Pastor Annette's Blog
"OF ALL THE THINGS GOD HAS SHOWN ME, I CAN SPEAK BUT A LITTLE WORD NOT MORE THAN A HONEYBEE CAN CARRY AWAY ON ITS FOOT FROM AN OVERFLOWING JAR."
~ MECHTHILD OF MAGDEBURG, 13TH CENTURY MYSTIC |
"OF ALL THE THINGS GOD HAS SHOWN ME, I CAN SPEAK BUT A LITTLE WORD NOT MORE THAN A HONEYBEE CAN CARRY AWAY ON ITS FOOT FROM AN OVERFLOWING JAR."
~ MECHTHILD OF MAGDEBURG, 13TH CENTURY MYSTIC |
Feb 4, 2025
Beloved ~ Every morning I walk through my little house, clicking on grow lights and opening the curtains and every evening I do the same only in reverse, marking the passage of another day in the list of days that constitute a life. Yesterday I tidied up and took care of my baby grandson. I worked on my taxes and went to an appointment with my lawyer to sign all my estate documents.** After my therapy appointment I made supper and washed the dishes. For the rest of the evening I cut fabric scraps into 3” squares for a new quilt I’m starting. My favorite days are the ordinary ones, filled with the ordinary activities of work and home, caring for others and myself. Days absent of drama, trauma, violence or new grief in my tribe and neighborhood. And yet, I don’t want to entirely remove myself from a world where others are suffering or afraid. I feel deeply called to share the kindness and joy of Jesus’ love with them, and to work for justice on their behalf, insofar as I am able. Sharing life together with them is as essential to my own wholeness as caring for myself and my own kids and grandkids. Then I pick up the paper (my phone) and watch a video article of a family returning to their home in northern Gaza after 16 months as refugees in the south. The head of family was a 21-year-old university student and several children she was caring for, siblings, nieces and nephews. They had to pay all their money for transportation and still walked the last 10 kilometers (6 miles) carrying their luggage. Over 6 hours of walking, to find their home and neighborhood demolished. Their father was waiting on them. Looking over her neighborhood, the student said, “I want to live somewhere colorful again, far from the color of rubble and the smell of blood.” And my heart aches with the distance between our two realities, the calamity and the calm, between her normal and mine. Short of giving money I cannot think of a single thing I can do to make her life more colorful. Yet, it matters that I think of her and that she knows others wish her joy, and peace and safety and comfort. While I cannot be of much effect in Gaza these days, closer opportunities abound. The world’s deep hunger is here and now, in my own community and neighborhood, and somehow in the mystery of the universe I believe it matters in Gaza what I do in my own neighborhood. It matters in the realm of God that faithful people everywhere are exercising their calling, their vocation, on behalf of the hungering world. It matters to all the hungering people that all the helping people are doing the best we can with what we have. And it matters, most of all, to remember that the division between the hungry and the helping peoples is not absolute. Not by any means. The young woman in the news story has been head of household in very difficult circumstances for months. She’s the helper, even as her whole family is so desperately hungry for safety and justice. God knows I’ve been a puddle of neediness for the better part of three years now, which is why I am content on days that are positively boring and ordinary. I suppose this is enough for an ordinary Tuesday. I pray you get outside and feel this gentle air, see if your daffodils are popping through yet. Offer kindness if you're able. Take some if it’s offered. ~peace & prayers, pastor annette *Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking, 1973. p.95 **I cannot encourage you strongly enough to get your end of life decisions made and notarized, for your own peace of mind and for the loved ones who need to know your wishes. Everyone’s needs are different and your attorney will help you figure out what’s best for you. My particular set of estate planning documents consists of:
