Mary and Martha

First, let me say that if you are reading this on Wednesday: Congratulations! Wednesday, February 29 is a total bonus day. This calendar fudge factor only comes every four years. Seems to me like it’s kind of a “non day” and should be a day of freebies. Like, maybe Starbucks should dish out coffee for free today, dontcha think? Or maybe cops could refrain from handing out speeding tickets. It’s not really a REAL day, you know? It’s kind of a fake day or a “not really serious here, just a footnote” kind of day. It doesn’t come around often enough to get its own food like July 4th gets hot dogs or Thanksgiving gets turkey. So to me that doesn’t make it a real day. My motto is always, “If I don’t get any cool food, you don’t get a day.”

Here’s an idea: You might do a random act of kindness. See this guy’s blog for ideas. I’m kind of thinking that if you do a RAOK you might qualify for ice cream. That could be your holiday food.

Anyway….

I went to our annual Women’s Retreat last weekend at Camp Gilmont and just had me a fine old time.

We feasted on some of the best camp food I’ve ever eaten. Wait, it was the best. I just had to stop and remember some of the food at other camps. Yeah, it is the best. We had pecan-crusted tilapia for one meal, pot roast for another. For breakfast we had home-made cranberry muffins one day and homemade cinnamon rolls for another. And for lunch we got tomato basil soup and a great chicken salad. Yeah. You don’t always get food like this at church camp.

Then, at the other end of the dining hall we set up two tables for snacks. Because you know there’s always the danger that we could starve to death in two days’ time.

Do I talk about food too much?

Seventy women from about six churches came. We  saw old friends we've known for years and met new ones.

We've started a new club:  The Janes  Now all the women named Linda are jealous and want their own club.

The weather was perfect. We had hikes in the woods. Canoeing. Massages. (Our retreat is famous for this.) We pretty much kept a fantastic fire going in the great stone fireplace of the new main lodge. There were lots of laughs and time to catch up with chicks we don’t see enough of. Some of the women bring their best friends who either live out of town or have become Methodists or committed similar indiscretions.

In the midst of all this we took some time to study Mary and Martha. I used to have trouble remembering which sister was Martha and which Mary. Then one day I realized how much Martha is like Martha Stewart and that was a big help.

So, Martha is the busy one and Mary the studious one. Martha stayed busy cooking and cleaning for Jesus’ visit while Mary spent her time hanging on to Jesus’ every word. And Jesus sounds like he would rather for us to listen to his words than clean the house. This is my kind of guy. I knew there was a reason I like him.

But our study also reminded me of one Sunday morning years ago when Emily was about eight years old. I was running around the house in my usual tizzy, screaming for everyone to get ready for church while I grabbed up papers, car keys and purse, trying to remember all the extra duties I had signed myself up for that week. It was always something when the kids were little. Either I was teaching a Sunday School class or going to a committee meeting. But it was also all the normal distractions I was used to and could handle well. So I never gave it another thought. Busy hands are honest hands. Or so I thought.

We pulled up in the parking lot at church and got ready to exit the car. I turned around to bark the most current set of instructions to the girls and stopped mid-sentence. My eight year old sat there in the back seat wearing a mink coat.

It was the one I inherited from my mother that I never wore because mink had fallen out of favor and everybody knows that it never gets that cold in Texas. But I couldn’t get rid of it because I just knew that someday it would return to fashion or get cold enough. But that was not the point. It was a fancy coat designed to fit an adult, not an eight-year-old.

My mind slowed down to process the reality in front of me. Or, rather, in the back seat of my car. How could I have gotten her in the car, driven ten miles to church and never noticed she was wearing a mink coat? There was no denying the fact that I had not been paying much attention to my child.

I was having a Martha Moment in the middle of a Mary Morning.

Jesus was quite clear that studying His message is more important than cleaning or cooking. Jesus sounded like he would rather us hang around him instead of in the kitchen. And I just had to admit that Jesus may have also thought it was more important for me to pay attention to my child instead of making sure we were on time to church.

