Leisa and I sat at the table thumbing through old cookbooks. The Shaker cookbook had the recipe for the corn pudding we were eating for our Labor Day picnic. The recipe begins the ingredient list with two cups of green grated corn. I used the frozen creamed corn mama and I put up this summer. The corn pudding was wonderful. I bought the cookbook when we lived in Kentucky and visited the restored Shaker settlement there. It is a living history book
The other cookbook, an old Rumford cookbook held together with rubber bands, belonged to Michael’s mother and is the same one my mama has, also held together with rubber bands. Ann’s cookbook is stuffed with the gold standard recipes from her life as wife and mother. Banana nutbread, sour cream pound cake, Bible verses,14 day pickles, stuffed turban squash, orange Jello salad (with Cool Whip, mandarin oranges and nuts), Billy Graham columns, spiced tea, chocolate chip cookies, newspaper articles... all the special foods she loved to prepare for family and friends as well as trail markers for what she valued in life. Leisa’s mom left her a cookbook stuffed full, like Ann’s and mama’s, with special recipes and little articles. When we open these books, we hold them reverently, turn the pages carefully and remember all the good times we shared these foods so lovingly prepared for us.
When I was young, before you got married, you got your cookbook and your recipe file. Friends and family gave you their favorite recipes for your new life as wife. My first cookbook was the Betty Crocker cookbook, everyday cooking with a flair. I thought cantaloupe halves filled with ice cream ranked right up there with the finest French cuisine. My recipe box was filled and filed and in order. The Betty Crocker cookbook is stained and cracked now, a little like me, showing signs of its importance in my life.
I know this is the age of the internet recipe. I used one myself last week... Chicken Burrito Filling. And I don’t begrudge the quick and easy access to just the right recipe. Good food prepared with care will never go out of style as an expression of love. And food as an exploration into different ways of experiencing the manna gift is now, as it has been, an occasion for laughter and celebration. The popularity of the movie “Julia and Julie” affirms our soul connection to food, the possibilities that come with food preparation.
The importance of the book, the guide, whether it is a cookbook or a sacred text, is marked by how much of our life is invested in its pages. Underlined passages, other writings, fingermarks, bent down corners... all are mute testimony to the life lived with the help of this book. They become living trail markers, like the trees marked on the Applachian Trail, that show where you have been and how you got there, what mattered to you, what was savory in your life and perhaps shows those left behind how to find their way.
The Psalmist says, “Thy Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path...” I wonder what stories the books I leave behind will tell. I hope they reflect the good and gracious gifts I have been given, the faith I have claimed. And when my children open these battered old books of their grandparents and parents, I pray laughter and good food are present, a party time, thanksgiving for all that has been and all that is yet to be.
Crockpot Salsa Chicken
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts 1 can corn 1 can black beans 32 ounces salsa
flour tortillas Sour cream guacamole lettuce
tomatoes Cheese salsa
Put first four ingredients, corn and beans drained, in crock pot. Cook on low 6-8 hours.30-60 minutes before serving, remove and shred chicken. Return to crock pot. Serve with condiments in tortillas.
Recipe #16687 at Recipezaar Home Page.
Green Corn Pudding
2 cups grated green corn 3 eggs 1/4c. Sugar dash nutmeg ½ tsp. Salt 1/8 tsp. Pepper 2 cups rich milk
½ c. buttered bread crumbs 2tbsp butter
Grate uncooked kernels from fresh corn. Put in buttered baking dish. Beat eggs well; add sugar, nutmeg, salt, pepper and milk, and blend. Sprinkle top with buttered bread crumbs and dot with butter. Place in a dish of boiling water and bake in a slow (250 degrees) oven for one hour. Serves six. Amelia’s Shaker Recipes from The Shaker Cookbook
To quote Julia... Bon appetit!!!!
Friday, September 11, 2009
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
I want an old time funeral...
Reading the obituaries is a daily custom for me and it is more than a casual scanning of the information. Aging tends to focus your attention in ways you might not expect and the review of death notices helps me tend to my life more intentionally. The older I get, the more names I know in this section of the paper.
