coup against Putin 2 months ago was a dead man, and it did take longer than I was expecting.

When I look back on these days of waning summer, I'll remember going over to the local Lutheran church to work on quilts for Lutheran World Relief.  Yesterday I looked through the big bins of donated fabric and put together bundles for our leader to assemble into quilt tops.  She says she's no good at this, and that I save her lots of time by doing it.  If I took those bundles and tried to assemble quilt tops, it would take me much longer than it takes her.  It is a good partnership.

I did not bring as many tomatoes home yesterday, but that's not because it was the waning days of summer but because we had more quilters yesterday.  That's O.K., because I got a buy one get one free deal at the Fresh Market yesterday--now we have two huge containers of tropical fruit salad in the fridge.  Well, on Monday we did.

I enjoyed going to the Fresh Market so much on Monday that I went back yesterday.  I have loved the Fresh Market since grad school days, back when they didn't sell cleaning supplies, back when I could scarcely afford much of what was for sale.  But back then, the store offered petit fours, each one costing twenty-five cents.  Sadly, that seems not to be the case these days, at least not at our local Fresh Market.

In these waning days of summer, the course shells for my seminary classes that I'll be taking this fall have opened.  Nothing looks too formidable--hurrah!  I will miss these days that have had a more leisurely pace, but it will be good to move forward with my MDiv degree.

Even though the weather is much more like summer, it's clear summer is coming to a close.  I'm seeing leaf color on trees in the lower elevations.  It seems earlier this year than last year, but maybe I just wasn't paying close attention last year.  I've been picking a handful of blackberries every morning on my walk--those bramble bushes are about at their end, which makes me savor the berries even more.

I am looking forward to seeing how the seasons change on this mountain.  But I am trying to savor the last weeks of this season. 

Celebrating Sixty Years on a Busy Road

It has been awhile since we had a long day at church, a long time since we had a meal at church.  Yesterday was that day.  It was both a celebration of the church's 60 year anniversary and an installation of the new pastor.  

We went to Lutheran Church of the Nativity in Arden, NC, one of several Lutheran churches across the U.S. southeast that feel like home to me.  We went there last summer when they had a bluegrass worship service outdoors for their early service.  The church was minutes away, and we wanted to see the bluegrass worship service in action.  We discovered that the music director was one that my spouse met at Lutheridge's Music Week, and in the fall, my spouse joined the choir.

Yesterday morning, we celebrated 60 years of the church's existence.  We heard from one of the founding members, although her parents were the heavy lifters in convincing the bishop that there should be a Lutheran church between Asheville and Hendersonville.  She talked about the search for land; they wanted a plot that would be visible from the road.  They could have had little idea how successful they would be, as the church is now at the intersection of the road that goes to the airport and the road that runs between Hendersonville and Asheville--the two most travelled roads in this end of the county.

After church, there was an old-fashioned church dinner, outside under tents on the lawn.  We were lucky with the weather, which was perfect--it had not been perfect in the days running up to Sunday (too rainy and/or too windy and/or very chilly).  In the past, we might have had a potluck dinner, but yesterday's was catered by Smoky and the Pig located in Fairview, NC.  It was delicious.

At 3:00, we had another service, the installation of the pastor who had come to be the interim pastor and both the pastor and the church realized a good fit when they saw it.  I know that often the interim pastor is not allowed to be the one chosen for the permanent position, and I have no knowledge of what happened at the Synod level, but both the pastor and the church seem happy.  I have attended the church for almost a year now, both in person when I'm back in the area, and by way of streaming when I've been at seminary, and I understand the happiness.

I will be interested to see how the church moves into their next 60 years.  Some of that observation will take place from a distance, as I take a position as Synod Authorized Minister at Faith Lutheran down in Bristol.  But I will also be able to do some of the week day activities, like working with the quilting group or Tuesday night pub theology, if they continue that program in the fall.

I have been going to this church off and on for years, when I was in town.  It was interesting to look around the room and realize how many of the members I knew, even before I attended more regularly:  Lutheridge retreat friends, family friends, a variety of retired pastors, people who were camp counselors at Lutheridge when my mom was there.  Being there does feel like falling through a hole in time, in a good way.  Maybe it would be more accurate to say that being there feels like seeing all the folds of time as they rumple together in one place.