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Jan 28, 2025 Beloved ~ Until the test came back negative for both strains, the urgent care doctor was confident I had the flu. Then she peered down my throat with her pointy flashlight and said, “Uh, oh.” I haven’t had strep throat since my tonsillectomy twenty-plus years ago but it’s as awful as I remember. Popsicles and jello, ramen chicken noodles and advil. But mostly I just slept and slept and slept, for the better part of three days. Then I woke up and have stayed awake in the daylight since, feeling the twin miracles of cheap antibiotics and a salaried job which allows me time to heal, along with the ever present, ever pesky sense that I should get more done since I am home anyway. I think if I were dying of a terminal disease, on a good day I could still feel guilty about dirty dishes in the sink, when I want not to care about dirty dishes under any condition any day! I want to always choose the life giving, joyful task of the moment and do that with a free heart and mind. Sometimes that’s washing dishes, leaving my kitchen all sparkly clean. More often it's playing with my grandkids or cutting out a new quilt, knitting, reading, laughing with my friend on the phone. But I don’t always choose those tasks, or I don’t choose them joyfully, as if I don’t deserve to be joyful unless the dishes are done and the floors are swept. I could blame it on how I was raised, since I was most certainly raised to work first, play later. But I am old now, far too old to blame anyone but myself for hanging on to toxic notions I might have long ago forgone. I’ve no such expectation of others but rather hope they take all the time that healing takes, to rest without sleeping, lay on the couch watch sewing tutorials, even if they no longer have a fever, even if their throat is no longer on fire. Healing has some not-as-sick-as-I-was-but-not-yet-entirely-well days and we are allowed to rest on those days too. I do wonder if we aren’t most susceptible to relapse when we don’t, when we jump up and attack the day out of the anxiety of failing to fulfill our duty. But here’s the thing, being sick is not a failure. Being sick is not a failure! Intellectually, I know being sick is not a failure but practically, I still struggle, behaving as if my To-Do List is more critical than everyone else’s. This takes a degree of arrogance I suppose and, of course, arrogance finds root in the soil of fear. If, when learning to work, I picked up the notion that working makes me worthy of the good things in this world, this life - didn’t I naturally also learn that not working = not worthy? If I learned that I only deserve what I earn and produce, be it money, community or reputation, what happens to me if I can no longer work, even for four or five days? When fever and pain subside enough to allow conscious thought, I get anxious, maybe even snappish to those around who only want to help. I don’t feel well enough to work nor sick enough to stay down.
Unlearning toxic messaging isn’t easy, but it’s doable, for those committed to healing body, mind and spirit. A doctor told me once that the only difference in how old people and young people heal is time. The older we are, the longer healing takes but healing does take for everyone willing to put in the time. I pray this day finds you on mend in whatever ways you are hoping for. ~ peace & prayers ![]() Jan 21, 2025 Beloved ~ Cold as a well digger’s lunch box is how my father-in-law described weather like today. The predicted high temperature is 9 degrees, with a windchill of -9 overnight. Cold enough to freeze everything in the well digger’s lunchbox, I should think. All of the city shelters for our unhoused neighbors are over capacity but turning away no one, making up pallets on floors wherever there’s space so that everyone who wants to can sleep indoors. At the Severe Winter Emergency Shelter where several of us volunteer, guests come in cold to the bone. We trade their wet socks for dry ones, stuff their pockets with hand warmers, wrap them in blankets and keep the coffee and hot chocolate flowing. As one volunteer said, everyone is medically fragile in this weather. It is such a privilege to be part of this life-saving project and I’m really proud of how our church has stepped up to volunteer and to provide supplies these past weeks. The cold is expected to last throughout most of February, so we have lots of days left this season. Consider getting involved in some way.* As another pastor and I were debriefing a recent shift at the shelter, we got to talking about the spiritual nature of the work, things God is showing me, as she described it. The most significant for me lately is that when we are dead center in the will of Christ, serving the least of these with what we have, even then we do not have the luxury of everything being easy, going smoothly, coming out perfectly. Instead, the work of the kingdom in this world is messy, imperfect, frustrating, exhausting, crazy, hilarious, sad, fun, sometimes scary, and usually horrifically underfunded. I am not sure I believed otherwise before working at the shelter, but the insight does somehow feel new to me. Knowing we are doing God’s will doesn’t make God’s will any easier to do in a world so resistant to it. The work would be profoundly easier with some community funding - with some paid staff and a permanent location. Then again, it would lack the generosity, good will, humility and courage of this set of volunteers who are