Excuses

They say that the thing you hate most in someone else, you usually hate most about yourself.

I hate excuses. Crappy reasons to justify doing or not doing something. A rationalization or justification to do something.

For instance, while I fully believe that women should be able to do what they want with their bodies, I hate when women get an abortion and say, "Well, I didn't mean to get pregnant." Seriously? That's your excuse? Or insert any number of condom/pill/other failed methods of preventing said pregnancy.

Or excuses we all give for not calling, for not visiting, for forgetting. Yes, we're all busy. Yes, we get distracted. But why do we make the excuses?

My friend from Germany said that it is especially bad in America. People that will say, "Yeah, yeah, we should definitely hang out." And then never do. Never call. Never follow through.

I've done it. We all do it. But WHY? Especially when we all know how crappy it is to be handed an excuse. To be handed a pathetic reason for missing a planned get together. And I'm not talking about emergencies. I mean, there have been several times I've planned on attending some party or dinner when I call the friend hosting and say, "I just can't... I'm just not in the mood." Some friends are able to coax me out of this introverted homebody tendency and get me out despite my protests but most just say they'll miss me and okay.

I'm not sure why we do it. But we do. A lot. Provide excuses for not doing things we don't want to do... instead of just saying we don't want to do them. Excuses for being too busy and missing an important meeting. I don't think my not wanting to hurt your feeling or being over scheduled is a good excuse.

Perhaps the solution is to say what we mean and to slow down more. To make the appointments we set. To show up. To call. To do.

*writes on To Do list "Make Pastoral Visits"*

*big sigh*

The Cost of Discipleship

Discipleship is one of those big churchy words that doesn't have much anchor in today's world. For me, it means following Christ. It means the disciples that left their fishing boats and fathers behind to follow Christ. No belongings. No internship. No contract with benefits.

Today, I am about 2,000 miles from the birth of a friend's second baby. I was there for the first.
Today, I am coordinating vigil for someone who is dying in the nursing home I work for.
Today, my heart is not here. 

This is not how I saw ministry going. Away from a birth, preparing for a death. Exhausted to the bone and still without a finished sermon for Sunday. Wondering how I can spend the rest of my life doing this and wondering how I can spend the rest of my life doing anything else. But this is where God has called me. So I'm here. But today, my heart will be in TN, celebrating the birth of a new child of God. A new little soul to love and cherish. A new little soul to miss with all my heart.

Comfort and Challenge

As I weigh and wear the responsibility of a pastor on my shoulders, I am struck with the task of comforting and challenging those that I minister to. Not only of figuring out when some need to be comforted and some need to be challenged, but of presenting the gospel in a way that allows for both - AT THE SAME TIME.

For me, the gospel has always been about both. There are times when I am down in the dumps, depressed, and just need to hear that God loves me. There are times when my life is steady, unchanged, and unchallenged. I go with the status quo, with the norm, and trudge through my days. That's when I need the wake up call that life is about a lot more than passing the time - and I've got a place in it.

So what do we do with this Christ who has arrived on the scene? With those wise men who traversed afar bringing gifts that proclaimed that Christ was king? With this figure who gets baptized and the skies open up? Where is the comfort and where is the challenge? And which, at this moment, do we need to hear?

You should watch "Dakota Skye"

Jonah: I still have the dream sometimes.

  
I do. I come home from the store
and find you on my doorstep 

with a suitcase.

  
And that's your entire wardrobe.

  
Just a carry-on, a duffel bag.

  
We don't say anything,

  
but you have this look
in your eye that kills me.

  
It just...

  
And I unlock the door and let you in.

  
And that's it.
That's the dream.

  
When I wake up, I wake up happy...

  
...vibrating for a few seconds
with my head in the sand...

  
...content.

  
[Sighs]

  
Then it goes away, and you go away.

  
I really don't want
to get out of bed then

  
because it's cold out there,

  
but I do.

  
I get up.
Life goes on.

  
[Exhales]

  
Most days you never
even cross my mind.

To Know The Dark
by Wendell Berry

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

Gluten Free PB Cranberry Go Bars

SUCCESS!

This is a great "kitchen sink" recipe. Go crazy with yogurt, jellies, fresh fruits, nuts, etc. My friend Kjersten originally introduced me to these delectable breakfast bars. She found the recipe in a hiking magazine I do believe. Regardless, everyone who has ever tasted them has demanded the recipe.

Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cranberry Go Bars

1 cup oats (found .05% gluten content from Mcann's Oats... there might  be better)
1/3 cup oat bran (ditto gluten free issue - Bob's Red Mill seems safe)
3 tbsp. flax seeds (I grind mine up in coffee grinder)
1 cup GF flour - I used brown and white rice flour, tapioca and sorghum flours
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt (I used Kosher)
1/2 cup each: chopped roasted salted peanuts, dried cranberries, finely chopped dried fruit of your choice
3/4 cup natural chunky peanut butter
1/4 cup low-fat milk or soy milk
1 large egg
1/2 cup honey
Finely shredded zest from 1 lemon (I never use this)
1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice

1. In a large bowl, stir together oats, oat bran, flax seeds, flour,
baking powder, salt, peanuts and cranberries until well blended.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together PB, milk, egg, honey,
lemon zest, and lemon juice until well blended.
3. Add flour mixture to PB mixture and beat until completely blended.
4. Line a 9x13 pan with plastic wrap, leaving an overhang on the 9
inch sides, and coat with cooking oil spray. Scrap dough into pan and
with wet fingers or rubber spatula, pat to fill pan completely and
evening (dough is sticky). Chill dough until firm, about 30 minutes.
(I never do this pan business either. I just portion out 16 discs onto
parchment paper on my baking sheet.)
5. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Invert pan onto a work surface, lift
off pan, and peel of plastic. Using a bench scraper or knife, cut
straight down lengthwise through middle, then crosswise to make 16
bars, each 1.5 inches wide. Place bars about 1 inch apart on a baking
sheet lined with parchment.
5. Bake bars until lightly browned and somewhat firm to touch, about
20 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool completely.
Store airtight up to 2 weeks or freeze.

Gluten Free

In my ever expanding social circle, I keep encountering more and more people are gluten intolerant or have celiac's disease. For those of you who haven't been out of the house for a while, gluten is a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye. So all those typically wheaty things are off limits: cake, bread, (lefsa!), pizza, beer and so on. There's also a list of other non-typical things that may have gluten: gum, creamer, syrups, salad dressings, cereals and candy.

So said one friend, "It's easier now to be gluten free than it was a few years ago." But it still isn't easy. Of the many batches of lefsa I've seen made, the most recent one broke my heart because an 80 year old woman who has Celiac's was making it for everyone and couldn't have any herself. It is like the new diabetes - everyone knows someone who has to be GF now (if not a handful of people).

This knowledge combined with my stumbling upon this awesome blog yesterday led me to go on a gluten free shopping spree. I had no idea there were so many kinds of flour. Goodness!! Amaranth, sorghum, potato, tapioca, sweet rice, brown rice, white rice...

Going off a recipe for chocolate chip cookies from Shauna (Gluten Free Girl from above blog), I sifted four different kinds of flour together to create the delicious goodness that is my batch of GF Choc Chip Cookies. I'm going to hand them out to all my gluten free people in the hopes that they might enjoy eating them as much as I enjoyed baking them.

Beyond a desire to bake something delicious for those GF people I love, I have been reading about the benefits of going GF. Here for instance are some reason. Beyond the health benefits of not eating so much bread or so much wheat, there's always the possibility that I yself will be GF down the road (diagnoses are happening with shocking regularity). Regardless, I will always know someone who has to be GF and I'd love to be able to whip up a batch of something GF for them!

Here's to more GF adventures. Next up: my PB cranberry go bars are going gluten free!

A Blog worthy of a visit

From Bad Vestments blog (badvestments.blogspot.com):

VESTMENT OR STAR TREK COSTUME?

MORE GIANT PAPIER-MÂCHÉ CALVINIST PUPPETS OF DOOM

Emmanuel, God with us

I survived Christmas.

The strangest part was in my struggle to see God in the day. I was praying for something extraordinary. I don't know what exactly that would have entailed though. A surprise visit from someone? An unshakeable feeling that God was with me? Something unexpected.

Instead, the day was quiet on the God front. There were little things that caught my attention - a bloom on the cactus, a ribbon in the shape of a heart, a beam of light from the window to my face, and a single shining star in the sky visible outside my bedroom window as I crawled into bed to weep.

Perhaps the greatest mystery and gift is that God shows up in the quiet moments and not in some over the top fireworks and flare kind of way. This is only troubling on the days when I cannot hear the still small voice and need God to hit me over the head and scream, "I'm here."

But perhaps my survival is evidence that God is with me. I keep surviving.

Unfair

Annoying Christmas songs about snowmen who can come to life and marry people when WE have to put in 4 years at seminary?! Unfair.

Getting the plastic napkin holder with jingle bells on it at the Dirty Santa gift exchanged when you wanted the snuggie? Unfair.

Being far away from family and friends and all the traditions that you grew up with because you now work every Christmas (and are on internship/first call)? Unfair.

A White Christmas that actually means having to drive through ice and snow to get to church on Christmas eve and Christmas morning? Unfair.

But this frustration and resentment and business of the season comes to a halt Christmas morning as I read about the unfairness of Christmas. Not just with Mary and Joseph and their odd predicament. Not just with the manger birth because the inn was full. But more about a God who loves us enough to become incarnate and suffer with us.

Fair? Hardly. But this is the abundant grace if God which we celebrate this morning. Our hope is in one who meets the unfairness of the world and confronts it with the calm of a new born baby. God is with us.


©iStockphoto.com/Tari Faris