April's End

A week ago, the Create in Me retreat would be ending. Let me create a blog post of a few things that have been happening since then.

--On Thursday, I went to see the hand and wrist surgeon, and I spent time getting organized for surgery on Monday.

--I am still not feeling pain in my wrist, but I have been getting pain in my right bicep and my shoulder. It feels like I had a hard workout, back in the days when I was doing weight lifting and whole body workouts. And then there are the times when I move in a certain direction and my arm makes it clear I should not.

--It's not the upper body workout that I had in mind, back in the days when I would look at my arms and despair at their flabbiness.

--I am intrigued with how little I am eating these days. It takes a lot of energy to feed myself the first serving of anything with my left hand. I usually say no to seconds. I've quit snacking because it takes so much effort to cut slices of cheese for cheese and crackers. It's not the diet plan I had in mind.

--It's been an interesting time being in the condo, with lots of concerts in the arts park. The one I might have most wanted to see, Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn, was on Thursday night when I had my last seminary class for the semester. But we did walk over earlier in the afternoon to watch them rehearse, which was really cool.

--I have been working hard to get my seminary papers written before surgery on Monday. I am in the homestretch. It will be a relief to be done with seminary work even though I am enjoying it.

--I am working on a final project for a seminary class that requires me to chart important historical developments, leaders, ideas, and books, a history of the Jews from the return from Babylonian Exile in 538 BCE to the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. No, it's not a 50 page paper; we're supposed to do all of this in just 7 pages. I am trying to sum up the importance of Alexander the Great. Philosopher spouse says “He was a student of Aristotle.” Somehow I don't think my Hebrew Bible teacher would see this as the most significant reason why we remember Alexander the Great.

--I am glad I am not taking seminary classes this summer. I will focus on the online classes I am teaching, the physical therapy that lies ahead of me, and getting ready for the fall. 

Dinner Out with Quilt Group Friends

Last night, the member of our quilt group that moved upstate was back in town.  So I drove to Delray Beach, where another member of our quilt group moved, and we walked over to DaDa, a cool restaurant in an old house.  I gave myself plenty of time to get there, which meant I got there early.  When I leave and give myself precisely the amount of time it should take to get there, there's inevitably a slow down.

My Delray friend showed me the remodeled downstairs of the apartment building, and I got a coffee out of the upscale coffee machine.  We went up to her apartment to wait for our other friend.  The last time I was in her apartment, in 2019 just after she first moved there, I couldn't imagine doing what my friend had just done:  downscaled, sold her house, and moved to an apartment.  Now I have done the same thing.

The website said that the restaurant didn't take reservations, so we were surprised to get to the restaurant to find that they did.  Consequently, all the lovely outdoor seating was taken.  However, they did have seating inside, and luckily we got to sit way in the back, in a small room, and even more luckily, very few people were seated back there with us.  The front rooms were very crowded and noisy, and I am so glad we didn't have to sit there.

I was also glad that we didn't have to find another restaurant; they all looked full as we walked by them.  In fact, I was astonished at the crowds of people everywhere.  While I know that we're at the height of the South Florida tourist season, and while I know that many people have decided that the pandemic is over, it was discombobulating being around them all.

The meal was delicious.  I decided to order the special--yellowtail snapper, which is one of my favorite types of fish.  It was served with a citrus buerre blanc sauce, which would have made anything delicious.  We decided not to eat dessert there, in favor of the ice cream shop down the street.  The ice cream shop had candy too, but we didn't buy any.  I loved all the different flavors of ice cream, but I limited myself to one, the almond joy, which was exactly how it sounded:  coconut, chocolate and almonds, all woven together.

As I drove home, I thought about all the people we had seen.  As I drove by the restaurant district of downtown Hollywood, I didn't see similar numbers of people, although it was much past the dinner hour by then.  This morning I woke up thinking that perhaps I should use one of our COVID test kits in the coming days.  I'll have to research the optimum time.

It was good to see my friends in person, which happens much more rarely these days.  In some ways, I'm grateful we've had our monthly Zoom sessions--we didn't have to catch up on 2+ years in one evening out.

