dreaming of Light

let me be honest: lots of things feel hard right now, and i feel overwhelmed frequently. i feel still so aimless and unsure of who we are and the work we’re doing in the world. so,  i find myself thinking a lot about how nice it would be to go to bed, or to have a snow day that enables me to not have to go to work, or to get a cold so that i have an excuse to skip evening commitments and rest instead. oh, i want to rest. i don’t want to lead or pioneer. i don’t feel like being a good friend, or a good cook, or even a good wife.

there are reasons for this. and knowing the reasons keeps me from becoming dismayed; i know that it will pass. so, of course i will continue on, in spite of how i feel.

but, there are still true concerns/longings present in me, which, though shrouded in a thick cloud of emotion, are real. and worth hearing.

like, for one thing, i think it’s highly probable that we started out our marriage over-committed, and to such a variety of enterprises, that our head spaces are always trying to hold 5 things at once, and often we feel we aren’t doing any of them well. and so when t says for the sixth time that he wishes he could “just be married,” and when i still find the thought of a move to the country appealing… well, maybe it’s indicative of a need for a little less breadth of involvement. maybe.

so, i want LESS. i want to be released from a lot of expectations and striving. i want less pressure to perform. AND… thought it may seem contradictory, i also want MORE.

and i can’t shake this longing, the one that haunts me from time to time in the most ordinary of moments… this longing for MORE. this sense that really there HAS to be more. i mean this in a spiritual sense, mostly. i have known what it is to have the Spirit leaping and doing cartwheels in me, to have my heart captured by His beauty, and to see my community transformed and experiencing miracles of healing and provision. i have tasted and seen and cannot forget. and yet these things feel so. very. far. off.  i feel stagnate and stale.

the other night i had a dream. it was peculiar, but then suddenly i knew what it meant while i was crying in the shower. in the dream, someone beckoned me away from whatever i was doing and took me to a window. he pointed out, and it was a view down the street behind where i live, towards hobo church. but the most notable thing in the view was the LIGHT. it was the light that photographers dream of: softly tinted, diffused, and brilliant. it made the trees glow. we walked around the perimeter of the building then, which was all windows. and i surveyed the sweeping view of Madison. it wasn’t lovely in its own right, and there were actually some ugly/violent scenes unfolding beneath my eyes. but the LIGHT. (oh, if you could see the light)! it was stunning, and carried with it such deep peace, so that i kept whispering under my breath, “Thank you, God. Thank you.”

and i think that this dream was about how when the Light breaks forth in a place, no matter how messy/unsure/ugly/violent, it can make you breathless with gratitude.

and i want that Light. i want it to come in full glory over all the terrain of my life. so i will keep asking for it: “oh, jesus, how i want your Light. please. please. please.”

post script: i love my husband. he is worth whatever has been sacrificed to be married to him and to live with him where he is. i have work that i really like doing and ministry that is satisfying. our apartment is a sweet place. and in spite of how i FEEL, i will continue to press on.

glad to see domesticity making a come-back

i am so glad that this generation is taking back domesticity and the work of home.

i am so glad that it is no longer seen as degrading or slightly embaressing to want to concern oneself with the matters of keeping a house. that now, to knit, to sew, to bake, to cook, to clean, to organize, to decorate… these are now entirely valid expressions of femininity, even in many whom would call themselves feminists.

i am glad to be allowed to listen to those parts in me that long for a rich home life, without so many conflicting voices telling me i oughtn’t want such things.

because:

i like the smell of yeast bread baking,

i love the texture of fabrics waiting to be remade into something useful,

i relish the aromas and colors of a home-cooked dinner,

i enjoy the meditative quality of redundant tasks such as folding laundry or washing dishes, and

i am blessed to have folks over and set them down in a beautiful and calm place to rest.

yes, domesticity is making a come-back: culturally, i believe, but also in my own heart.

70 of 101: peruvian stew for carlitos

it is a long-standing tradition for members of a community to make and bring a meal to a family following a birth or a death.  it’s a tradition that i want to practice more than i have in the past. which is why it is on my list of 101 in 1001.

i recently finished a book that is all about the theology of house-keeping. and it was very good. probably it will be its own post soon enough. but for now, i want to give one excerpt from it that informs this idea of bringing meals to others at times when cooking proves more difficult.

when we cook, we produce things to eat, of course, but we produce something else too: acts of kindness… cooking is something that naturally overflows its boundaries, that leads to there being leftovers to share with someone, a pot of soup that can stretch to feed a guest or two, an extra loaf of bread to give to a neighbor.

