The Bookmark

As an avid reader, I have innumerable bookmarks. Some are fancy, some are simple, some are whatever I happen to have lying around when I want to make a note without dog-earring a page. (Transit cards or receipts are especially handy – and readily available - when travelling!)

My collection of bookmarks is eclectic, as so many of them have been gifts from dear ones. (Always a thoughtful token for a book lover!) They encapsulate not only the aspects of my life that have resonated in someone else’s mind, but also serving as an ongoing souvenir of the relationship.

Bookmarks, we know, serve to pause the story that’s being read, so the reader can then re-engage at the precise spot, to continue the story. There are times when the bookmark may fall out if too loosely placed, or (as is so often my case) a bedtime reading leads to my eyes closing before the book does.

If the bookmark isn’t placed, then the continuation can be confusing: the right spot has to be found, sometimes leading to re-reading quite a bit. With my falling-asleep-while-reading, sometimes my mind has filled in some storylines that aren’t quite accurate (I recall once being quite perplexed that a Tragically Hip concert had taken place in The Lord of the Rings…)

All that aside: the marking of a place with the intention to return to it carries significance beyond our reading habits. We can make notes about physical spaces we wish to return to, aware that they are part of our story: be it a once-in-a-lifetime place like an engagement location, or a weekly visit like our favourite pew.

We can identify emotional spaces that we wish to return to; like the emotions that rise up when we drive past our old high school, or the feeling of hugging a loved one.

And there are spiritual places that we can mark to come home to: the psalm that calms our frazzled nerves, the community that gathers around the common table, the sound of the hymn that awakens our spirit.

So often, as life gets busy, our story goes in a different direction that what we may have wished for. What a blessing to be able to mark a spot – with something meaningful – to allow us to come back when we have the time and energy.

What part of your story is currently bookmarked, waiting for your return?

Potatoes!

I enjoy gardening; I am not ever going to be able to sustain myself on what I am able to grow – but I try to get something other than weeds coming out in the end of the season.

The carrots sometimes are only an inch deep, the tomatoes often still green when the frost is setting in overnight. I have good luck with chard and greens, I usually can get a squash to success.

One thing I am consistent about: I cannot grow potatoes. I have made an attempt with every garden I have had; and I have had zero success. Many types of soils, fertilizers, practices, climate zones, sun exposure, etc.

This spring, my neighbour asked if I was planting potatoes. I told her my predicament, and she offered me a few gnarly wrinkly seed potatoes – they were extra for her, and she said if I didn’t use them she was going to compost them (they looked half-way there already).

So – I tried. I had chosen to leave part of the garden unplanted – so I had space. I tossed them in the dirt, I kept them covered… and foliage appeared! I watched as they got taller, and then flowered, and then kept increasing in size. About every other day, same friendly neighbour asks if I’ve got any potatoes yet….

This weekend, as I was tackling some of the weeds, I noticed a couple of potatoes, just poking through the disturbed dirt. They’re small, and of course there’s only a couple right now – but they grew.

It’s no wonder Jesus used agricultural references for so many of his teachings: they are so relatable, and so easy to understand.

What enjoyable teachings my potatoes have given me:
* It’s never too late to try
* You never know when you’ll succeed
* You never know what’s below the surface
* A different environment produces different outcomes
* The result can be so much nicer than what you start with
…and so many more.

I could reflect more on the joys (and limitations) of the garden, but there’s still some weeding to do, and some errant squash vines choking out the tomatoes… and who knows what potatoes (literal and metaphorical!) might come up today.

The Blessing of a Failed Recipe

Clearly NOT my cake this week.

I came across a recipe this week that looked intriguing – it was a gluten-free cake made with some different ingredients (yogurt, apples, squash) with a write-up that promised it was a never-fail recipe. So – checking that I had all the requisite ingredients in my pantry, I tried it!

It failed.

Not miserably, but the recipe was definitely not a success. The texture was off, the rise was inconsistent, the centre of the cake was gooey while the outside was getting crispy, the flavour didn’t quite seem right, and so on.