In fact, I keep thinking about how much easier Zoom is, in so many ways:  less driving, less noise, fewer crowds, less irritation (at least, as long as the technology is going smoothly).  I think about all the other settings where I've assumed that meeting by way of electronics is a pale imitation:  school classes, church.  I've thought they are a pale imitation, or something so different that we shouldn't compare them at all, like comparing apples to tricycles.  

But maybe, they're better in many ways.

I'm still grateful we had a chance to meet in person.  I'm still grateful that we have multiple options.  And I'm also glad that the whole culture is figuring out how to make connections when making connections is a challenge.

Brunch and Church

Our church has shifted to online church until Lent, so yesterday we took advantage of the flexibility and went to brunch with friends.  Through the years, I have read many an article that tries to explain that brunch is church in its own unique way.  Every time I go to brunch, I think about how brunch is nothing like church at all--while at the same time, wishing that church could adopt some of the aspects of brunch.

Yesterday we went to brunch beside the ocean, the very busy Ft. Lauderdale beach scene.  It was an outdoor place, but under awnings and umbrellas, so we were somewhat protected from the heat.  There was lots of traffic zooming by, often with revving motors.  In some ways, the view was beautiful, if one looked beyond the crowded sidewalks, the crowded streets, the crowded beach.

It was not a view that reminds me of God, that takes me to a theological or spiritual place.  It was a view that made me weary:  all those people, most of them from somewhere else.  

The main thing that separates church from brunch is the cost.  Most of the people who go to my church would be unlikely to be comfortable affording the brunch that we went to yesterday:  $50 a person.  In some ways, given today's price of a dinner out, it was a decent deal:  all we could eat, and bottomless mimosas, bloody Marys, and margaritas.  But it's a price that excludes many people.

Because our table was near the entrance, I watched people who hadn't thought ahead to make a reservation turned away.  In all my decades at church, no one has ever been turned away.

I do wish that church could follow the lead of brunch in offering a good meal.  I've been part of church services that experimented with a good meal, but churches I've been part of seem very attached to traditional church, in pews, in a sanctuary.

I am glad to have the opportunity to go to brunch every so often.  I read articles about how the nation loves Sunday brunch and would never give it up to go to church.  Every so often, when I am in church, I wish I could go to brunch.  It's good to go to brunch occasionally to remember the disadvantages of brunch:  the crowds, the price, the loud music that prevents good conversation.

The Feast Day of Santa Lucia

December 13 is the day that Scandinavian countries celebrate Santa Lucia day, or St. Lucy's day. There will be special breads and hot coffee and perhaps a candle wreath, for the head or for the table.
The feast day of Santa Lucia is one that’s becoming more widely celebrated. Is it because more Midwestern Scandinavian descendents are moving to other climates? Are we seeing a move towards celebrating saints in Protestant churches? Or is it simply a neat holiday which gives us a chance to do something different with our Sunday School programming and Christmas pageant impulses?

In a time of global pandemic, I wonder how people will be celebrating this year.  They will probably celebrate the way that I almost always have, in their own houses, with their own family members.

But it wasn't always this way.

I first heard about St. Lucia Day at our Lutheran church in Charlottesville, Virginia. As the tallest blonde girl, I was selected to lead the St. Lucia day procession when I was in my early teen years. The grown ups placed a wreath with candles on my head and lit the candles. The younger children carried their candles. I walked up the church aisle and held my head very still.

I still remember the exhilarating feeling of having burning candles near my hair. I remember hot wax dripping onto my shoulders--I was wearing clothes and a white robe over them, so it didn't hurt.

It felt both pagan and sacred, that darkened church, our glowing candles. I remember nothing about the service that followed.

A year or two later, Bon Appetit ran a cover story on holiday breads, and Santa Lucia bread was the first one that I tried.

A picture from that cover story

What a treat. For years, I told myself that baking holiday breads was a healthy alternative to baking Christmas cookies--but then I took a long, hard look at the butterfat content of each, and decided that I was likely wrong. I also decided that I didn’t care.

I still bake that bread every year, and if you’d like to try, this blog post will guide you through it. If you’re the type who needs pictures, it’s got a link to a blog post with pictures.