(Margaret Kim Peterson, Keeping House: A Litany of Everyday Life, pg 119)

so last week carlos and jeanette had their second son, carlitos (“little carlos”), and it seemed a perfect opportunity to practice this value. when carlos stopped in on sunday and asked me to hold hakobo a moment whilst he switched around car seats, i blurted, “can i cook you guys dinner this week?” “sure,” he said, very casually.

carlos is incredibly hospitable. when he threw a birthday party for hakobo this fall, there were 30 people there with about as much diversity in age, sexual orientation, gender, culturals, and social groups as there could be. he and jeanette are very good at celebrating, very good at keeping an open door. i think, therefore, that it didn’t seem like a significant offer, this idea of me bringing them dinner.

regardless, tonight i made a double batch of peruvian quinoa stew (a favorite recipe from Moosewood Cooks at Home). i ladled half of it into a pyrex, and t and i went across the hall to offer it up. when carlos opened the door, the thick and heady smell of frying meat assaulted our senses. there he was, cooking up what appeared to be about 3 pounds of beef. “i finally went out for food,” he said, smiling.

so i handed over my very vegetarian stew, explaining quinoa, and put it into the fridge for another evening, when perhaps they will be more in need of it. no fuss was made whatsoever, only that sort of thanks that takes for granted that such a kindness would be shown on the ocassion of a birth.

then jeanette brought out carlitos, all wrapped in blue receiving blankets, and for a few glorious moments, i held his 6 lb, 4 oz body in my arms and gazed at his wide-open, big brown eyes. so precious.

i don’t know if they will like our quinoa stew. if i could have done it over, i would have given some notice, would have perhaps attempted to sit down to table with them. but, then again, in this fashion, they can carry on with their adjustment to new life in peace. and eat when they are too weary to cook. and that is enough.

now, as a bonus to you, dear reader, here is the recipe:  Peruvian Quinoa Stew–Moosewood

some words from t

at this point in his life, blogging in this space is a bit beyond his capacity.

but sometimes he blogs here, to document the movement of prayer unfolding across wisconsin (and the USA).

check it out.

7 of 101: fresh bread, sans gluten

well, i’ve made plenty of quick breads in gluten-free fashion. there’s the zucchini chocolate chip bread, the banana bread, the polenta-pear muffins/bread…. all delicious. but the formidable, unconquered terrain of bread with YEAST in it had not yet been explored.

until today.

today my new friend erin came with purpose of baking a couple of loaves of gluten-free bread together. thankfully, erin is a seasoned bread-baker and i am a seasoned user of gluten-free flours. so between the two of us, we knew we had a good chance of success. we did some homework ahead of time, each finding a recipe that looked promising.

1. gluten-free multi-grain sandwich bread by karina, my gluten-free goddess (whose recipes never fail me)

2. gluten-free bread that just might make you cry [for joy] written up on Gluten-Free Bay, but apparently adapted from a Celiac.com recipe

we made a list of all the bazillion flours we’d need and headed out to woodman’s to purchase them all (luckily, i’ll use these flours for future projects). upon arriving home, she took recipe #2 and i took recipe #1. we mixed the two sets of dry ingredients, then the wet ones.

we poured the doughs into bread pans and allowed both loaves to rise a while in a warmed oven, even thought recipe #1 said it only needed 20 minutes to rise, we allowed it to rise for close to the 90 minutes recipe #2 required. (i love the image of a mound of dough in a porcelain loaf pan, covered in a cheese cloth. it’s so wholesome).

there is a lot of waiting involved with baking any sort of yeasted bread. thankfully, with the gluten-free varieties, there is no kneading involved, however. so, we sat in the living room, still apron-ed, sipping on mugs full of rooibos and talked about our life work, future dreams, and longings for adventure until the rising process was complete.

recipe #1 rose to high heaven, almost doubling in size. recipe #2, however, seemed flat. this did not change through the baking time.