Lately, I’ve found my answer to the question of what I would do if I could get a “Do Over” in my life. My Do Over would be to tone down the busy-ness of my life when my kids were young. I would spend more time with them. This includes the time I was the Girl Scout leader or their Sunday School teacher or the Acolyte sponsor. It turns out you don’t get to be a mom when you do all that stuff. I’m only now realizing this.

Retreats are important. We are called away from the hustle and bustle once in a while to just sit with God’s words in a quiet, relaxing setting. Notice Jesus didn’t suggest that Mary write an analysis of what he said nor was there a test after he finished talking. He didn't even tell her to go out and tell other people what he said.  All Jesus asked of Mary was to listen. The rest can come later.

A Feast of Simplicity

There is something about Louisiana that never leaves you.

Most of my colleagues from the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance posted last week of how much they miss being in the Gulf Coast area at Mardi Gras time. All of us who served in the post-Katrina rebuilding during the weeks leading up to the Lenten season have been to a parade or two. Some of us can even remember it.

What I learned about Mardi Gras from my time in Mississippi and Louisiana is that Mardi Gras is vastly misunderstood. Watching it on TV you would think there’s one big parade in the French Quarter of New Orleans where everybody gets embarrassingly drunk. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, folks. The iceberg is actually 15 days long with over 100 parades-- not floats, parades-- of people in costumes, playing music and throwing a variety of free stuff along the streets of New Orleans and the surrounding cities. And some of the parades are as dry as a bone and wholesome as a trip to Disneyland.

Mardi Gras has a long and detailed history and some of the krewes have been parading since 1872. My favorite is the Krewe of Selene, a group of around 500 women professionals who pay thousands of dollars each to make their float the best. Some of the krewes operate throughout the year with balls and elections of royalty. Some are just neighborhoods who love to dance and play music. The Treme neighborhood band was one of the first to dig their trombones and trumpets out of the mud from Katrina and get back to playing.

There are so many parades with different themes organized by so many different people that the newspapers print out whole guide books to which parade is what day and what it offers.

When I was in New Orleans in February of 2008 I consulted the guide book and decided to go to the Selene parade but ended up so busy that I missed it. I ended up going to one Slidell and left before it was over because I was cold.  But I can say that beads aren't the only reason to go to a parade.  Sometimes they throw quality stuff like souvenir cups. I would have taken my grandkids to that parade in a heartbeat..  I'm inclined to think it was sponsored by a bunch of soccer moms.

That week, my friend, Dallas  cooked up a pot of gumbo and invited a few of the PDA staff to come over. It’s always a fine old time when Dallas cooks even though the strongest drink she serves is Dr Pepper. I think there were about six or eight of us around her table that night and we just visited ourselves limp. That’s when I came to know Mardi Gras as a time in the spring when we can celebrate just being alive. You really don’t need more of an excuse than that.

I’m starting to have a new view of the whole Lenten season and Mardi Gras. As I travel the road toward simplifying my life I am starting to see what abundance there is to be found in simple living. I think I will call it the Feast of Simplicity.

Last weekend, both of our daughters and granddaughters came to visit. Here’s the thing about my kids: we talk a great talk about healthy eating but when it comes to actually eating the stuff we sometimes stray from the path. We are making strides but slowly.

That explains how I came face to face this morning with a refrigerator full of uneaten vegetables. So I conjured up some vegetable soup made from what I found on hand in the kitchen.

I took some of the homemade butter I had and threw it in a big pot. Then I started chopping, dicing and slicing just about anything I found in the kitchen:, onions, garlic, potatoes, brussel sprouts, sweet potato, cabbage, celery, red potatoes and an acorn squash. I topped it all off with some chicken stock I had made from the bones of a rotisserie chicken. After it all cooked I blended half of it into a thick stock and added a little sour cream. Then I added the other half of the vegetables back to the soup.

Most of the ingredients for the soup can be grown here in Texas. I’m not sure about the acorn squash. I am new to this whole squash thing so I don’t know much about them. Such a funny name for something to eat.

You might be surprised that I had homemade butter on hand. Emily had asked how hard it was to make so we made some. I had also taken her on a field trip to the local dairy who sells raw milk. The only way you can buy raw milk in Texas is from the source. They sell a wicked-good yogurt so we got some of that and also some of their cheese. And a loaf of artisan honey-wheat bread. I will put all of that on my table tonight.