Obituary customs are not universal. Friends who recently moved here from Louisville, Kentucky have been struck with the differences in language and funeral customs here in the mountains. Louisville obituaries tended to be more prosaic and less descriptive without many religious phrases like “entered into eternal rest” or “departed this life to eternal life with the Father”. Some will dwell on the person’s faith and how it was lived out citing church membership or list the different ways they served in their church. But I’ve noticed a trend recently among obituaries that has interested me.
More and more I see “Celebrations of Life” or a memorial service at a later date mentioned instead of a funeral following the death. I can’t help but wonder what you do with your feelings of mourning, loss, sadness, and grief if you are limited to a celebration or memorial at a later date. When death has visited my life, when I lose someone’s presence here on earth with me, I want structure to help me move through the maze of feelings that comes when someone I love dies.
Old time funerals may seem barbaric to us in our enlightened age but I am coming to appreciate some of the gifts that came with those customs. During my growing up time, viewing the body was an important part of the ritual. Open caskets rested in the sanctuary until the funeral service began allowing the community to pass before the body making the usual inane comments... My, doesn’t she look good? That hair style is really becoming. The important part of this ritual was the affirmation that the body is only a shell, a house for the soul while on earth. When the soul departs through death, we can see clearly the absence of the person we have known and loved. Fear of death can be tempered if one has eyes to see and ears to hear.
The community gathered around the family after death. Food in abundance was provided along with serving and dishwashing. During the funeral, someone would stay at the home in case thieves came along. These thieves read the obituaries marking the time of the funeral as prime time to rob. When you returned from the grave side, a meal would be on the table waiting for you, hot and ready to eat, concrete affirmation that your loved one and you matter, are loved and valued by your neighbors, church family and larger community. Martha expressions of love and caring when the ache of loss cannot be smoothed over help ease the hurt for a little while.
Drive by and drop in visits were the norm in our small town. “I was just driving by and saw Mr. Tom’s pickup sitting in the driveway. Thought I’d stop by and see how you’re doing. Do you need any help with the cows (or house or car)?” Grief did not end when the casket was covered up. The web of caring held you up in the days after as the work of grief began in earnest. Ladies would consult at church...Have you seen Shirley? How is she doing? Who is going to visit her this week? Should we send someone to help with the farm chores?... and the pastoral care network as administered by the Women’s Missionary Union or just the women in general saw that grief was not forgotten.
When I die, all of you left behind better give me a good funeral not a celebration. I want you to weep and laugh, tears flow, faith be affirmed, read the Twenty Third Psalm in the King James Version because I love the poetic images, sing my favorite hymns, pray for my soul and the lives of those I love, grieve in messy, sloppy authentic ways that acknowledge the love you have for me. View my body if you want to and say your final goodbyes to the shell of who I was. No need to be refined or formal and don’t try too hard to be positive. Let all your feelings of grief and loss come to the surface. Use the rituals of death to help you move through the valley of the shadow so that you might be lifted up to higher ground. If Michael is still alive, drop by and sit on the porch with him a spell. Call my children and play with my grandchildren. Tell my stories and call my name. Jesus said “Blessed are those who mourn” and we are. We are.
Obituary customs are not universal. Friends who recently moved here from Louisville, Kentucky have been struck with the differences in language and funeral customs here in the mountains. Louisville obituaries tended to be more prosaic and less descriptive without many religious phrases like “entered into eternal rest” or “departed this life to eternal life with the Father”. Some will dwell on the person’s faith and how it was lived out citing church membership or list the different ways they served in their church. But I’ve noticed a trend recently among obituaries that has interested me.
More and more I see “Celebrations of Life” or a memorial service at a later date mentioned instead of a funeral following the death. I can’t help but wonder what you do with your feelings of mourning, loss, sadness, and grief if you are limited to a celebration or memorial at a later date. When death has visited my life, when I lose someone’s presence here on earth with me, I want structure to help me move through the maze of feelings that comes when someone I love dies.