while the loaves cooled, we had a simple meal of kale, sweet potato, and black-eyed peas, topped with feta and a side of corn tortilla.

then, along with t, who always shows up once the food is ready to eat, we sat down at the table and tried a half slice of each, with pasture butter spread on top.  we were careful to chew slowly, after sniffing, and noted aloud what we noticed about taste, texture, and aromas. for a few moments we were food critics, though perhaps not very qualified ones.

final verdict: both very decent breads (though i have a slight bias towards recipe #1). they actually taste and feel like BREAD, unlike many gluten-free store-bought options. worth doing again? yes, indeed. though erin will opt to stay with the traditional gluten-laden breads because, well, she can.

thanks to erin for a wonderful afternoon of baking, laughter, and good conversation. not to mention tasty eats.

40 of 101: “elsa” the sewing machine

friends, i have purchased a sewing machine. for $50 from a guy on craigslist who, while pointing out that my offer was low, still sold it to me. she came in a dark wood cabinet, complete with an assortment of bobbins, the original user’s manual, a pin cushion featuring the upturned faces of what appear to be many asians, and various attachments for the machine.

elsa, as i have decided to call her, is a 1976 Singer Stylist. she’s a zig-zag machine.

we’ve set her up in the corner of our living/dining room area, which felt like a temporary solution for a minute, but it’s growing on us both. so, this past week, after a long battle with screws and hooks in concrete ceilings, tim set up a lantern that hangs right above elsa, lighting my work space a bit more.

last friday, when tim brought elsa home in the trunk of the nissan, i took out the manual and went through it page by page, learning each part and it’s use, and then attempting my very first stitches. which went poorly, to be honest. since then, mostly i’ve only looked at her. i am making mental notes about necessary next steps for building a working relationship with elsa. e.g., i need more thread besides the bright teal and green spools that accompanied her, and i need to commit to a specific starter project. i think i’ll start with a cafe apron or place mats.

Lahai-roi

this is my favorite name for God: Lahai-roi

it means, “the Living One Who Sees Me.“

Hagar “used another name to refer to” the Lord that day when His angel tracked her down at the spring in the wilderness where she had fled, cast out and bitterly weeping. she had not sought Him, but He sought her. and He saw the roots of her suffering and spoke a promise over it.

and, in what i imagine to be grateful disbelief, she said, “i have now seen the One who sees me.”

so she named her son (a son with promises now riding on him), Ishmael, which means “God hears.”

to be sought out, to be seen, to be heard… and by the God Almighty…

yes, Lahai-Roi, i am so grateful that this is part of who You are.

*Genesis 16

a small house in the country

tonight i am dreaming of a small brick house in the country,

with a garden full of fruit and flowers,

and a lovely, light-filled kitchen from which

will come tastey things to eat.

tonight the quiet and crickets of that scenario entice me,

and i feel cozy at the thought of the solitude,

the sewing, the baking, the photographing, the reading,

the strolling through gardens in cool afternoons with clean air,

with my husband and children alone as company.

tonight it sounds attractive to have that space

to re-examine, to find our bearings, to perfect our love,

to bask and rest in the Father’s love without pressure to minister.

i am hard on myself to the extent that

even as i’m dreaming of this scenario i am

also judging myself for it’s sharp contrast to

the city life among the poor, with door open to homeless friends

(that picture i’ve thought that our life would be about).

it is odd to yearn for a thing so completely other than that,

and i wonder what my soul is asking me to pay attention to there,

what the Father might have to speak into that.

i am not too proud to change course, nor to do

something other than what i have always said that i would do,

because sometimes i make resolutions He hasn’t asked me to make, and

it’s possible such a move might be faithful to His nudges

(i will not rule out that possibility).

considering adversity

i’ve been thinking a bit lately about how often i start getting in this mode of thinking in which i assume that things are going to take a turn for the worse. like how i kept fearing that God would take tim away from me, even up until our wedding day. because it was too good. i couldn’t trust it. like how i fear now that He’ll frustrate this growing dream of mine (that for shall now remain un-named). this lack of trust, this quick forgetfulness of who my God really is… is something i would like to outgrow.

