dear senator

We have a class at our church called Talk It Out that attempts to provide a place for education and discussion of racial issues over the span of four weekly sessions.

For me, the class has really served as a jumping off place for other learning.  I believe all good classes do this actually, and so what began as an admonishment in some of the class material to understand our nation’s racial history, specifically with regards to African-Americans has prompted a lot of book exchanging lately among dear friends.

I borrowed this one recently and found that I could not put it down.  Essie Mae Washington-Williams tells the story of discovering as a teenager who her real parents are after years of being raised by relatives who she assumed were her parents.  For me, Ms. William’s story is also a history lesson of the sad, slow journey the south made from slavery to the Civil Rights era.  The author does a beautiful job of weaving the historical events within her personal experience.

The most moving detail in the book is the distinct lack of bitterness in her voice.  In fact, out of respect for her father, Ms. William’s waited until after he had died to write her story.  She kept a huge part of her life a secret for so long that a lot of persistent urging was required on the part of her children to come forward as the daughter of Senator Strom Thurmond.

I am so glad that she was brave enough to find the voice to write this story down.  There is so much I would never have known if she had not chosen to finally tell.  Much about her journey.  And much about America.

why i live in arkansas…

The trees do this in February.

divine hours

I have been trying to practice the daily offices with more regularity since last summer.  I was shooting for three or four, but I usually only hit one or two.  I’m looking at Lent as a new beginning with the hopes that more frequent repetition will help me to assimilate some of these prayers into my general stream of consciousness, or unconsciousness.  Penetration of my brain and eventually my heart is the goal.

This week’s “prayer for the week” in Phyllis Tickle’s version of The Divine Hours is,

Most loving Father, whose will it is for us to give thanks for all things, to fear nothing but the loss of you, and to cast all our care on you who cares for us:  Preserve me from faithless fears and worldly anxieties, that no clouds of this mortal life may hide from me the light of that love which is immortal, and which you have manifested to us in your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

I can only imagine the value of having said this prayer four times a day for a week.  Practically memorizing these words.  That my only fear would be the loss of Jesus, nothing else.  No faithless fears or worldly anxieties.  To ask for such a blessing twenty eight times.  Would it make a difference in my heart?  Surely.

sourire

In spite of being on the couch for three days with an exploding head cold,

I have been collecting things in my heart that are making me smile.

Here they are.

My front yard is almost entirely dirt and weeds, the result of children playing football and having lightsaber wars, but I have a few flower beds that are sadly neglected except for the fact that as a gift to myself a couple of years ago, I planted hundreds of bulbs in them, hearty bulbs that come up through the weeds.

It feels like they are coming back to life just for me.

When these tulips bloom again, they will remind me of so many dear friends.

Friends who live as far away as Oregon and Turkey who shared trips to Tulip Festival in Skagit County with me.  Friends who love tulips as much as me.  Friends who helped make sweet babies-in-the-tulips pictures happen two years ago.

Spring flowers remind me that winter is giving up her fight here in Arkansas, but they also represent so much more.  And the older I get, the more they make me smile.

My friend Jerusalem introduced me to this series of books that perfectly accompany the liturgical year.  This one is full of sweet stories that point to the rich moments of the Easter season, which officially begins today.

I’ve been rereading this book as a prelude to Ash Wednesday and because it is going to be our Boxed Lunch Book Club selection for March.  Order a copy yourself and please join us for lunch and discussion on March 19th.

I promise that these sweet stories will make you smile.

quick getaway

The kids were out of school on Thursday and Friday, so we headed to Nashville to see my sweetie aunt and uncle plus my cousin, Micah.

We were so sad when they moved to Nashville a few years ago, but after having visited, we are thankful that they moved to such a fun destination.  They have a beautiful old house with such great natural light that it is easy to move from one sunny spot to another, soaking up the sunshine and enjoying a book or just a lovely conversation.