I called up my neighbor to come share the soup with me for dinner this evening. It will be a simple meal made luxurious by the flavors of the earth and the presence of a friend. The meal will be spiced by laughter and conversation. We won’t be a parade. Not a drop of alcohol will be involved. Not a penny will have been spent. I already had everything I needed for this feast within reach.

In the meantime, I will spend some time outdoors today. I will walk the labyrinth and let my prayers drift from “please”s to “thank you”s and back again. I will marvel that the same Creator who filled the skies with stars also poured the molten rock and watered the vegetation that became the soil under my feet.

Wednesday, Facebook will be filled with vows of what people will eliminate from their busy lives in order to get in touch with God. I’m not sure we need to eliminate things as much as maybe appreciate the bounty God has already given us and live mindful of where it came from. We have such a bounty right in front of us: Glorious springtime weather. Natural and healthy foods. Companionship with fellow travelers in a crazy world. A love affair with our Creator. That alone is such an abundance that we cannot even measure it.

It is a Feast of Simplicity.

On the Road Again

This morning I woke up to find Beaven pouring over maps spread out next to his laptop and a huge smile on his face. We had just received confirmation that our trip to Europe this fall is a “Go.” Our next decision was whether to add an extra two days in Paris at the beginning of the trip to accommodate for jet lag. That took about 3 seconds to think over and we began our day with a flurry of emails to arrange it. It may not have been spending a romantic Valentine’s Day in Paris but it was close enough for me.

I guess you might say that one of our hobbies is travel. We have done a surprisingly lot of it without any kind of grand master plan. We often see a scene in a movie where the heroine is racing down an avenue in Rome or a couple strolling a familiar cobblestone street and find ourselves saying “We’ve been there.”

You can read all you want about a place but until you set your body in it you don’t have the full experience. We’ve stood atop a clear blue-green glacier in Alaska and hiked the Appalachian Trail (OK, just a few feet of it.) In November of 2001 we passed the still-smoldering mountain of rubble in New York City on a trip that had been confirmed on September 10th. We’ve toured Windsor Castle where, as perfect as the restoration was, I could tell the difference between the burned part of the castle and the untouched part. The recently rebuilt floor still squeaked while the original floor did not . This is the worth of being in a place: the best photography will never be able to tell you what actually standing in a place can.  Pictures didn’t tell you what the World Trade Center smelled like after the towers fell. You had to be there in person.

We know a great cafeteria in London so far below the radar that we’re usually the only Americans there. I’ve been lost in the Uffizi galleries twice looking for Botticelli’s iconic painting of the naked chick standing on a clamshell. I think the people who actually understand art call it the Birth of Venus while I know it as the painting that is two right turns after the row of statues. Or something like that. If I could remember these details I wouldn’t need to take an hour to find the one painting. But it’s gorgeous and huge and I love to just stand and look at it. It’s kind of like seeing Van Gough’s Starry Night at the MoMA in New York. You have to see it in all three dimensions for it to count. You just have to be there.

Just like you don’t go to church just once in your life in order to have a relationship with God, travel to a place is something you need to do more than once to get the full experience. I feel the same way about  gelato.

We’ve done a lot of the standard things two or three times, which is when you start feeling an ownership of the experience. This trip will be my third time to see Michelangelo’s David. And I plan to savor every minute of our time together. David and I are old  friends and I don’t expect I will ever tire of spending time with him. One year they had taped a motion sensor to his butt to check the effects of the traffic on the sculpture. I have seen David at his most vulnerable and still find him captivating. Real love is like that.

I’ve perfected the art of taking a picture without museum officials knowing what I’m doing. The only hard part is when Elizabeth starts hissing at me, “Mom, what are you doing? You can’t take pictures in here! It’s against the rules!” She is very distracting when she does that. The key is remembering to make triple-dog-sure your flash is turned off. Then you can hold the camera loosely by your side and snap the picture. You may not get it framed perfectly but you can always crop it to suit yourself later. It doesn’t hurt anything and no one is the wiser. It’s the other damned tourists with their flashes going off all over the place that disrupts things and probably damages the artwork. I have a great shot of the Sistine Chapel ceiling using this technique. And, of course, David.