And while I try to avoid food waste, this cake didn’t seem salvageable. I knew I would not enjoy it - and so it went right into the compost bin.

What a luxury this whole process was.

I have a level of food security that I could attempt an ‘extra’ food like cake, that wasn’t basic for sustenance. I could even toss out a recipe that didn’t work – without going hungry.

I have a pantry where there are ingredients just waiting – some have been there a year or more – and I could use them without concern about the following week’s nourishment. I have the financial resources to buy in bulk, or when they are on sale, and store them just in case they may be wanted.

I have the resources to have gluten-free flours, which are pricey, just sitting in my pantry. I have in my yard a garden plot, where food can grow – and I have the time and energy to grow it as a hobby, not a need.

So while I am frugal, and I am aware of my aversion to food waste, I am also aware of my privilege to cook and eat as I do. I am blessed to be able to support food distribution and food aid systems locally. I realise I am more aware of food security and food sovereignty issues than many.

So I counted my blessings as I disposed of that failed cake. For what a gift that cake was.

Overloaded!

This week, the early apples started dropping off the trees in my yard. Quite a few came down after a (welcome) overnight rain storm!

These drop apples (which I too often call dropples) are part of a normal thinning process, as the tree sheds excess fruit that it can’t support to maturity. There will still be plenty of apples in my fall harvest!

Alas – not wanting to waste anything, I looked into potential uses for these dropples. I came across the recipe for making pectin – it entails boiling these tart early apples for an hour, straining the mash, and reducing the resultant juice. Easy enough!

The challenge came mid-way through the process – I had had *just* enough room in my pot for the apples… and I had presumed I could get away with it.

However, once they started boiling, it was a different story. The pot was overloaded, and thus overflowing, and my what a mess!

After the boiling process was complete, and the straining underway, I pondered how many times I could have intervened to prevent the overflow – and yet had not done. I could have pulled out a bigger pot when I was chopping them and recognised the dilemma… or when the boiling started and the volume increased… or when the overflow was scorching on the stovetop…

Perhaps I was distracted and hadn’t noticed the amount. Maybe I should have been paying more attention as the water boiled. Maybe my indifference made me consider the spillage inconsequential. Perchance I just resigned myself to cleaning up the mess, and so didn’t care when it just got messier and messier.

Regardless: it was a mess. And I was left to clean it up.

It made me reflect on other aspects of life – how we so often can get overwhelmed by our to-do lists, our intentions, our expectations (from ourselves and others); and we miss out on seeing/recognising/availing ourselves of our ability to adjust to a better circumstance: with our relationships, with our faith, with our choices. And so, we end up with the result that we aimed for, but potentially also with a mess to clean up.

Life can feel overwhelming at times, and if we’re not careful, we’re the mess in the pot – simply wishing for enough space to do what we need to do, without making a mess. And wondering why we didn’t choose, so many times, to change the situation so we would have that space.

Perhaps we could un-load just one small piece this week, to allow ourselves the space to just be.

 

God Uses Everything

Part of the joy of my CSA (Community Shared Agriculture) is the regular acquisition of yumminess. From time to time, there are veggies that are new to me, or that come in abundance. As someone who really dislikes food waste, I do my best to find a use for all the things.

This week, that meant adjusting some meal planning to include a salad (the gorgeous lettuce has been ample!), dehydrating some spring onions, freezing some spinach, setting some time to shell the peas, etc. It also meant that the carrots that keep accumulating in the crisper needed a different solution than just piling up.

…and off to the recipe sites I went! As I write, I am enveloped by the gorgeous aroma of a roasted carrot and lentil curry simmering on the stove.

…and in the freezer is the to-be-stock bag, where I dropped in the carrot peelings and onion skins and pea shells and all the rest of the things that are not immediately edible. At some point later in the year, these will all get boiled down into a stock, which I then freeze in cubes for making winter soups and stews.

