Friday Five: Advent Confidential

Mary Beth brings today's Friday Five to RevGalBlogPals:

Good morning, all! In the United States we are waking up from our annual turkey feast, a day and meal surrounded by traditions of all sorts.

One of my favorite Thanksgiving morning traditions is listening to a National Public Radio program called “Turkey Confidential,” in which Lynne Rossetto Kasper and a selection of celebrity cooks take calls from people with problems like, “I put too much cayenne in the cranberry sauce!” and get advice like, “Add a little fat, like cream, to cut that heat.” It’s folksy and amusing, and celebrity chefs join in as well. And I do it every year, so: it’s a tradition.

Waiting for us, just around the corner, is Advent, which almost all of us observe in some way…whether by that name or no, we are all preparing for the coming of the Christ.

Today’s Friday Five, following that line, is Advent Confidential. What are your favorite traditions, observances, hymns, or memories of Advent? Is there something you remember from childhood that you’d like to do again? A funny story you can share about the time the Advent wreath got a little over-lit?

1. Advent Candles: I did not grow up celebrating Advent or having an Advent wreath,probably because I grew up in a family that went to church only on Easter and Christmas. Chuck and I did not see or know about Advent candles until we started attending church in the 1990's. Thus, my children did not grow up with lighting Advent candles, except for being chosen several times in both the Methodist Church and the Episcopal Church to light a candle during the service.

2. Advent Calendars: My mother sent Advent calendars for the children to open daily in December. For a long time, I did not connect this to "Advent" but only to the month of December and the countdown to Christmas.

Being much more aware of the Christian implications of Advent--preparing for the birth of Light in our hearts--I have posted in past years about online Advent calendars (and other Advent resources).

And here is a site that offers easy homemade Advent calendars for children: Super Easy Advent Calendar.

3.  2013 Advent: This Advent I am taking an on-line Advent course conducted by Cynthia Bourgeault using the Gospel of Thomas. I am looking forward to this opportunity, especially as two dear friends, Nancy and Paige, are also participating.

Another thing I love about this Advent is learning to play Christmas carols on the piano!

4. Advent Books/Studies: Elaine reminded me of the book The Advent Conspiracy, which I would like to look at again this year.

5. Christmas Books: From 1979 with the birth of DC, my mother sent Christmas books to my children until her death in 1992. I started that tradition with granddaughter Avery in the last few years with the board books:
Christmas in the Manger
Who Is Coming to Our House?
Both of these are lovely stories to prepare for the birth of baby Jesus with small children and so are good for Advent reading.

They are not all religious books, but the tradition of having Christmas books is one I treasure. One of my favorite books is Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree, which gives the message of sharing among the animals and Mr. Willowby! I look forward to giving that to Avery, probably next year.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Grace

Thanks & blessings be
to the Sun & the Earth
for this bread & this wine,
this fruit, this meat, this salt,
this food;
thanks be & blessing to them
who prepare it, who serve it;
thanks & blessings to them
who share it
(& also the absent & the dead).
Thanks & Blessing to them who bring it
(may they not want),
to them who plant & tend it,
harvest & gather it
(may they not want);
thanks & blessing to them who work
& blessing to them who cannot;
may they not want - for their hunger
sours the wine & robs
the taste from the salt.
Thanks be for the sustenance & strength
for our dance & work of justice, of peace.

~ Rafael Jesus Gonzalez ~

(In Praise of Fertile Land, edited by Claudia Mauro

A Different Thanksgiving

In honor of my vegan and vegetarian daughters:

And here is an article about new trends in the American diet concerning such holidays as Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving

It's Cold Enough for Soup!

An arctic cold front blew through TX on Friday, dropping temperatures precipitously. It was 83 degrees F. in the morning, and later in the day it was 40 degrees colder. We drove to Austin to visit our son DC and his wife AA and their two daughters Avery and Emma. It was also Avery's third birthday!

When I got there, I made soup. I love to make soup, which is not a common occurrence in south TX. (I made it so much in New Jersey when we lived there 1991-94 that oldest son DC told me he'd be glad if he never had soup again when we moved away.) Well, I made enough hamburger vegetable soup (from the old LLL cookbook) that he'll be stuck with for several days.

So we came back to Corpus Christi, and I was excited to try a new recipe for soup tonight. Chuck and I both liked it a lot. I am glad that it also is a vegan recipe--for my two Seattle daughters. It is also from a cookbook that I learned about when I visited them this past summer: New England Soup Factory Cookbook (although we were on the opposite coast).

