First Loaf

One of the benefits of computer technology is the availability of lists or groups set up via email. Our neighborhood has such a list and fairly frequently it is a means of exchange or recycling as people clean house or garage or closets. About a month ago someone decided to pass on a bread machine that she no longer had time to use. I was the first one who emailed her so it came to me. I call this winning the neighborhood list lottery and I think it is great fun. The bread machine is pictured below.

A few weeks later another friend, whom I knew had a bread machine, looked at it and said that it was exactly like the one that she had and would I like her recipe? I was so grateful, for I wasn't looking forward to experimenting until I got it right. (I knew I would eat the experiments, anyway so as not waste them, but I really hoped for bread.) My friend then asked a few days later if I would like a packet of the dry ingredients that she uses for her recipe. She makes up ten packets at a time and freezes them. I will be doing this I think. So I now had a bread machine and packet of ingredients to make bread. (This story is beginning to remind me of Stone Soup, one of my favorite childhood books.)

Today, with help from another friend, because I could not possibly lift that machine, the machine was set up and the bread ingredients placed into it and the settings buttons pushed. Thump, thump, thump it began mixing (kneading). Through several hours as we worked on projects the machine clunked on and off, beeped, kneaded and then began to bake. A lovely odor wafted into the dining room. At last, bread! After the cooling phase completed itself I took out a lovely rounded loaf of bread and cut and ate the first slice. Delicious! Here is the picture of the bread.



While the machine thumps through its kneading phase, it rocks back and forth a little on the old typing table that it is sitting on. At one point I looked at it, lights on, rocking and thumping and exclaimed to my friend, "It looks like R2D2!" She agreed and we laughed.

I am so grateful tonight to neighbors and friends; to a community who helped me bake bread--for another friend with the same machine was also involved in this and gave me a slice of bread she baked. I know that I will not need to be hungry for good bread again. I can make it now in the bread machine or, using the beer batter recipe, in the oven and have good, wholesome food that I have prepared myself.

Gratitude and happiness fill my heart. Thank you to all who helped with this.
(And one of these days, I will remember to proofread before I hit publish.)

Holy Thursday

Holy Thursday already and Easter is actually late this year. It does seem as though the year is flying by. I loved singing for Holy Week when I was young, although I quickly realized that it was a half time job!

Admiration and prayers go out to all of you who sing in choirs this week. Unless you are able take time off the experience will be one of sleep deprivation--and of liminality. The liminality, temporary transcendence from the mundane as it is, may be a good thing. The fact that ordinary routines must go on is too bad though. It would be good to have an economy more attuned to liminality, perhaps?

I notice that Passover is being celebrated this year at the same time as Christians are celebrating Holy Week and Easter. This is good. It reminds us of our relationship to one another. Christianity is after all, rooted in Judaism. The Passover Seder is the root of Holy Thursday. After the institution of the Eucharist, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection, the disciples were no longer Jewish in the way they had been before. Today, Christians certainly are no longer Jewish.

I have mixed feelings about the custom, in some Christian communities, about holding a Seder. The intentions were good I think. Mine certainly were when as a young woman I convinced my parents we should move the furniture around so that people could come for the Seder at our house. I learned something more about Judaism and also about community from this experience. I never did it again though. Today, I think I would feel that it would be stealing from someone else's tradtions. Respecting the others is important though, and I hope that more respect will grow in this country.

Last year I wrote about the foot washing command of the Maundy and how I have never been comfortable with it and why. That post is still available, I think, so I will not repeat it, except to say that I have found a kind neighbor who is helping me with washing my hair! What a blessing this is!

Community is fractured and fragmented in our modern world. We need to keep working to build it and to make it less fragmented, more cohesive.

I am reading, not exactly as Lenten reading, although I think it is appropriate, The Moral Measure of the Economy, a book about Catholic social teachings that is also a critique of big capitalism run amok. I would like to see a national discussion. Maybe I will start a group on Facebook to read this book and others that are related to it.

I am grateful for the rain this week, for the reading and for the liturgy even though I can be there only in spirit. (I wish they would do Podcasts!)

Weather Watch, Wind and Rain

Today the storm is passing over and it was a grand one! Not my favorite kind of weather by any means because of the fear that accompanies the wind. Power outages in winter are not something to be taken lightly, even in mild California. So I sit here listening to my furnace furnacing a way, giving thanks for the light (from compact fluorescent bulbs shining over the dining room table and using the laptop. Praise God the power is on! I am so grateful.

Weather makes us aware that humans truly are not in charge. There are other forces bigger than we are. We could manage our resources better. Here are some thoughts on that.

Make sure that everyone in our neighborhood or community who is elderly, disabled or fragile in anyway has someone to contact them in case of bad weather. Have some community resources of generators that can be loaned out for those who are housebound, bedridden or terminally ill.

Make sure that there are volunteers who will do things like cleaning gutters and street water drains for those who cannot manage this themselves.

Pay taxes to help those who cannot trim trees get it done. This is part of taking care of the common good for if the untrimmed tree puts the power out and the wait for restoration is two days, it isn't only the poor person (likely also elderly or disabled) who will suffer cold and darkness, but everyone else as well.

Consider making our energy companies not-for-profit so that the money that we pay can go to compensate the crews who restore power and not the stock-holders and executives who rake in high salaries and perks.

Well, that is my rant for the day. Back to being grateful. It is more becoming to me! (And listening to the rain drops fall.)

Designing for Peace and Gratitude

Here goes the shameless promotion part of my blog!

At Christmas time in 2005 I began to design a Christmas card. I thought it would be nice to have the word Peace in the center and to use translations of the word into as many languages as I could find as a design around the center-piece word in my language, English.

As I began to research, I discovered that Fred, my late father's first name meant peace in three of the Scandinavian languages, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish. While we are not Scandinavian ourselves, I was so happy to see this for Papa was the most peaceable and kind person whom I have ever known.

A veteran of World War II and a member of the "greatest generation", my father was my hero and still is. I will post more about the Peace design, which is now available on both CafePress and Zazzle on a wide range of products.

I love this design dearly partly because it incorporates Papa's name and partly because it incorporates family history research, so that I included as many languages from my own heritage as I could find. The Irish Gaelic is there and so is the Scots Gaelic. The French (and Alsatian) as well as the German are there. Then I added the languages of friends and neighbors. I ran out of design space, since I was aware of the templates I would be using, long before I ran out of languages.

It is a pretty design with the words intertwining in the way that we all intertwine to form the community of the United States. I am a product of the "melting pot", but the like the image of a patchwork quilt better. The quilt is made from many non-matching pieces to form a pattern, to form a whole. It is quilted by many loving hands, each person bringing her (usually) own skill and talent to the task. The community, working together, makes the quilt. So to, the community, working together, honoring our heritages, can make the work of peace. I believe that this can be done in the country and in the world.

I hope that you will find this design pleasing and consider it for your organization's fundraiser as well as for your own purchasing for yourself or as a gift. Thanks so much.