Christmas Cookies

Christmas Cookies

This baking is taking

the fruit of some body

and mixing it with the fruit

of the earth, birthing

harmony in each small cookie,

Mary’s sowing, reaping, crushing, sifting,

the cow with milk to give, hen with eggs to fold in,

substance of life and life-giving blending.

Isn’t this season about celebrating

the melding of spirit

with flesh? Remember

our miracles blossom from trauma

and this baking is beating

ingredients, dividing

dough in heaping spoonfuls,

elements indivisible – egg and sugar,

wheat and water.

Bite in, lick the crumb from your upper lip…

Partake in this communion of saints

while the miracle still warms the wafer.

And now we are all here: laborer,

consumer, life-giver, hovering over a tray

of peace on Earth.

God's Utilization

As a follow-up to the Gerard Manley Hopkins poem, which was written during an age, I think, when overt praise and religious neon signs were permissable, I thought I'd share a poem that probably won't see the light of day in any other forum. It's too cute. I like it, though, especially for its music and sincere but somewhat shallow praise. It's my kind of sappy.

So, without further delay, I present to you, "God's Utilization."

God’s Utilization

I stare bewildered at this sky
in hopes of lofty passersby.
Determined for some revelation,
I praise my God for exploitation.

The atoms in the atmosphere
compose a complex cloudy tier
of vapors written for the birds,
a sweet confession, hardly heard.

In these, the puffy, fluffy white
are held the fingertips of light.
From where a drop of rain once grew,
a tickled ray of gold pokes through.

And though the source sets in the west,
we are left a treasure chest
of colors, bold and pale ones, too,
to balance off the azure blue.

Evolving sky, how you amaze
when cirrus clouds pull their frays,
and thunderheads announce their tales
through mighty light and wailing gales.

What cumuli explode in puffs
of figures formed and bunched in tufts!
Combined exchange of fat and thin,
these clouds provoke a youthful grin.

And on this lazy, daisy day,
we’re left to pass the time away
by staring skyward, eyes alight
reflecting grace with great delight.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

My, how time flies -- already the end of October! I am sitting at home wrapped in a blanket waiting for the furnace repairman to return and take care of my furnace. I appreciate times like these because it is so rare to have previously unscheduled free time. I paid some bills, played some lexulous, and now I am diving in to some Gerard Manley Hopkins, whose work has been recommended by a number of poet-friends as of late, and it is available online, which makes for easy reading. Here's one:


Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Poems. 1918.

13. Pied Beauty


GLORY be to God for dappled things—

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;

And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.


All things counter, original, spare, strange;

Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

Praise him.

-------

What a delight to read! Love it.

Off to read some more.

Big Nose! Big Nose!

This morning while my daughter and I ate our eggs, Lydia looked up and said, "Mom, you have a big nose." "Yes, I know, Lydia," I replied, and she said, "How small is my nose?" "Tiny."

I immediately thought of a joke my dad used to tell, over and over, when I was little. A man with a wooden eye was always really self-conscious of his eye. He had a really difficult time getting a date, but one night at a party, he saw a girl he thought might like to dance with him. She was attractive enough, but she had a big nose. Maybe this girl will understand me, he thought to himself, and so he walked across the room, still feeling self-conscious. Would she notice his wooden eye? When he finally approached her, he asked her if she wanted to dance. "Oh, would I!" to which he replied, "Big Nose! Big Nose!"

har har har.

Lydia was observing a documentable fact -- my nose is bigger than hers. She's three. I'm 27. It happens. At some point, the fact that I have a nose was turned into an opinion that it is too big, or too long, or somehow unattractive. "It's a nose!" I say to myself, "my nose! What does it matter?" But every now and again I catch a sideways glance in the mirror or find a photo taken at the wrong angle and I wrinkle up said nose and think, "ugh."

I think we all find ourselves self-conscious about something on us or in us. Sometimes the list is long, and it varies from day-to-day. Some items never seem to leave the list. Some feel like they've been there as long as we can remember. Someone or something in our pasts planted a seed of self-doubt that made us consider ourselves against an impossible standard: perfection.

As I typed that word, the verse from Philippians 1:6 came into my mind, "He who began a good work in you will carry it into completion until the day of Christ Jesus." "Completion" here shows up in the KJV as "perfect" -- and in the Greek is the word, "epiteleō" - perform, perfect, accomplish, finish, performance, make, do.

I think it is safe to say that when we are very young, our self-image is rather neutral. It is only formed based on the outside influences surrounding us - our parents, friends, and strangers shape and mold that self-image... for better or for worse. Our self-worth and self-image are determined first by what we hear and then by how we process it. Some comments are easily dismissed; other opinions embed themselves like weeds. As we grow older, that self-image is fed by repetition externally and internally.

If our self-image is slowly created by outside influences and our own bad habits of repeating those opinions, then the work of Christ is rebuilding that self-image in Him. Regardless of whether we have an inflated view of ourselves or a seriously deflated view of ourselves, God wants us to view ourselves in light of Him. If we are basing our identity on how we measure up to the world's standards, we will either be puffed up and egotistical, self-conscious and defeated, or crashing back and forth between the two depending on our own successes and failures. God tells us to find our identity in him. This isn't new - we were, after all, made in His image. The work of Satan and sin twists and destroys self-image and identity for every person. It is the redemptive work of Christ that renews and "perfects" us. (What does the perfect nose look like, anyway?)

Gradually, the standards for the proper dimensions of one's nose are rooted out of our conscious and replaced by the word of truth: Jesus says, "I designed you. You are mine. I made you in my image. I know you. I love you. I adore you. You are beautiful. I am making you holy. I have begun a good work in you, and I will carry it to completion."