So I am going to copy the recipe here for Vegetarian Mulligatawny Soup, which is the second good recipe I have tried in this cookbook:

VEGETARIAN MULLIGATAWNY SOUP

3 Tbsp. olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 large Spanish onion, peeled and diced
2 ribs celery, diced
4 carrots, peeled and sliced
2 cups (16 oz.) canned diced tomatoes (though I used a larger can)
1 can (16 oz.) chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 16 oz. bag lentils
8 cups vegetable stock
2 cups tomato juice
3 tsp. yellow curry powder
3 tsp. ground cumin
2 tsp. ground coriander
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 can (16 oz.) coconut milk
2 Tbsp. honey
1 1/2 cups cooked basmati rice
1/2 bunch fresh cilantro, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat a stockpot over medium-high heat. Add the oil, garlic, onion, celery, and carrots. Saute for 7 minutes.

Add the lentils, tomatoes, chickpeas, stock, tomato juice, curry powder, cumin, coriander, and cayenne pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium, cover the pot, and simmer for 40 to 45 minutes.

Stir in the coconut milk, honey, rice, cilantro, salt and pepper.

Makes 12 servings.

Druker, Marjorie and Silverstein, Clara. New England Soup Factory Cookbook. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2007. 101.

Delicious!

Wake up!

"A man found an eagle's egg and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them.
"All his life the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet into the air.
"Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings.
"The eagle looked up in awe. 'Who's that?' he asked.
"'That's the eagle, the king of the birds,' said his neighbor. 'He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth--we're chickens.' So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that's what he thought he was."

~Anthony de Mello. Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality. NY: Doubleday, 1992. 3. (originally published in Song of the Bird by de Mello.)

My Prayer

Give me the strength that waits upon you in silence and peace. Give me humility in which alone is rest, and deliver me from pride which is the heaviest of burdens. Possess my whole heart and soul with the simplicity of love. Occupy my whole life with the one thought and the one desire of love, that I may love not for the sake of merit, not for the sake of perfection, not for the sake of virtue, not for the sake of sanctity, but for You alone. 

Thomas Merton
Source: New Seeds of Contemplation

From Inward/Outward. Subscribe here.    

Later? NO!!

My daughters AE and KA in Seattle like to create letterpressed items. They even have a shop on etsy.com.

They have spurred me on to be interested in such items, especially in cards, which I intend to write and mail off to friends and family. . . that is one aspect of my tendency to procrastinate lately, which includes blogging, exercising, letter-writing, working on my master's papers, and on and on.

I am stuck, but am earnestly sitting in meditation about the conflicting desires to proceed and to delay. Cynthia Bourgeault in her new book The Holy Trinity and The Law of Three: Discovering the Radical Truth at the Heart of Christianity advocates that the law of three produces an entirely new idea/way when opposing forces are held in tension. As I see the spring deadline for the papers completion approaches, there will be no alternative but go ahead!

Back to the picture--Unfortunately, the humor of these letterpress files listed are too true (but probably too much trouble to use):

1. maybe
2. sometime
3. never
4. unlikely 
5. later

Friday Five: In the Middle

November 15 is the middle of the month and also the day for our Friday Five. Think about the term "middle" which indicates various ways of looking at things: middle of a project; middle of a consensus; midpoint as the golden mean; middle of a dilemma (of which its spelling is indecisive); middle of a family; middle of the state and on and on and on.

For today's Friday Five, write about five experiences you have had being in the middle. It will be interesting to see how many different ways we see the middle in our lives.

1. Being an only child, I was in the middle of my family: in between my mom and dad.

2. I am in the middle of learning most of my piano pieces right now: "What Child is This?" and "Angels We Have Heard on High," plus "Siciliana" and "Sunrise at San Miguel." The music is recognizable, but I need to get even with my playing and quicker.

3. I am in the middle of writing a piece about myself for our annual Christmas letter, partly because I have not completed some things in my life, seeing like I am "in the middle" of lots of stuff. Since 1992 our family has compiled a communal Christmas letter to send to friends and relatives; each person writes a section about him/herself. I am grateful that our adult children still like to participate.

4. I am in the middle of reading too many books:  
Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth
by Robert A. Johnson;  
Gandhi: A Spiritual Autobiography
by Arvind Sharma;
The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three: Discovering the Radical Truth at the Heart of Christianity
by Cynthia Bourgeault;
The Big Disconnect: Protecting Childhood and Family Relationships in the Digital Age
 by Catherine Steiner-Adair, EdD;
Talking About Death Won't Kill You
by Virginia Morris.