willingly trading their personal time, effort and energy to provide such hands-on tender care to neighbors whose life situations are profoundly different from their own. And that would be a big loss - or at least, a very different kind of work in our midst. My point, I suppose, is that the Spirit is most definitely in the mix on the nights the severe weather shelter happens. It’s better than any tv show or movie, if that’s how you spend your evenings. I never wonder what God is doing in the world these days, because I see it every shift I work. Please keep yourselves and everyone around safe in this weather. Let your church know if you need help. Peace & Prayers, annette, pastor, preacher, neighbor, mama, grandma, quilter, knitter, dallier, reader, friend, gardener ~ in no particular order *Some particular BSWERS needs right now: travel size hand lotion - something like this any size winter coats, especially larger mens’ sizes women’s warm pants, size 4 or 6. Cough drops - big bags of individually wrapped Travel size tissue packs Date Jan 14, 2025 Great to be away ~
I like thinking about how New York is home to people as much as Bloomington is to me, how all over the world people are busy at essentially the same things; taking care of their people and their spaces, making meals and folding clothes, rocking babies and grocery shopping. Museums and shows have their place but I love ordinary neighborhoods, seeing how people live. Thank God for the spots on the planet where life is stable and safe enough for people to live without fear of some great rack and ruin of their way of life; social, economic, political or otherwise. It happens and I can think of nothing worse than the loss of one’s home and everyday stability.
As we begin another year together, I pray you are taking care, keeping warm and finding lovely indoor things to do these days. I know the Bloomington Severe Weather Emergency Shelter is very much in need of volunteers so sign up if you can. Thanks to those of you who helped last night, some called in at the last minute. The shelter expects to be open most nights over the next four weeks as these bitter temps and more snow are predicted. I appreciate you all so much and am so glad to live, pray and serve among you. Peace & Prayers, annette, pastor, preacher, neighbor, mama, grandma, quilter, knitter, dallier, reader, friend, gardener ~ in no particular order ![]() December 31, 2024 Beloved: New Year’s Eve has never been a particularly exciting holiday for me. I much prefer quiet time at home over a fancy and loud party. Some friends are coming over tomorrow for snacks and a puzzle. We might go all out and watch a movie too! The older I get, the more the holiday becomes one of letting go and starting over. Putting away my Christmas decorations always gives me the itch to purge and organize my house. I sort every closet and rearrange books and yarn and fabric. I go through the magazines, keep some and set some aside to cut up for collaging. Expired food, ratty socks, things I never wear are tossed, recycled and donated. I disconnect the garden hose and put the comforter on my bed. I get out the unfinished knitting projects or books from the green bookcase. Finally, having touched and looked at most everything I own, I then settle into the warmth of winter, the great privilege of having a home. The harder work is internal, of course, letting go of broken things that only time can mend, time and my capacity not to pick at scabs of wounds time is trying to heal. Letting go instead of replaying scenes, wondering what else I might have said or done, if things might have worked out differently if only I had tried harder, then finally admitting I did the best I could and even if I didn’t the past is over and done. The faithful work from here is taking what lessons we can and being gentle with ourselves, even in our memories. I am looking forward to the new year with my whole heart: to new friends, new ministry, new quilt and knitting projects. My baby grandson will learn to walk and my 3-year-old granddaughter wants to learn to sew. In just a few weeks I’ll order new perennials for my flowerbeds. I expect to enjoy it all even if there is a crummy day here and there. I pray that in the balance of the memories and the expectation, you find yourself at peace and full of joy. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette December 17, 2024
