The salad that made me like tomatoes.
Then I found this salad. It's an adaptation of a recipe by Rachel Ray.
Arrange avocado wedges, sliced cucumbers, and tomato wedges on a plate. Sprinkle a few tablespoons of fresh, chopped cilantro and a pinch of kosher salt over vegetables. Drizzle with lime juice.
The cucumbers are optional. Everything else is a necessity. And even I will eat the tomatoes.
Yum.
Listening... again... ugh
I'm not good at this.
Seriously. I know that God can speak any way he wants. I know it's not confined to me sitting by myself with a journal in a meditative-y sort of mood. I know God speaks through people, through nature, through the experience of driving on a busy highway. But I also know I need there to be times of silence in solitude, and I need to ask the question "what are you saying?" And I need to keep my mind quieted for the answer.
Did I mention? I am not good at this.
God, how can I serve you and really love other people today?
(ouch my foot hurts. wonder if that's from.... wait, I didn't actually DO anything yesterday to my foot. Wow I was such a slug, actually. I really need to get into the habit of exercising. Did I remember to send that permission slip to school? Dang it. I forgot to talk to so-and-so about what we're going to do for communion 3 Sundays from now. I really wish someone else could make those arrangements now and then. It would be so great to have a couple of Sundays off. What kind of job would I want if I didn't have this one? But no, wait, I know... this was a 'calling'. I can't ignore that. God called me to....ohhh no... )
God, I'm so sorry! I don't know how you can stand it! Please help me listen to you and quiet my own frantic voice! ugh......
This is what happens when I attempt to really tune in to what God might be saying. Over and over. So every day I try to put my own whirly brain-voice in the 'time out chair' to allow God's voice to be heard. I know from experience that when I stick with this, it gets easier over time. I am more tuned in to what God is saying and what He's doing throughout the day. Just like any discipline, it's this first stage that is killer.
So I'm sticking it out and I'm forcing myself to quiet down. And I'm listening. Perhaps I'll tell you sometime what I hear....
On not being a selfish clod.
I'm currently reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan. It's very good, and it's making me be honest with myself about a few things. This isn't easy, but it's good and necessary.
In the book, Chan quotes George Bernard Shaw:
"This is true joy in life, the being used up for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy."
I don't want to be a feverish, selfish little clod. But I know I am sometimes because I totally get that description.
I think the hard part, besides the inertia of our clod-ness, is making sure we've found something that we recognize to be a 'mighty purpose'.
Have you found such a purpose?
Look, mom, we grew food.
There were cows and corn fields and all manner of farm implements.
We had a huge garden at our house, and every summer we weeded and picked and processed lots of different kinds of vegetables. This was just normal life, the endless snapping of beans and shelling of peas. I vowed I would never, ever, grow green beans when I was a grown-up.
Turns out, I have never felt compelled to have a garden of my own. The whole idea was intimidating because my memory of 'having a garden' was wrapped around this huge expanse of rows of plants that did. not. end. Then I started making this salsa all the time and got annoyed at the price of fresh cilantro and a friend asked me why I didn't just grow it myself? After all I have a big yard and a few empty flowerbeds and everything is already irrigated.
Hmmm. Hard to argue with that.
So this summer, we planted food. What started as an effort to grow our own salsa expanded to include tomatoes, jalepeno peppers, banana peppers, cantaloupe, honeydew, lettuce, basil, parsley, cilantro, oregano, and mint. No green beans.
The least successful crop on the list was cilantro, of course, because turns out it's finicky about temperature. But we have a HUGE crop of tomatoes and all the herbs are growing like crazy.
What amazes me more than anything is that all this food grows from little tiny seeds. I know, this is not a new concept. It seems like I've always known plants grow from seeds... it's something every kid learns early in preschool or Sunday School with little seeds in paper cups. Farming was all around me, for goodness sake, and everything was about the seeds and the growing.
But seriously. We planted 7 cantaloupe seeds and now we have 12 miles of vines and 3 actual cantaloupes. That's amazing!! Isn't that amazing? Like, who thought of that?
Somebody really smart.
So, I've learned stuff this time around and we'll do it better next year (next year!). We're eating lots of salsa and I have a plan to conquer the moody cilantro.
But don't count on any green beans.
welcome to my new blog! (kind of)
Welcome to my new blog home! This is a site that I've used for a while for pictures & video. But now it's The Place where all my stuff will land, including all my writing to come.
Because it's whimsical.
Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy
I'm not getting better at this.
Recognizing Jesus.
Years later, Jesus, his family, and his disciples (the men he had asked to travel with and learn from him) were all attending a wedding. The host ran out of wine, and Jesus ended up turning multiple jars of water into the best wine of the night (after a little exchange with his mother... which I would love to have witnessed). John 2:11 says this, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him. Later these same disciples realized that the things Jesus did fulfilled the prophecies in the scriptures they had studied as boys. This strengthened their belief that he was the Christ. The disciples recognize the truth about who Jesus was by his actions and through the fulfillment of prophecies happening right in front of them. They saw because of God's word and the experience they were having together.
Our pastor says this over and over... God's Spirit, God's word, God's people. This is how we know God... this is how we live within his will... this is how to live the best possible life. This is how we can recognize Jesus at work, around us, wherever we are.