but, of course, sometimes things really DO take a turn for the worse: things we were banking on fall apart, dreams we were cherishing are endlessly frustrated, and people we love die or leave us. and in those situations, it’s hard to know how to make sense of the deeply compassionate love of the Father in what appears to be so much unkindness. so we could say that it was the Enemy, robbing us of things that God actually intended for us to have. but that seems to make too little of Him, as if He is so easily outdone. the alternative, which is to leave room for the Father actually GIVING us hardship, or TAKING AWAY something good… well, that’s hard to sit with too. this is where folks lose their faith, over these sorts of questions.

i wonder how much of it has to do with God wanting our attention. an old friend of mine recently had something very tragic happen to her little son. and the first thing she said, standing by the hospital window was, “okay, God, you have our attention.” she’s praying now, and clinging for dear life to a God that, as far as i know, she’s given very little attention to for many years. this tends to happen.

at first glance, this makes God seem a bit egocentric, as if He will stop at nothing to make sure He has the fearful attentiveness of His subjects. but look harder.

if it is true, as i believe in my bones it is, that He is the best and only source of Life… then to bring us to our knees in order to bring our attention to Him, is actually to bring us back to the only place where we can drink and never thirst again. it is to bring us back to Life that’s bigger than losing houses or cars, suffering an accident…. Life even bigger than losing someone we love. which is hard to imagine, isn’t it? which means that this Life He’s going to extreme measures to point us back toward must be terribly, terribly good.

one night, during my dating relationship with t, i had a dream that shook me to the core and left me reeling for three days. it was more of a vision, actually. in the vision, i was walking, through very thick and hot sand, with tim. we were happy and in love. my legs became very heavy and my arms tired from all the bags i was carrying. and then, suddenly, my legs and torso were sucked beneath the sand, the sand rolled away in waves, and i was taken up to a dark night sky. there were stars. and then, a voice like the sound of rushing waters, and a face of a lion. and i was in holy fear. my eyes were open, my ears actually heard the rushing water sound. and the lion said, “hello. you won’t talk to tim in time, for a while.” and there was fierce jealousy in the voice.

i woke up wondering if i ought to turn tail and run from t, if perhaps God was going to snatch him away from me, just as i had dreaded that He might. but that wasn’t it at all. here is what i understand that dream to mean: that my Father is so jealous for my love, so intent on keeping me close to His side, that He WILL snatch me up and out of anything that separates me from Him. He will not let me get to the place of forgetting Him. and none of this is because He is an ego-maniac, but because He knows that my heart’s true and deepest desire is for Him. He knows that more than I fear losing t, I fear losing my God. and this is His PROMISE to me: that He will keep me from losing Him, even if it means i lose another thing that is very precious. (yes, it is a promise, not a threat).

thankfully, God has not had to take t from me, not even for a temporary span of time. but i like knowing that he WOULD do that, if it came right down to it.

i’m carrying many small hopes and dreams in me at present. and lately i’ve been in that fearful state, anticipating the worst… anticipating that those good gifts won’t come to fruition. but in this, i keep turning my attention back to Him, in order that i not forget Him. i want Him to know that He has my attention already, that i am committed to keeping my attention on Him. and in this way, He and i can walk forward in companionable friendship, marked less by dramatic happenings to train my soul back Home. i want to stay Home with Him of my own free will, and daily.

i don’t expect denial of good or the sending of suffering from my Papa. i don’t think He intended that we would ever expect anything less of Him than the fulfillment of His promises for life and hope. and that’s what walk in: confident expectancy of the goodness of God.

but still, the Lord may take away from me, or deny me the thing i most desire (i can also think of many people whose attention God already has, yet who have suffered great losses). i hope that even then, blessed still, will His name be to me. still i will cling to Him, worship Him, love Him. still He will be good. so help me, God.

the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. blessed be the name of the Lord!

- job 1:21

although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “this is the way; walk in it.”

- isaiah 3:20-21

stilled

you

have stilled and quieted my soul

today when

i canceled all and was home, mostly

in silence

busying my hands with concrete things

like the baking of bread, the folding of clothes

emotionally fragile, knowing

a glass vessel of tears needed release

into your cup

my head, a rest in your lap

and as i wrote,

you

taught me, you

gave insight enough

to know a step to take

to know a truth more deeply

to know you are nearby

so, no flurry of anxious prayers,

just some quietness

here