Beloved: Good morning (afternoon?) on this beautiful day in southern Indiana. By beautiful I mean sunny and 37 degrees. The high temperature will be 52 and then begin to drop and stay below freezing for at least a week. While I love winter for the coziness of flannel pajamas and hot tea, that’s all different since I’ve been volunteering with B-SWERS, the Bloomington Severe Weather Emergency Shelter. B-SWERS is a pop-up shelter, only open when the weather is dangerously cold or wet, run entirely by volunteers with hardly two dimes to rub together. Every night it operates is as much a miracle as the oil in the widow’s jar (2 Kings 4:1-7). We hardly know what we are doing and we have no money to do it - and yet somehow it gets done. But it has ruined winter’s coziness for me. Taking a hot shower and putting on clean pajamas to lay down in a real bed with my own clean sheets and blankets is a heartbreaking luxury some of our neighbors have given up remembering. Saturday I ran to the Kroger down the street for two things I needed to make my snack mix for the church cookie exchange. The store was so, so full of customers buying their week’s worth of groceries, pushing them to their cars to take to their kitchens to unload and put away, like you and I have a thousand times ourselves. But our B-SWERS guests aren’t at the grocery store buying cartloads of food. They are always hungry when they arrive, glad for whatever little snacks we have to give them, applesauce pouches and peanut butter crackers which they eat sitting on their floor mats. Not unlike preschoolers, now that I think about it, only with shaggy beards and tattoos. Insofar as winter’s old coziness is ruined, I have to say I like this better, hosting people for whom there’s no room anywhere else. Somehow it feels truer to the season we claim to be celebrating. Did people scooch closer together to make room for the holy couple, then rearrange again when Mary’s labor started, allowing her what privacy they could? Did they go through their packs to share what little they had with someone who needed it more? This pop-up shelter is cozy in its own way. The host churches turn the heat up and lend their coffee pots for decaf and hot water. We go through no less than fifty packets of hot chocolate a night. I see shelter guests sharing what they have every night I’m there: cigarettes and socks. They are the most exhausted people I have ever known, and yet sleep does not always come easy, so they sit and visit quietly, or listen to their music. I feel humbled to be among them, grateful to be received and included in their holy presence. I pray the season’s meaning is near to you as well. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette Sweet & Spicy Snack Mix
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Mix cereal, crackers, pretzels and nuts in a large bowl. Melt butter and stir in brown sugar and cayenne pepper. Pour butter mixture over mix and gently toss until everything is fully coated. Divide mix evenly on the baking sheets, spreading into a flat layer. Bake for 15 minutes, one sheet at a time. Allow to cool before breaking apart into an airtight container. Note: I made several batches, adding more cayenne pepper each time to make heat taste a little stronger, without ruining it. Even ⅓ tsp was not too much. December 10, 2024
Beloved: I tried closing the door but Birdy whined and paced so much that I finally opened it to let her quietly lay next to the baby sound asleep in his car seat. She’s brought him three of her toys so far but he still hasn’t woken up to play with her. He’s three months old already, still small enough for me to watch and still get lots of work done, but social enough that all I want to do is hold him and trade smiles. Once he’s awake and fed, I’ll park him in front of the Christmas tree where he will stare at the lights and Birdy will stare at him for another thirty minutes or so. Then I’ll switch to a YouTube video of birds and squirrels on a feeder with background music. It’s one of Birdy’s favorites so they’ll both be entertained. On Christmas trees. I got mine at a yard sale two summers ago for $10. The original Kmart receipt was still in the box letting me know it was nearly twenty years old. Perfect fit for my little place, it's the easiest to set up I’ve ever had. Two of my ornaments are fifty years old, made from my elementary school pictures and some are new, almost entirely thrifted.* Between the tree, the creches on my sideboard and my front porch it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here. Truth be told, left to my own heart and mind, I could do without all the fuss, but when the tree is up and the house looks so festive, I feel the endorphins gushing and I'm glad I made the effort. My grandgirl tells me my tree is beautiful and she loves the wooden Santa* by the front door. The result is well worth the effort, for me most of all. As hard as I imagined it might be, starting over has been harder still, and yet so much more trimmed with sweetness and blessing than I could possibly have predicted. My life feels smaller and at the same time, fuller than it ever has before. I am sometimes lonely but for the most part deeply connected to the people I love who love me too, and new