Old time funerals may seem barbaric to us in our enlightened age but I am coming to appreciate some of the gifts that came with those customs. During my growing up time, viewing the body was an important part of the ritual. Open caskets rested in the sanctuary until the funeral service began allowing the community to pass before the body making the usual inane comments... My, doesn’t she look good? That hair style is really becoming. The important part of this ritual was the affirmation that the body is only a shell, a house for the soul while on earth. When the soul departs through death, we can see clearly the absence of the person we have known and loved. Fear of death can be tempered if one has eyes to see and ears to hear.
The community gathered around the family after death. Food in abundance was provided along with serving and dishwashing. During the funeral, someone would stay at the home in case thieves came along. These thieves read the obituaries marking the time of the funeral as prime time to rob. When you returned from the grave side, a meal would be on the table waiting for you, hot and ready to eat, concrete affirmation that your loved one and you matter, are loved and valued by your neighbors, church family and larger community. Martha expressions of love and caring when the ache of loss cannot be smoothed over help ease the hurt for a little while.
Drive by and drop in visits were the norm in our small town. “I was just driving by and saw Mr. Tom’s pickup sitting in the driveway. Thought I’d stop by and see how you’re doing. Do you need any help with the cows (or house or car)?” Grief did not end when the casket was covered up. The web of caring held you up in the days after as the work of grief began in earnest. Ladies would consult at church...Have you seen Shirley? How is she doing? Who is going to visit her this week? Should we send someone to help with the farm chores?... and the pastoral care network as administered by the Women’s Missionary Union or just the women in general saw that grief was not forgotten.
When I die, all of you left behind better give me a good funeral not a celebration. I want you to weep and laugh, tears flow, faith be affirmed, read the Twenty Third Psalm in the King James Version because I love the poetic images, sing my favorite hymns, pray for my soul and the lives of those I love, grieve in messy, sloppy authentic ways that acknowledge the love you have for me. View my body if you want to and say your final goodbyes to the shell of who I was. No need to be refined or formal and don’t try too hard to be positive. Let all your feelings of grief and loss come to the surface. Use the rituals of death to help you move through the valley of the shadow so that you might be lifted up to higher ground. If Michael is still alive, drop by and sit on the porch with him a spell. Call my children and play with my grandchildren. Tell my stories and call my name. Jesus said “Blessed are those who mourn” and we are. We are.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Labor Day meditation... Magic is hard work!
I love seeing children visit the farm. It is a magical place for them. Watching Caleb run to the bench, climb up to pet the donkeys, seeing Kate nibble his rubber farm boots, listening to Abby and Caleb chatter as they swing in the hammock chair, dodging them as they run in the yard from place to place in joy... it makes me laugh. Grown ups come to visit and magic happens for them, too. Some have always lived in cities and never seen the full array of stars at night. Going to sleep in darkness without streetlights and waking to sunrise light is a new way of viewing the world. Sitting on the sunset deck at night hearing the not really quiet silence of katydids and screech owls and train whistles down on the river settles souls and calms interior churning. Taking a morning walk in dew laden grass with spider webs glistening and turkeys surprised at breakfast sets a frame around the day. This magical God filled place appears to just happen, to be there for the taking like an apple hanging on a tree. Tisn’t so, though.
Before sitting on the deck there is work to be done. Hay to bale, bush hogging fields to keep weeds out of the pastures, feeding the cows and the chickens and the horses and the donkeys and the cats and the dogs and the ducks, stalls to clean and sawdust to shovel, eggs to gather, fences to mend and grass to cut, hornet nests to be sprayed, spraying the cows and horses for flies, tractor to be serviced and weed eating to be done, new blades to be put on the mower, roads to be scraped level, everywhere you look there is work waiting to be done. Like a ducks feet paddling quickly underwater while floating serenely on top of the water, a farm requires great effort to support the pastoral life. It doesn’t just happen.