(Did I mention I dislike food waste? Also, I’m frugal?)
I try to use everything.

Which reminded me of a friend’s saying: God uses everything.

Everything in our lives can be an expression of the divine, a gift to us that is meant to be used. In some circumstances, that may be clear to us and others. Some may need to be preserved to a later date, at which time they can be enjoyed. In other times, it may take us some creativity to sort out a way to find the benefit. And still others may leave us feeling like we have nothing else to give – until suddenly something from the past offers a bout of extra support and nourishment.

But God uses everything. Nothing is useless, nothing is careless, nothing is wasted.

It’s up to us to spend some time considering what we have been given: the joys and benefits, of course; but also the challenges and struggles. God gives us the potential to use every experience in a way that will help express grace and love, peace and compassion.

We may not recognise it, we may not understand it, we may question the lesson or the timeline or even the point of it all: but God will use everything.

And what a joy when we can reflect and celebrate how God has used everything to bring us to where we are, and trust that we are being guided ever closer to the kin-dom.

 

Course Correction

In navigation, course corrections are common.

There may be detours, construction, or other major external factors that cause us to re-set that GPS on our way.

There may be internal factors that affect our journeys, like an empty fuel tank or lack of snacks, a missed turn, an intriguing looking roadside attraction.

Our course corrections could be intentional and proactive (avoiding a toll route, or sitting out a storm in safety) or unexpected and reactive (avoiding a deer in the road, or circumventing a hill that didn't show on the flat map).

Some of them will be substantial (in a canoe, turning sideways to avoiding getting swamped) or subtle (the canoeist in the stern being distracted by the view).

Course corrections are meant to be positive; an opportunity to adjust the direction of movement. There are situations where without a correction, an unanticipated negative outcome could occur. There are times when its responding to new information that renders the original plan in need of adaptation.

The reality of navigation, of course, is that course corrections are common: because they need to be. Without consistent monitoring, the path may not be as smooth as it could be, or we might get entirely off course, or the storms of life may cause us to sink into unescapable negative consequences (leading to a salvage mission instead of a directional re-assessment).

Course corrections are not massive changes; they are regular minor adjustments towards improving the experience. We may be surprised by unexpected opportunities or refined practices.

The journey of faith is also a pathway that necessitates navigating; and as such it benefits from being monitored and evaluated; to regularly assess our current course.

Our discussions with friends and colleagues, our devotions with prayer partners and church family, our discernment with spiritual director and sojourners… by choosing to be open to the nuance of the world around us, and the guidance of our trusted companions, we are more likely to be responsive to the opportunity to course correct.

Whether considering a physical journey or a spiritual one, by making adjustments to our habits and patterns, we can align ourselves in the best trajectory. May God be our guide in all our journeys.

A blessing of unplanned prayer

I was in a Zoom meeting this week, and one of our beloved members was sharing about some of the challenges they’ve been facing. One member said “we’re praying for you”, and it was met with a Zoom Room full of nodding heads and heart-reactions.

And before we moved to the next agenda item, another member said “We’re praying for you, now.”

And pray we did. Aloud, unplanned, authentically, beautifully, from the heart. The one who led the prayer named our friend, commended the challenges to God, asked for strength, and expressed gratitude for God’s companionship and faithfulness in this difficult time.

It was beautiful. It was important!

It hadn’t been on the agenda, but it was exactly what we were gathered to do. (Yes, we did the other work as well!) As a faith-based organisation, we often speak of prayer – and I know that these people of prayer are committed to that ministry of praying!

But so often we can forget that sacred pause, when the to-do list can wait, and pray aloud when the opportunity presents itself. There will always be something else that is waiting to be done, of course, but we risk the chance of diminishing ourselves and our communities if we skip over those few brief moments to engage.

It may not fit every setting (like a business meeting) or every venue (like a grocery store – I was once asked for prayers over the produce!). But for those of us this week – it was holy. We’re all blessed by the privilege of prayer!