friends I am making. So difficult as great change has been, I am here for it and making a new life in a new place I am so grateful and glad to be. The baby zonked out completely before finishing his bottle so he went down in the crib. Birdy has just now come to let me know he’s waking up, and she needs to get in the room to check on him. All her toys are piled just outside a door she could push open if she were not such a fraidy cat. I can see him on the monitor, watching the ceiling fan turn and playing with his fingers. I’ll leave him to entertain himself until he fusses to be picked up. Is there anything better than daytime dozing in one’s cozy bed? I pray that whatever you find yourself doing this season, you do it with oceans of grace and kindness toward yourself, your own heart and mind and spirit. Grace is all that’s called for now, in imitation of the grace come to us in Christ Jesus. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette *Don’t buy any Christmas wrapping paper until you visit Habitat Restore, as they have oceans! The painted wooden Santa is from Aldi’s, $9.99 and can be turned over after Christmas for a winter theme. ** For our local friends: Join us for our special seasonal events, and also mark your calendar for our Christmas Eve service at 7:30 PM on the 24th. December 3, 2024
Beloved: Yesterday’s dusting of snow would have been more delightful had I not locked myself out of the house running out to the garage to fetch a new roll of paper towels. I had on slippers and pajamas. My phone was by my favorite chair. Luckily my neighbor’s front door is 20 steps from mine. I used her phone to call both daughters, both of whom don’t have a key to my house. I called the locksmith* who guessed it would be forty-five minutes, but within thirty my daughter swung into my driveway, there to check on me. She shoved my garage door not even very hard and to my alarm it popped right open into my laundry room. Turns out the strike plate was badly bent and too far recessed into the door frame to hold the bolt securely. The knob wouldn’t turn but the door itself wasn’t locked at all, nor has it been the whole two years I’ve lived here. Yikes! The locksmith fixed everything right up and made extra keys to give my daughters and my neighbor. I also hid one in the garage. All’s well that ends well, don’t you know. The lessons hang low here, the gift of good neighbors first of all. ~ Showing up early and unannounced, sitting at her cozy kitchen table in our pajamas, I felt as welcome as I’ve ever felt anywhere. ~ Good daughters are gold, never to be taken for granted, especially the resourceful ones who think to do more than just turn the knob. She came ready to break into the house depending on how cold I was. ~ Don’t panic right away took me a while, years in fact. Being locked out is an inconvenience, not an emergency as long as there is nothing on the stove or toddlers left alone. ~ Again and again, safety is an illusion. I thought I was locked in tight and one push was all it took to get through the door. We do our best and trust the keeper of our lives and life together to keep us cradled in the everlasting arms of God’s eternal peace. Happiness turns to joy for me when I lean into the faith I claim; whether we live or we die, we belong to the Lord. (Romans 14:8) I pray you are being extra gentle with yourself in this hectic season, making time to reflect and worship. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette * If you are local and need a locksmith for anything, I cannot recommend J&S Locksmith highly enough. They have done lots of work for me over the years and are especially un-judgy of a lady who locks herself outside in the snow wearing only her pajamas and slippers. https://www.jslockandlawn.com/ ![]() November 26, 2024 Happy Thanksgiving! Beloved: At Sunday’s Thanksgiving potluck the folks at our table talked about that joyful satisfaction of being really, really hungry, then sitting down to amazingly good food. We marked the privilege of it, and our gratitude for it. Food. More than any year I can remember, I am preoccupied with the food memories I have around this meal: the dishes I usually make and how I came to make them. I read the New York Times Cooking section more closely than I read any other, and yet I rarely vary from the same Thanksgiving menu I have made for years. We only added mac and cheese once my grown daughter started making it a few years ago. These are a few of the recipes on my table most years. Growing up, my mom dumped cranberry sauce from the can onto a small plate and sliced it into can-shaped disks. I did the same until Donna Ritter taught this version at a Global Women’s Gathering years ago and I discovered that I love it. To me this is exactly how it’s supposed to taste. I wished I’d copied and kept her recipe