Like Saul on the road to Damascus, Barney has seen a great light and been converted. Barney, a black mouthed Southern Yellow Cur, is a dog of massive proportions and a heart to match. This giant of a dog wandered over the hill at the farm wounded in body and soul. Barely healed torn places on his body matched the fear of humankind in his heart. Men wearing baseball hats, cameras, strangers to the farm, occasionally us, sparked a deep remembered hurt place in Barney and he responded with LOUD barking and fake charging. After two years of loving feeding walking talking living with us, Barney still approached us shyly and never came in the house. He was deathly afraid of being closed up in a space so we had to trick him to get him in the basement during winter’s bitter cold. When fed, he backed away and waited until you left to approach his food. Once in a great while, he would come to you and let you pet him.
We made the decision to neuter Barney hoping it would calm him down. The horse vet left me some ACE, an animal tranquilizer, to put on his food. “It will put him in a very calm place. He might pass out. You’ll have no problem getting him to the vet,” he said. R-i-g-h-t... I called my women friends to come and help me lift Barney into the car. I called the vet and had them lined up for immediate surgery. I gave Barney the ACE and we sat and waited and watched. It took about ten minutes to see Barney begin to get drunk. A slight case of the staggers and a quizzical look on his face, like some other drunks I have known, signaled the drug was at work. But every time I approached Barney, he lurched away and would not let me get near him. After an hour of trying to get Barney in the car, we admitted defeat and left him to sleep it off.
When the vet returned the next week, I asked for a bigger dose. Reluctantly, he measured out a dose of ACE for a 105 pound dog cautioning me about the dangers of an overdose. After he left, I gave Barney the drugs and watched. No staggers, no running to and fro, just a gentle calm and he climbed into the front seat of the truck like a veteran passenger. When I got out with him at the vet’s office, no one believed my stories of Barney’s behavior because all they saw was a lovely, well behaved, sweetheart of a dog, all 104 pounds of him. When I picked him up later that day, he was still groggy and had had a second dose of ACE so I could get him home. After he slept off the effects of the drugs, his behavior was somewhat calmer but the skittishness, fear of people and enclosed spaces was still there. Then came Rufus...
Rufus came to the farm on Monday night. Tuesday morning, Barney and Rufus met. Barney is a gentle giant with dogs, aloof and uninterested in the usual dog antics. He lets LuLu, a friend’s Corgi, hang on his neck, nip his legs and gambol around him without any complaint. When it gets to be too much, he leaves. But Rufus was different. He didn’t respond to Rufus’s attempts to play but when Rufus came in the house, Barney was right behind him. When Rufus jumped up on the sofa to nap, Barney took the other side. When I sit at the computer writing, Rufus and Barney keep me company. Barney is now a house dog, all 104 pounds of him. Occasionally he will get up and come lay his head in my lap searching my face for a loving response. He gets one.
I don’t know what caused the change... jealousy, competition, seeing Rufus’s overwhelming friendliness and our response, an assurance of safety in the presence of a young dog... it doesn’t matter. Barney is a changed dog with us and I am grateful for his conversion. Overnight he has learned he is safe with us and his desire to be close to us is sweet indeed. Barney lies at my feet dreaming dog dreams while Rufus sleeps on the sofa with his head hanging off the edge. I speak Barney’s name and he lifts his huge head up, sleepy eyes focused on my face as I rub his head and scratch his ears. No fear, no anxiety, no worries... all is well.
Like Saul who became Paul and Barney the Frightened who is now Barney the Beloved , I have hope that conversion will come again to my soul. Every year, I watch and wait for the arrival of Emmanuel, God With Us, hoping that I will be made whole and brand new, calm and at ease in my soul as Jesus, the Bearer of Good News comes to live with me again. Hope and love (a dose of ACE and Rufus) worked a conversion miracle for Barney. I live in Advent anticipation of my conversion changed life that will be my best Christmas present... for myself and for my God. May it be so, Lord Jesus.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Friday, December 5, 2008
Advent Biscuits
GrandMary, daddy’s mama, made the best biscuits. If she didn’t make biscuits, there would be no bread at mealtime because this was not the era of store bought bread. Everyday, three times a day, she would stand in her kitchen, measure out the ingredients by eye into her old cracked pottery bowl, and stir up the dough. She turned it out on to a floured dish towel that had been made from a feed sack. After kneading the dough a few times, she took her hand carved rolling pin and rolled it out into a smooth oval. A small glass served as a biscuit cutter. These were her Sunday biscuits. Everyday biscuits were pinched off from the dough before it was rolled out, formed into a small ball and placed in the old smooth black frying pan that was reserved for baking biscuits. Each ball, patted slightly to make a flattened circle, was brushed with milk before baking.