There are so many things to do in Nashville that we could go again and again without exhausting all the possibilities.  Plus I will be making some repeat visits to places we went to this time.  Highlights definitely included the stuffed French toast and lemon raspberry danishes at Provence Bakery as well as the beet salad and sweet potato and coconut soup at Rumours Wine and Art Bar, a place to which Ron and Jeanne treated Taido and me to a date by watching our children AND giving us a gift certificate for dinner!  Taido said that alone was worth the drive to Nashville!  Also, Taido found a willing companion in my cousin to a music show he wanted to see on Thursday night, while Mary Polly got to be Jeanne’s date to the symphony.

We were sad to say goodbye.  We snapped these few pictures just before leaving, but we’re happy that it won’t be too long before we see them again because they have to come to Little Rock any day for the arrival of the first Walker grandbaby!  Very exciting!

Plus I hope it won’t be too long before we get back to see them!  Mary Polly is already missing their dogs, Sam and Clemey.

if he’s going to eat at hanaroo without me

…at least i can have the salad at home.

Our favorite place to eat sushi in Little Rock is Hanaroo.  Taido has more lunch dates than me though and this week he went without me, again.

And even though I haven’t quite mastered the tiger roll (or anything close), I can now say with confidence that I have put together a recipe for that yummy ginger dressing that comes on top of some lettuce and shredded carrots at the beginning of your meal at sushi bars and Japanese steakhouses.  So now I can have it on spinach, which is so much better than that watery lettuce you get at the restaurant anyway.  Of course, I still want a tiger roll, but I can eat spinach and ginger dressing for days.

Whitney and I have found a bottle of ginger dressing that tastes like the one at the restaurant.  It’s called Makoto.  They sell it in the refrigerated dressings in Kroger and it is over $4 for one little tiny jar.  Since I can eat the entire jar in one sitting, I refrain from paying that much for it unless Taido is going out of town and I can have it all to myself.  But now, there is no need for such selfish behavior.  There is enough for everyone.  You can even have some because I’m recording it while I can still remember what I put in there.

Fresh Ginger Salad Dressing (fills 2 pint-size jars)

1 cup sunflower oil

1/3 cup apple cider vinegar

1/2 cup soy sauce

1 tablespoon sesame oil

10 baby carrots

4 stalks celery

2 large pieces fresh ginger root (about as big as your hand), peeled and cut into chunks

1/2 small red onion

1 bunch scallions

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon tomato paste

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Place all ingredients in the bowl of a food processor.  Pulse until all vegetables are in tiny (grated) pieces.  Enjoy on spinach or by the spoonful!

is strength spent on cupcakes in vain?

The title of the Bible Study Fellowship study for this year is The Life of Moses.  I started the fall very excited to study Moses and all through September and October, the study did not disappoint.  Also, I have loved hearing Simon and Campbell’s preschool renditions of Go Down Moses and Let My People Go. Good stuff, I’m telling you.

But somewhere before Christmas, we got past all the glorious escaping from Egypt and waded knee deep into instructions for life in the desert as you follow the one true God.  Get it?  JUST ONE!  They don’t get it.  (And neither do we.) So they need to be told over and over again, have it driven into their skulls by doing strange things like redeeming an ox from the temple with an increase in its value by a fifth.  Seriously.  So things kind of began to slow down.  Since Christmas we’ve been bogged down in Leviticus and I’m going to be honest and say that I haven’t really been that jazzed about studying, among other things, detailed sacrificial rites.

However, usually there is something to grab onto each week in the midst of the lists and the tedious instructions.  Last week we finished with the last five chapters of Leviticus.  I was all YES, Leviticus, CHECK and then I opened my new lesson and we’re starting Numbers.  Not that big of an upgrade really.  But back there in the middle of Leviticus 26 was my bit for the week.  God is listing off all of the horrific things that will happen to Israel if they disobey the laws He has given them, which of course they will do (and so will we), and sandwiched between disease, famine, war and other statements of hopelessness is this little condemnation,

Your strength will be spent in vain, because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of land yield their fruit.

There were several things about this verse that I sort of latched onto this week.  The first being that spending one’s strength in vain is actually part of the punishment.  I often live by the idea that if I just work hard enough that I can overcome or at least get through anything, so the thought of spending my strength to the point of being worn out for it to all be a waste, amounting to nothing, is so terribly sad to me.  Even worse is that I inflict this very “punishment” on myself by choosing inane pursuits as worthy of all my strength in the first place.