Probably the most exotic place we’ve been was the black sand beach of Montericco, Guatemala where we found ourselves just as broke as the only ATM in town was. When we checked in we found out you had to pay extra to have the air-conditioning turned on in our room. We could pay to sleep confortably or to eat that weekend but we couldn’t afford both. We simply didn’t have the money; nobody took credit cards and the only ATM in town was broken. It was hot and humid and I had a headache. It was a very sobering position to be in. We finally reminded ourselves that we could probably live for a month just on stored fat alone and chose the air-conditioning. Once the decision was made we miraculously found enough quetzals to pay for two hamburguesas. That’s about as hardcore as our travel has ever been.

In exchange for the sparse living conditions of Montericco we were treated to one of the few untouched beaches left on earth. You could stand at the edge of the water and look out at the sea and see absolutely nothing man-made. There were no ships anchored off-shore and no oil rigs in the distance. You could look out at the water and see the horizon exactly as God left it on the morning of creation. There are not many places like that left on the planet.

We try to get to the meat of a place when we travel. We don’t just drive by the Eiffel Tower in a cab. We get subway passes and travel as temporary locals, as our travel mentor, Rick Steves, has trained us. Many times we have been part of the afternoon or morning work commute as people sat reading or listening to their iPods.  We became part of their culture not mere observers. Beaven understands the tube system in London so well that the locals will occasionally ask him for directions. And, here’s the cool part: he always knows the answer. It’s fun to watch their faces when they hear his answer delivered in a Texas accent. You can tell they’re wondering if should they trust this hayseed from America.  But he’s so confident in his answer that they usually head in the direction he sends them.

I’ve even had the “complete experience” of having my pocket picked in Pisa. Luckily, just as we were leaving our house we both emptied our wallets onto the copier and made copies of the front and back of all our cards and documents. Canceling the credit cards was a breeze back in our hotel room. Beaven even seemed a little too happy to cancel my Visa card. It taught me a valuable lesson first-hand and made me feel like a real veteran. It didn’t however keep me from having my camera stolen a couple of years later in Guatemala. That day my mistake was in taking flash photos in a crowd then putting the camera in a huge pocket of my bright blue Columbia jacket. The only thing missing below the bill of my bright pink ball cap was a neon sign on my forehead that flashed out: “Stupid Gringa here with big pockets.”

Sometimes I have to remind Beaven to slow down when we travel. His impulse is to see as much as he can in the time allotted. One year I rebelled against his “Sherman marches to the sea” style of tourism. We were on our way to tour yet another Roman site in England and found the entrance to it a little past a small square where a guitarist was playing for a lunchtime crowd of locals eating sandwiches. I sat on a bench to listen to the guitar and enjoy the beautiful, relaxing weather. He sat patiently for a few minutes then announced that he “didn’t come 5,000 miles to sit on a bench all day.” Well, I did. So we split up and each had our own version of a wonderful time.

Now that the basic arrangements for our trip in September have been made we can sit back and monitor the value of the dollar. We’ll download the latest subway map of Paris and practice our favorite phrases like “Je voudrais chocolate negro” and “Coca light, s’il vous plait.” I’m counting the days until I can visit my favorite market in Florence and get a mozzarella caprese sandwich to take on a hike to the café overlooking the city. Hang tight, Dave I’m on my way.

Sabbath

I’ve been trying to decide whether I want to talk about chickens today or Sabbath. We got a couple of chickens last week. Our neighbors had fallen out of love with their chickens when they stopped laying and they’ve decided to start over with a new flock this spring. So they gave us a couple of chickens to practice on. We named them after our mothers. If you remember Blanche from last week’s blog you will not be surprised that the chicken named for her quite literally flew the coop and walked back home to her peeps, her head bobbing in rhythm to her feet as she scurried home. We knew it was pointless to try to catch her.