5. Tomorrow we are going to the middle of Texas (to Austin) to visit our two granddaughters and their parents. (And tomorrow is also the official day for Friday Five, but I am doing it this early as we'll be leaving in the morning for our 4-hour drive.)

Kindness

My Parents

Today is Veterans Day, and I remember my parents. They both served in the Marine Corps during WWII; they met in Hawaii.



David R. Cowling, USMC, 24 years in Marine Corps; served in three wars: WWII, Korea, and Vietnam.



Margaret F. Cowling, USMC, served during WWII.

If Prayer Would Do It

If prayer would do it
I’d pray.

If reading esteemed thinkers would do it
I’d be halfway through the Patriarchs.

If discourse would do it
I’d be sitting with His Holiness
every moment he was free.

If contemplation would do it
I’d have translated the Periodic Table
to hermit poems, converting
matter to spirit.

If even fighting would do it
I’d already be a black belt.

If anything other than love could do it
I’d have done it already
and left the hardest for last.

Stephen Levine
Source: Breaking the Drought

From Inward/Outward. Subscribe here.   

Beyond Words

Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, God,
I do not suppose You are very tied to titles;
You seem to revel more
in creating and loving
Than arguing like we do.

You are beyond any name,
Beyond this group or that,
Beyond ideas or any ability to
Control You by definitions.

You are the Utterly Free One.
You are the Eternal I
That always allows me to be a Thou
Whenever we meet.

You are the Speaker, I am the spoken,
So Love must be Your name!
Which is always beyond words.

~~Martin Buber

Friday Five: Randomness Galore

RevKarla brings today's Friday Five to RevGalBlogPals:

Wow, this second Friday really snuck up on me!   But it is here, in all of its glory, right?  So…here we go, another random Friday Five!

Jan holding Emma

1.  What’s up?  How are you?
Last week I spent in Austin happily holding new grandbaby Emma, and this week I have felt exhausted. What has developed is that my RA probably was reacting to the Humira shot being three weeks apart instead of two.  (Go here to see the story of that experiment that began on Sept. 30.) I successfully managed to go several periods of three-week intervals until this week. Fatigue and pain in my hands and feet were returning, so I am back to the two-week schedule.

I am glad my rheumatologist encouraged me to try this experiment. I am also grateful that these miraculous drugs (methotextrate and Humira) are available to relieve my RA symptoms.

2.  If you were a Panda Bear that could speak  O.k., even that is too random for me.  You are moving to a new office.  You can only take five books with you (pretend there is no thing such as kindle, nook, etc.).  What would they be BESIDES the Bible, which is already written on your hearts, yes?
Five Books:
Praying with Psalms by Nan Merrill

Into the Silent Land by Martin Laird

Beyond Words by Frederick Buechner

The Awakened Heart by Gerald May

Gratefulness: The Heart of Prayer by David Steindl Rast

3.  If you had a superpower that could give you a five hour retreat, and you could go anywhere in the world to spend those five hours on retreat (because you have superpowers, ya’ know?), where would you go?
 I can't be specific and should be--someplace with an unobstructed view of Oregon beach or tall trees in a simple setting. I guess I'm too realistic and can't imagine anything right now.

4.  What piece of music, song, hymn, etc. are you diggin’ right now?
As I am still taking piano lessons, I was surprised that my piano teacher had me choose two Christmas songs to learn to play. In retrospect, it makes sense to start learning them now! So I am reveling in the learning of "What Child Is This?" and "Angels We Have Heard On High." I keep singing them to myself.

5.  Use the following words in a sentence (or two):  Tangle, dribble, hook, Panda, shark, smile, worry, island

The worried Panda is tangled in the net hung by a hook from the wharf on the island as the smiling shark circled around. In contrast, his oblivious owner dribbles a ball down the walkway.

Change in Perspective

This past Monday was my father-in-law's 88th birthday, which is truly amazing in my perspective because neither of my parents lived to be 80. The very next day was our youngest daughter MJ's 24th birthday.

Maybe because I spent all week last week in Austin helping and holding sweet little Emma and maybe because Emma looks a lot like MJ looked as a newborn and maybe because I always remember my baby's births on their birthdays. . . . BUT I realized that when my MJ was born 24 years ago, Chuck's dad was only 64. . . . THAT is my age (almost) now!

As a new parent, I did not think of our parents as being anything more than "parents" and "older" and now I am in that position. It is so weird for me to realize that I am the same age as Chuck's dad when MJ was born.

I am appreciating both sets of our parents much more now. It is interesting to see another perspective.