As a feminist scholar and theologian, I’ve grown a bit uncomfortable with virgin saints, like Santa Lucia. Most sources say we don’t know much about her, which means that all sorts of traditions have come to be associated with her. Did she really gouge out her eyes because a suitor commented on their beauty? Did she die because she had promised her virginity to Christ? Was she killed because the evil emperor had ordered her to be taken to a brothel because she was giving away the family wealth? We don’t really know.

The lives of these virgin saints show us how difficult life is in a patriarchal regime. It’s worth remembering that many women in many countries don’t have any more control over their bodies or their destinies than these long-ago virgin saints did. In this time of Advent waiting, we can remember that God chose to come to a virgin mother who lived in a culture that wasn’t much different than Santa Lucia’s culture:  highly stratified, with power concentrated at the top, power in the hands of white men, which made life exceeding different for everyone who wasn't a powerful, wealthy, white man.  It's a society that sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Or we can simply enjoy a festival that celebrates light in a time of shadows.

I love our various festivals to get us through the dark of winter. When I lived in colder, darker places, I wished that the early church fathers had put Christmas further into winter, when I needed a break. Christmas in February makes more sense to me, even though I understand how Christmas ended up near the Winter Solstice.

So, happy Santa Lucia day! Have some special bread, drink a bracing hot beverage, and light the candles to light up the darkest days of the year (in the Northern Hemisphere).

God of the Sweet Potato Pie

Yesterday on my creativity blog, I wrote a long post about pie.  I meandered into a bit of theology, which seems a perfect leaping off point for a Thanksgiving blog post here on my theology blog.

This morning, I actually made a pie, an easy one, a pumpkin pie.  Other pies require much slicing and peeling and chopping.  As I whipped it together, I thought about my grandmother, who made several pies a week, every week, for much of her life.  My grandfather didn't feel like he'd had a meal if there wasn't a dessert, so my grandmother made a variety of desserts for each day of the week.  Pies were his favorite.  I'm old enough to remember when my grandmother used lard for her pie crusts, and lard really does produce an amazingly flaky crust. 

After my grandfather died, when I still lived in South Carolina, I tried to go see her at least once a month.  I remember a time that she made sweet potato pie.  I thought it was pumpkin pie, and I didn't hide my surprise well.  She interpreted my surprise to mean that I didn't like her pie, and nothing I could say would convince her that it was a perfectly fine pie.  

Sadly, she was the type to remember those things.  Everything she served me a pumpkin pie, she'd remind me of the time that I didn't like her sweet potato pie.  If I could go back in time and redo my actions, I'd have a long list of time travel to do, but one of the stops would be at my grandmother's table with an untasted piece of sweet potato pie in front of me.

This morning, I've been thinking about that pie as a different kind of metaphor.  Some days we get sweet potato pie when we thought we'd get pumpkin pie.  It's fairly close to what we wanted:  same spices, same nutritional profile, same structure.  And maybe, if we give it a chance, we'll discover that we like it just as well or better.

Yes, it's probably a metaphor that's been done to death.  But when I apply it to God, it takes on fresh meaning.

I've been thinking about God as the deity who brings us sweet potato pie.  We might be wishing for pumpkin or apple, but there is God, with sweet potato pie, an earthier cousin to the other pies.  There is God with fresh whipped cream.  There is God with a handmade crust that's flakier than anything we've ever tasted.

We might protest and worry about those 5-10 pandemic pounds we've picked up.  We may think about past Thanksgivings when we had a more athletic physique.  We may think that we can't afford the calories.

I think of God and God's sweet potato pie, all the nourishment that we refuse, all the love in the form of a pie that we think we can't absorb.   

I think of all the ways we make God sad.  Today, let's resolve to make God glad--by celebrating abundance, by giving thanks, by giving ourselves a break so that we can enjoy the treats the day will bring us.

Early Thanksgiving

Yesterday, we had the annual Thanksgiving potluck for our school faculty and staff.  Yes, it's 2 weeks before Thanksgiving--I see that as a good thing. We can enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner, and 2 weeks later, we'll be ready to enjoy another Thanksgiving dinner.

