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March 26, 2019
Beloved: The fruit comes late, wrote P.T. Forsyth, concerning prayer. The fruit comes last, actually, as it has to do with blackberries actually. I was checking my canes on the way to the henhouse yesterday. Nothing happening yet. Baby canes don’t get berries until their second year, so until these green I won’t know which ones will bear this year. The one-year-olds I’ll just prune all summer, lest they take the garden like Shelob’s lair. Prayer is mostly pre-fruit work. Waiting, rooting, growing, sun, rain, and patience. Pruning, pollination, buds. Flowers. Green berries. Red berries. Birds! Bird netting! Then, maybe, purple berries that get soft. For our yogurt, pie and jam. Every year the work’s the same, and every year ripe berries are a maybe. I’m still talking about prayer. Just like with the berries, it’s the praying that matters most – the tending and the patience to do so little for so long, even on days when nothing much is happening yet. This is the season of unseen movement; the growing is underground. Winter feels nearly over and Lent is halfway done. Do not fail to pray for one another, and I wish you much love today. ~peace & prayers, pastor annette
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March 19, 2019 Beloved:
Other signs of spring:
The season has no name I know of, but I love it all the same. Winterspring. Cold and warm. Not quite thawed and about to bloom. Being patient with what is and excited for what comes next. Not missing the end or the beginning of things happening together. Being present in the moment, one moment at time. Only when I am present am I also truly grateful. Grateful for the best of it and patient with the rest. Because all of it is passing, even as I watch. The moment lasts less than a moment, unless I pay attention. May the day treat you and yours kindly. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette March 12, 2019
Beloved: For Lent I’ve given up grazing, gorging, and eating on the fly. I don’t do it all the time, just in phases, and lately. I hate it. I don’t graze healthily. Is “healthily” a word? It tastes like a made-up word. Of course Lent isn’t so much giving up as taking up and, in this case, simply resuming grateful habits. Grazing, gorging, eating on the fly are habits of entitlement and privilege, access to food requiring no forethought nor planning, only money and mobility. To that end, my Lenten commitment is to eat what is already in the pantry and freezer, buying what will round it out to meals. I can make three whole meals on Monday, my day off, and we all eat well for a week. Turns out the time spent planning, shopping, cooking was way more fun than feeling guilty about getting takeout again. It was also way cheaper (go figure) and healthier all around. I wish I could say some spiritual motivation started me down this path, but Netflix is closer to the truth. Next time you wonder what to watch, find The Chef’s Table.* Stories of people feeding people and the healing that happens there, healing for the feeder and the fed. Every time we feed someone else, somehow we also feed ourselves. (Grammatically I really hate that sentence, yet it’s exactly what I want to say.) As usual at Lent, giving something up we find we have more than we thought we did. One of the meals I found at the Campbell’s soup website. I jazzed it a bit to use more of what I had. I only had to buy pork chops and mushrooms. It is yum-O! ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette *The recent episode about Asma Khan is one of my favorites. Chili Lime Ranch Pork Chops & Cilantro Vegetable Rice Ingredients
Directions 1. Heat the water, frozen vegetables and 1/2 package dressing mix in a 3-quart saucepan over medium-high heat to a boil. Stir in the rice. Reduce the heat to low. Cover and cook for 20 minutes or until the liquid is absorbed. 2. While the rice is cooking, season the pork with the chili powder. Whisk together the milk, soup and remaining ranch dressing mix. Heat half the oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion, mushroom and garlic. Sauté until translucent and starting to soften. Take out of skillet and set aside. 3. Add rest of oil to skillet and heat, then add the pork and cook until browned on both sides (make sure the skillet and oil are hot before adding the pork to prevent sticking). Stir the soup/milk mixture in the skillet, return onion/mushroom/garlic to skillet and heat to a boil. Reduce the heat to low. Cover and cook for 10-12 minutes or until the pork is cooked through. 4. Stir the cilantro into the hot cooked rice. Top the pork with the avocado and additional chopped cilantro, if desired. Serve the pork and sauce with the rice.
As Jesus once made up his mind to go to Jerusalem, the church once made up her mind to proceed intentionally to Easter, in our worship, prayer, and devotion. “The season of Lent” we call it, beginning tomorrow with Ash Wednesday. Last year’s Palm Sunday palms burned down to ash, mixed with oil, and smeared on our skin as a sign of our longing – for obedience and faith we well know is beyond us. Longing for it is all we can manage, and barely that. Still, we gather. Still, we pray. Still, we sing and wear the ashes once again. These gatherings and prayers are the activity of our longing, the revelation of our broken hearts. If only to ourselves that surely counts for something. We come away knowing to move gently – against ourselves and one another, seeing as how everyone is cut and broken, headed for Jerusalem.
Cut and broken as we may be, we are not without hope. Spring is pushing through the snow. Easter won’t be stopped by any faithlessness of ours. It is done, and all our made-up seasons are but a play of the grace already given. I hope you’ll find an Ash Wednesday service tomorrow. Ours begins at 7 PM, and I’d love to see you there. |
I write a Tuesday morning devotional to members and friends of UBC. It is also posted here.
Enjoy! Pastor Annette Copyright
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