handwritten on notebook paper, instead of retyping it to send by email. I’d love to have that now. I’ve made savory deviled eggs but my mom’s sweet ones are my favorite. She made them at Thanksgiving and Easter. The standard stuffing (dressing as some folks call it) at my house for thirty years is from the Good Housekeeping Cookbook I got for a wedding present in 1988. My sister took it up a notch one year by adding red, yellow and orange bell peppers and we’ve kept her twist on it since. This year I am also adding mushrooms. When I had a big kitchen I’d cut open loaves of sourdough bread and let them dry out on a tray on the counter top. Now I just use this. I’ve made the same yeast rolls for at least twenty-five years, as much for the memory as for the taste. Bill Littlefield had made them for church dinner one year, so I called him a couple of days before Thanksgiving to get the recipe. He started to read off the ingredients, then stopped and asked if I was home that afternoon. I said yes and he said, “Okay, here’s the list of stuff you need, check and see if you have everything, and if not I’ll stop and get the rest on my way to your house. I really want to come and show you how to do this.” And he did. He spent several hours of his day driving in from his house in Brown County, going by the store and then coming over to show me the best way to carefully mix all this together, in the right order and ONLY EVER WITH A WOODEN SPOON, never a mixer so as not to overstir it. Bill died of a positively hateful cancer several years ago but his thoughtfulness and generosity that day is in the scent and taste of these rolls every time I make them. I’ve cooked a whole turkey every kind of way. I’ve brined them. I’ve massaged them with butter, olive oil and salt. I’ve stuffed them with fruit, vegetables and herbs. At my friend Charlotte’s advice, I once soaked a turkey in champagne. One summer I paid a fresh, local turkey deposit at the Farmers Market then got a text in mid-November to meet the farmer in a parking lot to collect my bird. I was told to bring cash. It felt slightly illegal, and also exciting. I’ve bought fresh birds from a butcher and frozen ones from the grocer. But hands down I’ll not cook another Thanksgiving bird any way but spatchcock it. All of which is to say, I’ve got good food on my mind. No doubt you have your menu all planned out and have no need of more recipes. So these are here just for your reading, should you ever want them. It might be fun to make a Church Thanksgiving Cookbook some year. If you aren’t cooking, thank the cook and wash the dishes, but not too soon. Linger at the table a long, long time and be grateful for the gift of having a table around which to linger. Be grateful for the people who are there in memory alone and the ones who are making the memories that will sustain us in years to come. Let time stand still for just a little while, long enough to mark the blessing it is to be alive and be together, here and now, and be nourished by it. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette Donna Ritter Cranberry Sauce * NOTE - Sauce takes a day or more to set up properly, so best made no later than Tuesday before Thanksgiving.
My Mom’s Deviled Eggs ~ Thanksgiving Size Batch
Cut eggs in half, drop yolks in a bowl and arrange whites on a serving plate. A layer of leaf lettuce will keep them from sliding around. Combine yolks, mayonnaise, mustard and salt in a food processor, and process until smooth. Remove to a mixing bowl and stir in relish and onion. Spoon into eggs and sprinkle with paprika. Good Housekeeping Sausage Stuffing
Preheat oven to 325. In Dutch oven over medium heat, cook sausage until browned. Remove meat from pot to a bowl but leave drippings in pot over medium heat. To pot add butter and all vegetables. Cook until tender. (I usually do this a day or two ahead and keep in fridge, then reheat in Dutch oven on Thanksgiving Day and continue recipe from here.) Remove from heat; add cooked sausage, bread, eggs, milk and herbs/spices. Toss together until well mixed. Spoon into 9x13 pan sprayed with Pam. Cover with foil and bake 45 minutes or until heated through. Notes: * If I have more than a dozen people, I usually increase ingredients by 50% and use my lasagna pan. * Sometimes I make the whole dish the day before and then get it out early on T-giving to raise to room temp. When the turkey comes out, I pour about ½ cup of the turkey broth into the stuffing pan and reheat it for 15 minutes or so to get it hot again. Broth helps it be not too dry. * Instead of parsley, I’ve used the same amount of oregano. But the rosemary is worth getting for this; it makes it smell so awesome in the house. Bill LIttlefield’s Yeast Rolls