But it was also a practical choice.  My boss is on vacation next week, and we don't want to have an additional Thanksgiving dinner the week of Thanksgiving.

When we ordered the turkeys and a ham, we thought about having it delivered, as we've done in past years.  I said, "I'll save the school the $30 plus tip delivery fee.  I'll go pick them up."

Yesterday I rued that choice.  We had steady, steady rain--not torrential, but soaking.  I came back from picking up the turkeys and the ham, and I was soaking wet.  By the end of the day, my sweater was still damp.

But we had a delightful meal together.  Unlike some places I've worked, where we're lucky if people bring a half-eaten box of crackers and a hunk of cheese, or a tired veggie platter, we have all sorts of deliciousness:  several kinds of mac and cheese, several kinds of stuffing/dressing, a beautiful salad, a queso bean dip (homemade, not just an opened can), the old-fashioned sweet potato casserole with a brown sugar and pecan topping, a homemade cranberry and pecan relish, a corn casserole, and a variety of desserts.

It's the kind of meal I could eat every day with no complaints--although I would gain a significant amount of weight if I ate that way every day.

It reminded me of the best potlucks of the churches of my youth:  lots of yummy food, lots of chances to talk, the proclamations of how wonderful it was to eat such delicious food together, a warm glow that will last for many months.

And also, thoughts of who isn't there (faculty on field trips, people no longer working at our school, people away traveling)--both at my current school, and all the people I'm missing from past workplaces.  And the wondering where we will all be this time next year--a habit from my family of origin.

I wonder if anyone else felt a spiritual tingle during our time together.  I know that I'm often the only one.  I said a silent prayer of thanks--and as we all pitched in to clean up (yes, almost all of us, regardless of gender or position), I continued to say thanks--both verbally, to my colleagues, and silently, to the one who prepares a table for us all.

Day Old Bread and Pastry Day

At my campus, we are always looking for ways to make life better for our students, and not just in academics and future jobs.  Many of our students have a variety of issues that make it difficult for them to complete their programs.  I can't solve all of them, but I'm always on the lookout for ways to help.

I know that Publix, our local, large grocery store chain, gives away bakery goods that are at their pull date.  Once, long ago, I did the bakery run for our church's food pantry.  I was amazed at the amount of bakery goods given to our food pantry.

A few weeks ago, I was in the Publix by my school to buy cookies for an event, and the bakery manager was shelving some products.  I asked if she had people picking up the day old baked goods every day, and she said once they had, but now, they had very little interest because they all went to the bigger Publix.  She told me the simple procedure to follow to be allowed to get the baked goods before they were thrown away.

I wrote the letter and had the campus director sign it.  I took it to the Publix, and I was told that I could show up any time either after the store closes at 11 or before it opens at 7.  Last Thursday, I showed up, but there was nothing set aside.  The manager suggested I call next time.

On Sunday, I called to see if they would have anything Monday morning.  The person on the other end of the phone said, "Oh sure."  I half expected to arrive to find nothing again.

I was wrong--two carts of food were set aside for me, enough to fill up the back of my Prius hatchback.  It all had a pull date of yesterday.  I set out a lot of it in our student break room:  lots of donuts, various types of bear claws, some rings with pecans, 6 kinds of muffins, 5 boxes of croissants, and a bag of bagels.  I put the loaves of bread in the freezer, with a sign that invited people to take a loaf, if that would be helpful.  I put aside some cookies for an event today.  I put other pastries in the freezer of the fridge in the other break room.

Most people were enthusiastic to arrive at school to find a variety of treats.  Some groaned about the weight they might gain.  But I know that some of our students have food and financial instability.  It's not the most nutritious food that we offered yesterday, but it's food.

I had thought I might go back again tomorrow, just to see if a Wednesday haul is different from Monday.  Did we have so many treats yesterday because the bakery manager planned for more sales on a week-end?  Is that what they throw away every day?  Surely not--it's a small Publix.

I think I'll just go once a week, unless I perceive that people would benefit from more bread.  I had hoped for more bread to give away, as it's more nutritious than pastries and it can last several days.

It's a shame that there's no shelter that needs the food.  It's a lot of food, and I know there's lots of hungry people out there.  There are days we won't be picking up the food.  There's enough to share.