Lois

Lois stayed three or four days until she did the same. We had them just long enough to know that, yes, we would like a flock of chickens. But we still have some work to do before we can get serious. Secure housing will be first on our list.

Alas, they didn’t stay long enough to provide me with enough fodder for a blog. Something related to the chickens did, however. During the process of adopting the chickens we had such a wonderful weekend that I experienced a Sabbath. A real live Sabbath. And, yes, in spite of attending worship on a regular basis for the majority of my long life, I don’t experience a true Sabbath very often. But I am gaining the ability to recognize one when I find it.

In the midst of becoming chicken owners we had one of the best weekends of my life. Emily and both granddaughters were here for the weekend. The weather was wonderful and everyone played outside all day long Saturday. The neighbor brought his car over to our house to work on it and it was a joy to watch him teach his son how to do some things. He patiently explained the purpose of the parts he was replacing. He would get the nut started on the bolt then let Nathan finish tightening it. We had about eight kids at various times in our backyard or out in the field. We have plenty of room so nobody got in anyone’s way. Sometimes the nine goats followed the kids over. Some of the goats are pregnant and ready to deliver any time now so they are rather slow and waddle when they walk. And one of them is still just a baby. I haven’t learned all their names yet but the baby would periodically jump straight up like springs were attached to her feet.

It was one of those glorious days where the air was crammed full of innocence and possibilities. The thought came to me: “This what ‘re-creation’ means.” I understood why we gave the word ‘recreation’ to the process of enjoying oneself. That night I felt refreshed as though this was what I was created for in the first place. Could it be that one of the reasons I was put on this earth was to embrace and enjoy the air, the clouds and the fellow humans God gave me?

I have a bunch of books on the Sabbath. Some of them I’ve even read. (Yes, I thought that might impress you.) I have read that God gave humanity a command to rest on a regular basis not only to recharge our batteries but also to play with God. And it was a command not an option. Just as we are constricted by a commandment to not kill or steal, we are unbound by a command to enjoy ourselves by spending the day with our Creator.

The idea of playing with God appeals to me. My Jewish friend, Nancy, spends the whole Sabbath with her family just goofing off. They devote the entire day to family. They play games, read, watch some videos and take long naps. They spend time enjoying each other, sometimes never changing out of their pajamas. It’s not a chore of what the day forbids but a feast of what the day brings.

The mild weather we’ve had lately has enabled me to spend a lot of time outdoors this winter. It has been so nice outside that I’ve wondered if it might be a sin to neglect time outdoors. This weather has been a gift from God and to ignore the fresh green grass and clear blue sky is just ungrateful. For me, spending time outdoors with neighbors was an act of worship and thanksgiving as much as being inside any church sanctuary..

The same weekend the kids came over I was clearing brush in the northern most section of our land. I spent some time by one of our oldest trees. It died a couple of years ago, presumably of old age and only the stump remains. It sits on the edge of a stand of oaks. It sat there untouched all this time. Vines had grown over it and new trees sprouted in the sun that emerged when the tree’s shade disappeared. The ground beneath it has composted with years of old dead leaves and rotting limbs that have fallen as the tree died. As I cleared out the vines I found some of the cleanest, most fragrant, light, nutritious soil I’ve seen in a long time--soil so clean that you could almost eat it. I longed to dig in it up to my elbows.

I delighted in the soil. It wasn’t merely dirt. It was a re-creation of something old that God had taken and processed into a new life. I wanted to take it all and put it into my garden or maybe take my seeds and plant something there under the tree stump. It was life-affirming soil.

I walked the labyrinth on Monday. The ground was dry enough that I set my iPhone on the ground in the center and listened to music while I walked. I had a couple of questions for God and a few complaints. We didn’t get anything resolved between us but I felt “listened to” and loved.

Lately I’ve missed God. I have been forgetting to take God with me as I wander through the week. I sometimes fall into a trap of going to church without much thought.  I accidentally leave God at home -- in the trees calling to the pine needles as God’s breath rubs the needles together making a soft sound, calling through the wind. Calling me, urging me to come, come and see what God has made.

I am glad to have caught myself so I can turn around and catch up with my Creator.