* Gently mix together the yeast, sugar and water. Leave alone until active. Active means it is bubbling and you can smell yeast working. It will look foamy. * Melt butter and shortening together. Cool to 115 degrees and then add to yeast mixture. * Stir in eggs and salt. * Add 3 cups of flour and stir until smooth. Add remaining flour 1 cup at a time, stirring constantly. * Cover loosely and refrigerate overnight, up to three days. The dough will double in the bowl. * Baking day - remove dough from fridge to allow it to warm up. 3 hours or so before baking, punch dough down and divide into fourths. Sprinkle countertop with flour and roll each fourth into a circle. Cut into wedges like a pizza. Starting with outer edge, roll each wedge into a crescent. * Spray cookie sheets with oil, and space rolls to allow doubled size when risen. Cover loosely with greased plastic wrap and let rise 3-4 hours. * Bake rolls 8-11 minutes at 400 degrees. Remove from the oven and brush with melted butter. * They freeze well. Spatchcocked Turkey
* Heat oven to 450 degrees, lowering top rack to middle of oven. * Put a kettle of water on to boil. * Put the turkey on a stable cutting board breast side down and cut out the backbone along each side of the spine. Save the backbone and organs, along with all vegetable scraps for making broth. * Turn the turkey over, and press down hard on the breastbone until you feel and hear it crack. Lay bird out on a cooling rack in/over sink and rinse thoroughly. No need to pat dry. Turn it skin side up on a cooling rack as flat as possible. * Pour boiling water gently and carefully over the skin of the turkey, causing it to contract and shrink. This will make skin crisper. * Remove bird from rack to a sheet pan in order to wash and spray the rack with oil. Place rack in a rimmed baking sheet. * Place bird back on the sprayed cooling rack and rub thoroughly with butter/olive oil, salt and pepper. * Score the skin on legs with a knife. Cut small slits in the sides of body and insert wingtips as far as they will go. * Tuck garlic and other aromatics beneath the bird. * Place the pan in oven and pour water into rimmed baking sheet, carefully; it will steam. * After 20 minutes, reduce heat to 400 and start checking temp every 15 minutes until turkey reaches 165 degrees in a couple of places. If browning too fast, reduce heat to 350. * Cooking time will be under 2 hours. * Rest bird beneath foil and a heavy towel for 20 minutes before carving. * Extract pan juices with a turkey baster to make gravy.
everyone knows that sand in your socks is the worst feet feeling ever. In the evening I finished three quilt tops and backs that have been 99% done for weeks. They are pressed and ready for the quilter. All of which is to say I went to bed believing I’d had a good day, because it was so . . . . productive, because I got so much accomplished.
I may have climbed in bed satisfied but I woke up uneasy. Uneasy as I remembered the costs I’ve paid over the years on days that were not productive, when very little seemed to get done. On those days I felt not good enough, unworthy even, almost as if I had failed, though I couldn’t tell you what I had failed at specifically. Being good enough, I suppose, probably because I got so much positive feedback from my parents and teachers for working hard at whatever work was before me. The feedback was even better when no one had to tell me what or how to do something, when I surprised them with my maturity, my dependability. The feelings such feedback inspired is the high I’ve chased ever since and the tender regret I had this morning. Because while they may be honest feelings, they are not my deepest values. Human beings, including me, are not worthy because of what we accomplish. We are worthy, we are enough, because we exist as creatures in creation. We are welcome and wanted here by the Maker who made us and loves us as we are, not for how tidy our spaces are, how orderly our finances. Living in sync with our deepest values is the essence of integrity, of being so integrated that thoughts, feelings, actions and deepest values lay one upon the other like transparencies that form the whole picture of one person, everything fitting rightly together. Integrity is a project to be sure, not unlike making a house into a home, bringing one room at a time into sync with the rest, with much grace toward oneself as they do their best day by day. The dog just came in positively filthy but only on one side of herself, while the neighborhood looks sparkling clean after the rain. Everything to its season, don't you know. I pray your day is fine in all the ways that truly matter. ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette *I refuse to use the term lazy susan. |
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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February 2025
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