Through the morning, as I threw away the packaging once the food was eaten, I reflected on the waste not only of the food that might be thrown away, but the packaging--so much packaging.  In my quest to feed a hungry campus, we filled up one big garbage bag with cardboard, plastic, and foil.

I can't solve these problems.  We live in a society where for most of us, it's cheaper and takes less time to buy baked goods at the grocery store, which means that we'll have a surplus of bakery items and the packaging that makes it possible to sell bakery items.  We live in a society where many people experience food scarcity, even as enormous amounts of edible food are discarded.  I cannot redistribute all that food by myself.

So I will do what I can do.  I will pick up a load or two of bakery items each week.  I will hope that it makes the campus a more cheerful place to be (which hopefully will help our retention numbers).  I will hope that some of the food gets to our students who genuinely need the calories.  I will hope that those of us who shouldn't eat those calories are able to resist them.  I will hope that the good outweighs the problems.

The Spiritual Practice of Soup

If I wrote a book of spiritual and artistic exercises or any sort of self-help book, it would include a chapter on having nourishing food in the house.  How can we nourish our spiritual and artistic selves if our physical selves are starving?

Last Saturday, I had a group of friends coming over for quilting/knitting/catching up and lunch.  I told everyone I would make a big pot of soup.  But as I thought about what kind of soup to make, I couldn't remember which of my friends had which dietary restrictions.  I knew that my Hindu friend would not eat beef, and one of us is vegetarian.  One of us won't eat anything with alcohol in it.  Were any of us vegans this month?  Anyone avoiding gluten?  I couldn't remember.

So, I played it completely safe.  I went with a simple vegetable soup.  I was surprised by how delicious it was, given that it was so easy to make.  It was easy, because I make sure to have these kinds of ingredients in my pantry and freezer.  That's good, since we didn't have many fresh veggies in the house.

I started with a 28 oz. can of diced tomatoes:  into the pot which was heating.  I had a package of frozen mixed veggies:  peas, corn, chopped carrots, and green beans.  I used a can of kidney beans so we'd have some protein, but any bean would do.  I used a can of pumpkin which thickens the soup and significantly raises the vitamin A content, and since it was so thick, I put in a can of water.  I gave it a swirl of olive oil and a splash of balsamic vinegar, plus basil and oregano, my favorite herbs.  I also used some onion powder and garlic powder, since I didn't have any fresh onion or garlic.

Then I let it simmer.  It was delicious when I served it, and even more delicious later, and I'll tell you why:  I accidently let it simmer all afternoon.

When it was time for lunch, I heated up the soup and turned down the heat in case anyone wanted seconds.  At some point, I thought I had turned off the stovetop, but I hadn't.  So the soup simmered and thickened all afternoon.

Happily, it never got to the scorching point.  And I've enjoyed it all week long.

One of my plans for this holiday week-end will be to make more soup.  Or maybe I'll make a casserole.  Maybe both.

I know people who hate having leftovers.  Those people must have plenty of time to cook.  Or the money and metabolism to eat out every day.  That's not me.

I know people who claim that cooking is too complicated.  But a good pot of simple soup shows how simple it can be.  I didn't even have to puree part of the soup to have a thicker soup.  I didn't have to pay attention to it at all.

I think about how people talk about how hard it is to feed our families, to come up with something for dinner.  But with a pot of soup, you just need some bread, and dinner is ready!

It's also good to remember how easily this soup could be enlarged.  For those of us who have lots of people to feed, all we need is bigger portions and a bigger pot.

I've always been attracted to churches who feed the hungry from their kitchens.  I wish more of us would do this.  I understand why so many of us can't--we can hardly get people to come to church on Sunday.  How would we staff a daily soup kitchen?  So many churches can scarcely pay the bills they have now--how would they fund a new project?

I like my church's approach.  We combine a simple soup supper with a Wednesday night service:  nourishment for body and soul!

We could do the same thing at home:  a soup supper with a bit of devotion time.

But at the very least, we should have a pot of soup ready to nourish ourselves or whoever else might need it.  How can we nourish the world, if we're not nourished ourselves?