The other concept that stood out to me as I studied this verse is that I can be doing everything right and it still be in vain if God does not want that particular crop to flourish.  Ultimately, He is in control.  Amidst the constant media stream of the economy tanking and the growing recession, I am reminded that it is God who determines if the land will yield its fruit, if the economy will rise or fall and if I will continue or cease to live tomorrow.  I am grateful for this reminder of who’s really in control.  Because when I watch my firstborn, I realize that his attempts to rule the world are only slightly less veiled than my own.  I am a little more savvy in my control game but no less fooled into spinning myself silly.

So the idea, the tidbit for the week, the little BSF morsel would be that I can let go of vainly trying to control everything around me.  I know you’ve never heard that before.  It’s brilliant right?

Then I go to church yesterday and I remember that instead of spending my strength in vain, I could choose to listen to the words of Isaiah.

In repentance and rest is your salvation,

In quietness and trust is your strength.

All of these thoughts are of course much easier said than done, but I think I might have taken some weensy steps toward letting go as I chanted these phrases at yoga this morning.

my favorite valentine

…is a book of course.

And because the outpouring of sweets is abundant at school, I give my kiddos books for valentine’s as well.  This year Cole is getting Inkheart, Mary Polly a new Ivy and Bean, Ben a new My Weird School and Simon a new Mr. Putter.

In case you are looking for a book to give your littlest valentine, may I suggest a few recent favorites.

Of course, you could always pick up the new Bible storybook that I think is a treasure for any age.

February is also Black History month, so a wonderful choice is a new book by one of my favorite children’s authors, Patricia McKissack.  All her books are lovely, and this new one that tells the story of the Gee’s Bend Quilters through pages and pages of gorgeous quilts is no exception.  Baby Girl  is making her first quilt and my favorite part is when she chooses a piece of material from an old pair of pants that her uncle wore the first time he went to vote.  Each piece of the quilt tells a story, making a blanket of memories to save forever.  I cried as I read this book aloud to my children after we discovered it on the new book shelf at our library.  Then I wrote it down on my list of books I would like to own.

Another great choice for school aged children is Lois Lowry’s new book, The Willoughbys.  Even better, get the audiobook version.  Mother, Mary Polly and I laughed until we cried listening to this fun book on the way to Chicago.  Then Mary Polly and I made the boys listen to it after we got back.  We’re all still quoting our favorite funny lines.  Ben’s:  Raisins are actually turds. It’s funnier in context.  Who knew that the author of the rather disturbing The Giver and terribly sad Number the Stars could be so cleverly light-hearted and hysterical?  Oh, to possess such multi-faceted talent!  She is another author to treasure for sure!

In the past year a couple of our other favorite read-alouds have been books by Pam Munoz Ryan.  We have enjoyed both Riding Freedom and Esperanza Rising.  Both stories brought to life eras of injustice in our country of which we still today face the fallout, therefore providing lots of good discussion and questions about racial prejudice, immigration, migrant farm workers and women’s rights through characters that all of the Chinos enjoyed getting to know.  I will always remember sweet Esperanza and that her name embodies her story.  Hope.  I have picked up a couple more books by this author because we liked these so much, but we haven’t gotten to them yet.

A love story for your older valentine that we are enjoying for our Boxed Lunch Book Club this month is The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima.  It is lilting and sweet, perfect for a valentine’s day read.  Or for any dreamy afternoon.

Hope your valentine’s day is happy, sweet and full of dark chocolate!

of poached eggs and ski valets

Taido has left town again, and I realized today that unless the middle school is calling and wanting to meet with one of the gene pools of our eleven year old, the time I miss him the most is lunch.

Taido comes home for lunch almost every day.  He’s not usually here for super long, but it is a point of connection for us that I sort of take for granted.  With only Simon here, it’s almost like a date.