Thank God - I don't need to be concerned with the size of my nose. That's not what he's measuring. In 1 Samuel 16:7, "The Lord said to Samuel, 'Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.'"

Desperate Housewives

My husband started working weekends from now until Thanksgiving and left last Thursday for Norfolk, Virginia. We've been trying to mentally prepare for these trips for the last few weeks, arranging child care for the Fridays when he is gone and trying to keep in mind that our time together as a family would be cut much shorter, but for good reason - the trips are a great second income for us with minimal interruption to the kids' schedules.

I think one of the more frustrating things about marriage is the way you can be totally on with your spouse for weeks and then all of a sudden... or at least it feels like all of a sudden, the communication lines are disrupted and something goes awry. Usually I'm able to identify a primary cause for the refraction - those "monthly symptoms," a disagreement, some disappointment - but the week before BW had to leave for this trip, there wasn't anything specific to which I could attribute the bitterness I was feeling, those ancient emotions of self-pity and desire for attention and affection that are rarely filled because I am hunting for them and watching for the missed opportunities. My sights were turned inward.

It is so easy to live in the place of self-pity and selfishness. How are my needs not being filled? What disservice is being done to me? Why aren't you paying attention to me? Other people think I'm awesome, so why don't you? Most of the time, the afflicted party (my husband, for instance) is oblivious to this shift in my mental state because I conveniently fail to share these emotions with him. You would think that the gift of writing would come along with a communication party favor or something. Instead of expressing my sudden and irrational need for affection/compliments/quality time/etc., I become sullen and bitter. I leave my husband bewildered. Now, instead of just one of us being miserable, the other one has the great pleasure of being confused and distant, too.

It's tempting to wait for BW to see how pitiful and needy I am and to become the patron saint of unconditional love and passion sweeping in on his trusty steed of virtue and adoration, rescuing me from self-pity and depression. Tempting, but usually fruitless. While my husband has his shining moments of charity and thoughtfulness, their gestures are reduced in significance when I'm begging for it. How much greater impact they have when I am simply loving my husband, by choice, emotion, or otherwise, without conditions or expectations.

It is really hard to get back to that place when I've dipped below the level of love and appreciation I typically feel for my spouse, but I must choose to love my husband unconditionally, even during those times when I'm feeling neglected or unappreciated. It is absolutely necessary to lay down my needs, stop being petty, and choose to remember why I love this man. Jesus didn't wait for the world to love him, he loved us first, regardless of our behaviors. And since that's the model we've been given, it's probably the one we ought to try to follow.

I'm not good at this. I'm much better at sitting around waiting to be loved and then being utterly disappointed when my husband doesn't warm up to the cold lump of annoyance sitting on the couch. Why on earth would he want to love on that?! I don't snuggle with him or compliment him or go out of my way to serve him when he's like that, so why would he make the effort for my sorry self? Only out of God's love can we love our spouses when they (or we) are like that, and the rewards are usually beautiful and lovely for both of us.

He's on his way home today, and having had three days apart in which to love on my kids, play in the garden, hang out with family, and talk to the God of the universe about my ridiculousness, I think I'm ready to act like a wife and love my husband again.

"Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others." - Philippians 2:4

For "Pushing Matchbox Cars," Click this :)

Waltzing

Sometimes the way we move about each other feels choreographed, we've been practicing it so long. It is a good kind of dance, where your partner seems to have mastered the steps and knows right when to lead, when to dip, when to spin, how to maneuver you just right so you feel as if this dance is really effortless.

It probably doesn't happen enough - most of the time, we fight to take the lead, would rather grapevine when our partner wants to cha-cha, and just when one person is warming up to the dance, the other just wants to take a seat and have a drink. But there are days when everything clicks into place and we're primarily interested in the welfare of each other rather than our own interests. This makes all of the difference.

Jesus said that the two greatest commandments were to Love God and to Love one another, but most of the time, we are wrapped up in numero uno - what can I get, who's serving me, how am I being left out here, what wrong has been done to me, me me me. As Toby Keith (that fountain of wisdom) has said, "I wanna talk about me, I wanna talk about I wanna talk about #1 oh my, me, my what I think what I like what I know what I want what I see..." That is where I reside most of the time, unfortunately, and also most unfortunately, this is where we are most unhappy.

But when we start getting down to the basics of loving God and loving one another, when we start turning our eyes outward to our fellow human beings as opposed to focusing on our own inner wants and needs, suddenly all of those wants and needs are minimalized and we can see the world much clearer. I think we tend to slip into a cross-eyed vision - not only can we only see the end of our noses, even that ends up distorted.

So back to this dance thing. It is necessary to practice the steps every day. Somedays, we'll be full of grace, our relationships will seem effortless yet meaningful, and we'll end the day content and relaxed. Other days, the dance is all work and no fun at all - your partner is difficult and so are you, but you have to suck it up, pour them a cup of tea too, determine to be happy that they switched the load of laundry and folded the whites even though the shirts aren't creased the way you'd like and the socks are all in balls rather than tucked neatly together. Because the basics Jesus taught, love God and love one another, aren't about feelings. It is about choice. Obedience. Commandment. These are conscious decisions, not flutters of heartstrings.

The next time you watch "So You Think You Can Dance," remember, those steps that look so effortless, the way the partners seem to glide across the floor as if they are one, that took hours of grueling effort, sweat, and patience. Let's invest that kind of energy into our relationships, so we can move as if we are one.