Untended fields grow up in locust trees and weeds quickly. Clean pastures feed cows, horses, deer and turkeys. Unmended fences let cows and horses roam. Tractors that do not have the oil changed and the filters replaced break down. Lawn mowers with dull blades cut grass unevenly and we have a lot of grass. Animals need daily care or they suffer. Winter is coming and hay will be needed to feed animals. If you don’t love the work and can’t afford to pay hired help, don’t move to a farm. We love the work that supports the farm, helps the magic happen for children and grown-ups because there are too few places like this anymore. Being able to live surrounded by God’s creation is a gift and a stewardship responsibility. We take care of the farm and we share it because we have been given much.
And so it is with the life of the spirit. Those who seem to be keepers of the flame, those who appear to have been given the gift of faith and the inner knowledge of God’s presence, are hard workers who devote their time and energy to cultivate their gifts, grow a spirit filled crop of godliness. They feed and mend and service and tend the life they have been given as an offering to their Creator. It isn’t magic or a gift just some of us can have. It is a gift we all have been given but few of us are willing to do the work. Our American activist style leads us to do good works (Be ye doers of the word....)but often we do not do the work of the spirit needed to support
the busyness. One without the other leaves us limping along unable to stand up straight.
Michael used this prayer by Harry Emerson Fosdick in worship yesterday and it is a prayer I pray for myself as I live and work in the sanctuary of Sabbath Rest Farm. “Eternal God, high above all, your children gather in your sanctuary to worship you. You fill heaven and the earth so that none can hide where you cannot not see. Through all the universe You flow like blood through our bodies. Yet there is one spot where we feel the pulse, where putting the finger, we know the heart is beating. Let your sanctuary be that for us this day. O God who fills all things, here let us feel the beating of the Eternal Heart. Amen.” Wherever your sanctuaries are, I pray you take the time and do the work to feel the beating of the Eternal Heart.
Before sitting on the deck there is work to be done. Hay to bale, bush hogging fields to keep weeds out of the pastures, feeding the cows and the chickens and the horses and the donkeys and the cats and the dogs and the ducks, stalls to clean and sawdust to shovel, eggs to gather, fences to mend and grass to cut, hornet nests to be sprayed, spraying the cows and horses for flies, tractor to be serviced and weed eating to be done, new blades to be put on the mower, roads to be scraped level, everywhere you look there is work waiting to be done. Like a ducks feet paddling quickly underwater while floating serenely on top of the water, a farm requires great effort to support the pastoral life. It doesn’t just happen.
Untended fields grow up in locust trees and weeds quickly. Clean pastures feed cows, horses, deer and turkeys. Unmended fences let cows and horses roam. Tractors that do not have the oil changed and the filters replaced break down. Lawn mowers with dull blades cut grass unevenly and we have a lot of grass. Animals need daily care or they suffer. Winter is coming and hay will be needed to feed animals. If you don’t love the work and can’t afford to pay hired help, don’t move to a farm. We love the work that supports the farm, helps the magic happen for children and grown-ups because there are too few places like this anymore. Being able to live surrounded by God’s creation is a gift and a stewardship responsibility. We take care of the farm and we share it because we have been given much.
And so it is with the life of the spirit. Those who seem to be keepers of the flame, those who appear to have been given the gift of faith and the inner knowledge of God’s presence, are hard workers who devote their time and energy to cultivate their gifts, grow a spirit filled crop of godliness. They feed and mend and service and tend the life they have been given as an offering to their Creator. It isn’t magic or a gift just some of us can have. It is a gift we all have been given but few of us are willing to do the work. Our American activist style leads us to do good works (Be ye doers of the word....)but often we do not do the work of the spirit needed to support
the busyness. One without the other leaves us limping along unable to stand up straight.
Michael used this prayer by Harry Emerson Fosdick in worship yesterday and it is a prayer I pray for myself as I live and work in the sanctuary of Sabbath Rest Farm. “Eternal God, high above all, your children gather in your sanctuary to worship you. You fill heaven and the earth so that none can hide where you cannot not see. Through all the universe You flow like blood through our bodies. Yet there is one spot where we feel the pulse, where putting the finger, we know the heart is beating. Let your sanctuary be that for us this day. O God who fills all things, here let us feel the beating of the Eternal Heart. Amen.” Wherever your sanctuaries are, I pray you take the time and do the work to feel the beating of the Eternal Heart.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