Lately we have been eating this wonderful dish from Smitten Kitchen that I discovered shortly after Christmas.  I almost always have the ingredients for it, and it is exactly perfect for two people.  One can tomato sauce.  Four eggs.  A handful of spinach.  Olive oil and garlic.  I tried to fix this lunch for my mom and sister in Chicago.  My mom hates garlic and butter.   I think that she has chosen these two ingredients to detest in order to personally attack me and she of course, feels that I use these two ingredients to excess as a personal affront to her.  So I made mother’s poached eggs in tomato sauce without garlic, but as I was cooking, she complained about having to smell the garlic coming from the other skillet, and somewhere in all that I realized that this meal of poached eggs in tomato sauce that has been infused with garlic and olive oil is really something that I should just save for Taido and me.

It’s our favorite lunch right now.  We eat it about twice a week, and neither of us are tired of it.  We love it equally.   Today at lunch I was not sure which I was missing more Taido or the poached eggs.  I mean, I could probably eat four poached eggs, but that would just be wrong.

He called this morning to let me know that he was heading out to the slopes.  Yes, he has gone skiing AGAIN, this time not for work, but with a friend.  I looked at the clock and I about fell over when I saw that it was about ten minutes until nine.  “What! You’re just now leaving!”  Then I remembered that he is staying in one of those places that is actually on the ski mountain.  When he gets back, you can make fun of him for being a COMPLETE SELLOUT!

We have both been raised in the ski school of thinking that goes something like this, If you didn’t wake up at 6am so you could eat breakfast, get dressed, make a sack lunch, drive an hour from your less expensive (free is better) lodgings, cram your feet in your freezing cold boots that have been in a dirty van all night, drag your skis and poles a long way through a parking lot, catch a shuttle to the bottom of a mountain and be waiting in line five minutes before the lift opens so that you can get every penny’s worth of skiing in on that insanely expensive lift ticket…well, if you didn’t go through all of that and possibly more to be on the mountain today, then you just don’t want it badly enough and should perhaps stay in the lodge and leave the mountain to those of us who take this whole skiing thing a little more seriously.

You think I’m kidding.  My dad, sister and brother have been known to eat their sandwiches on the chair lift so as to save more time for skiing by not actually STOPPING for lunch.

Taido admitted to being a little embarrased that not only were his boots in a warmer all night, but some sort of ski valet person would actually be placing his skis out on the snow ready for him to put on when he emerges from his chalet.  I’ve been sending him text messages all day to the tune of, I hope you can find someone to go to the bathroom with you to wipe your rear.

And with all the luxury, somehow I seriously doubt he is wasting time bemoaning the loss of a couple of poached eggs.

mushroom and wild rice soup

I saw Slumdog Millionaire this weekend.  Everyone should see this movie.  I would love to see it sweep the academy awards.

However, two days after seeing it, my thoughts are a little too raw to be coherent so instead of talking about this film, I am giving you a recipe for a soup to make.  If you go and see this film, you will be very glad you have a pot of this soup waiting for you when you come home.  Warm, comforting and creamy with flavors as rich and beautiful as the scenes that will be replaying in your mind and heart.

Mushroom and Wild Rice Soup

adapted from Crescent Dragonwagon’s Soup and Bread

about 6 servings

4  cups (1 32 oz box) mushroom stock

2 cups white wine

1 cup wild rice

4 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons butter

1 large onion, diced

1 pound shitake mushrooms (you can use half regular mushrooms to make this recipe a little less expensive to make, but the flavor of the shitakes is so wonderful in this soup that i really love to treat myself to the entire pound if i can.)

1/4 cup flour

1 cup cream

1/4 teaspoon dried thyme

a few gratings of fresh nutmeg

salt and pepper to taste

Bring stock and wine to boil in a pot.  Stir in wild rice.  Simmer covered until rice begins to split (about 45 minutes).

Heat olive oil and butter in large Dutch oven (if you don’t have a dutch oven, you can do this part in a large cast iron skillet and add it to the stock and wine instead of the other way around).

Saute onion in olive oil and butter about five minutes.  Add mushrooms for 10 more minutes, stirring frequently.

When mushrooms and onions are done, sprinkle the flour over the mixture and then gradually add the cream.  Add salt, pepper, thyme and nutmeg.

Pour stock, wine and rice mixture into Dutch oven.  Stir and simmer for about 20 minutes.  Serve immediately.