Always... always they were light and rich, ready for cane syrup and butter, or as an afternoon snack, a cold biscuit with a hole punched in it and filled with sugar. Mama and I watched, memorized each step, did the same things she did and never had our biscuits turn out as good as hers. She had a hand for biscuits that came from years of practice. Mama has her frying pan now and I have her rolling pin. Every now and then I make biscuits and remember GrandMary as I turn my dough out on to a floured towel.
Last Sunday morning as I stood in my kitchen making biscuits for our farm church family, I got to thinking about Advent and biscuit making. It seems to me after forty or so years of celebrating Advent, that practice is required to produce a rich, light, tasty Advent, one that satisfies the hunger in our souls. The ingredients are the same every year... hope, love, joy, peace, candles, Bible readings, the journey to Bethlehem... but some Advents are better than others, just like GrandMary’s biscuits. It is the practice, the repetition, the memorizing by the heart that gives us a hand for Advent.
Like GrandMary in the kitchen and monks at prayer, when we do what we love, a miracle happens. Sometimes it is a miracle that we don’t see or feel until later. Sometimes the miracle makes you shine like one of GrandMary’s biscuits fresh from the oven. Or perhaps the miracle is in the practice itself, caring enough to continue to pray and celebrate Advent even when you are not sure of the answers or the outcome. I hope, really hope, I can have a GrandMary biscuit Advent, a melt in my mouth covered in butter and cane syrup tasting of God With Us. I hope you do, too.
Brother Boniface’s Biscuits
The closest recipe I could find for GrandMary’s biscuits came from Brother Boniface, a baker at Mepkin Abbey in South Carolina. He came to the monastic community as a barber but as he says, he got stuck in the pots and pans. His secret? “You’ve godt to have gute recipes.”
2 c. all-purpose flour 1 tbsp. Baking powder ½ tsp. Salt 1/3 c. unsalted butter (Grandmary used lard) A little less than one cup milk
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Sift flour, baking powder and salt together. Using your hands, work in the butter until the mixture is crumbly. Add enough milk to make a dough. Add more milk to make a sticky dough for drop biscuits, less milk to make dough that can be rolled out. Place on a lightly greased pan. Sides touching for soft sided biscuits or separate for crispy sides. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes. Yield: ten to twelve biscuits.
Always... always they were light and rich, ready for cane syrup and butter, or as an afternoon snack, a cold biscuit with a hole punched in it and filled with sugar. Mama and I watched, memorized each step, did the same things she did and never had our biscuits turn out as good as hers. She had a hand for biscuits that came from years of practice. Mama has her frying pan now and I have her rolling pin. Every now and then I make biscuits and remember GrandMary as I turn my dough out on to a floured towel.
Last Sunday morning as I stood in my kitchen making biscuits for our farm church family, I got to thinking about Advent and biscuit making. It seems to me after forty or so years of celebrating Advent, that practice is required to produce a rich, light, tasty Advent, one that satisfies the hunger in our souls. The ingredients are the same every year... hope, love, joy, peace, candles, Bible readings, the journey to Bethlehem... but some Advents are better than others, just like GrandMary’s biscuits. It is the practice, the repetition, the memorizing by the heart that gives us a hand for Advent.
Like GrandMary in the kitchen and monks at prayer, when we do what we love, a miracle happens. Sometimes it is a miracle that we don’t see or feel until later. Sometimes the miracle makes you shine like one of GrandMary’s biscuits fresh from the oven. Or perhaps the miracle is in the practice itself, caring enough to continue to pray and celebrate Advent even when you are not sure of the answers or the outcome. I hope, really hope, I can have a GrandMary biscuit Advent, a melt in my mouth covered in butter and cane syrup tasting of God With Us. I hope you do, too.
Brother Boniface’s Biscuits
The closest recipe I could find for GrandMary’s biscuits came from Brother Boniface, a baker at Mepkin Abbey in South Carolina. He came to the monastic community as a barber but as he says, he got stuck in the pots and pans. His secret? “You’ve godt to have gute recipes.”
2 c. all-purpose flour 1 tbsp. Baking powder ½ tsp. Salt 1/3 c. unsalted butter (Grandmary used lard) A little less than one cup milk
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Sift flour, baking powder and salt together. Using your hands, work in the butter until the mixture is crumbly. Add enough milk to make a dough. Add more milk to make a sticky dough for drop biscuits, less milk to make dough that can be rolled out. Place on a lightly greased pan. Sides touching for soft sided biscuits or separate for crispy sides. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes. Yield: ten to twelve biscuits.
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