jamming

Wow--it's sure been a long time since I posted here. 

I think I wanted to save my blog from the fullness of my impatience during that time between when Matt began his exit of Camp K-V, Iraq and when he actually, finally landed in San Diego.

Then, I suppose, I've been distracted with getting used to living with my dear husband again.  Which is a delightful challenge.  It's good to be together again, and to settle into our house together.

One of the messes he came home to was our backyard.  It was a disaster.  I'd attempted to begin cutting back our uncontrollable (if abundantly fruitful) passionfruit vine and made a bigger mess of it.  The banana tree that bloomed in August fell over a few weeks ago from the gradual pull of the weight of its fruit, and was poorly propped up by a teetering pair of stacked chairs and a wooden prop.  And so on.

Last Friday, we made a go at cleaning it up.  And things are looking much better.  We're just eager for the trash truck to come down our street this week.

One little piece of our work was picking the last three hands of bananas on the other plant--the one that bloomed in June.  They were still green, but I've decided that I don't think they're gonna turn yellow on the plant.

So, with those bananas now turning yellow, tonight, I made my second batch of banana jam from one hand.  It's too early to say for sure, but it early results seem very promising.  And with peanut butter on a sandwich: yum.

Banana jam recipes were a bit tricky to find, so I thought I'd share mine.

Homegrown Banana Jam

7 cups of bananas, chopped

juice of 2 limes (about 1/2 c.)

2 cups of white grape juice

4 1/2 c. sugar

Combine it all, mashing the bananas up a bit.  Bring it to a boil, stirring regularly.  Let it boil for about 15 minutes, 'til it seems good and jammy.  Pour it into jars, and process for 10 minutes in hot water bath.

Makes 9 1/2 pint jars, with about a half-cup left over.  I'm a big fan of left-over jam samples.

(Why do you suppose half-pint sound so much more quaint that "cup" when speaking of jars of jam?)

yes we can

I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me that my newfound appreciation for canning coincides so beautifully with the election of a president who has lifted our hopes with a slogan so beautifully affirming of both the generous possibility of human communities and jam preservation.  Yes, we can.

Who knew that my own little efforts at food security would resonate so elegantly with this exciting moment in history?

The passionfruit vine in our backyard grew crazy this year, so I've been enjoying the challenge of figuring out ways to preserve it.  

In that spirit, here's how I have been making passionfruit jam:

Ingredients:

about 30 ripe passionfruits (really, though, some are awfully little, so make it more like 34)

2 1/2 limes

water

about 4 lbs of sugar

Get the pulp out of the passionfruits.  My preferred method, to get most of the pulp but few of the seeds, is to cut the stem-end of the fruits off, scoop the pulp and seeds and everything into my little food processor, and run it for a few seconds.  The food processor frees the good, tasty pulp from the seeds.  Then, you can pour it through a strainer, into a bowl.   Add the lime juice, and set it aside.   (I think a few seeds make a nice addition to the jam, so I let a few of them through, too.)

Put the rest of the passionfruits--the wrinkly outside--into a big pot, and add water until at least half of them are submerged.  Boil them for at least 30 minutes, until the white pithy parts are all moist and swollen and kind-of purplish.

Cool the fruits you've just boiled, and peel the outer, crunchy skin away from the now-moist pithy pulp part.  Compost the skin, and put the inside pulp layer into the food processor.  I only have a little food processor, so I do about 6 fruits at a time, adding about 1/4 cup of the water from the boiling pot into each batch.  Blend the pulp until it's milkshake-thick.  (You'll end up adding about 1 1/2 cups of the water from the pot you'd boiled the fruits in.)

Now, as you put all the pulp and the juice into a big pot for turning into jam, measure the volume, and add an equivalent amount of sugar.  Bring it to a boil, and watch until it begins to turn jammy.  It doesn't take long--apparently, there's a good amount of pectin in that pulp.

Put the jam into jars, and process in boiling water bath. 

a big night

Just moments after the television people officially "called" the election for Obama, my dear husband called from Iraq, as he was about to leave the base where he's been stationed to begin his long journey home.

It'll still be a couple of weeks before he's back here, but it was a sweet, sweet moment.

in defense of the wink

I am a winker.

I feel my way is threatened, and I wish to speak out.

With Sarah Palin winking to the television camera during Vice-Presidential debates, she seems to suggest that the gesture builds her credibility with millions of living-room viewers. Her promiscuous winking makes me feel cheap, used.

Certainly, the wink, like any other intimate gesture, can be misused and abused; most precious things can. I do not mean to excuse predatory, manipulative winks, meant to insinuate a relationship that doesn’t really exist.

I resent that, when I speak of winking these days, people tell me it makes them think first of Sarah. Or Tina Fey as Sarah. Of shallow, deceptive attempts to shape democracy around leaders who are just like the kind of folks next door with whom you might enjoy sharing such connection. This wink, though, has become a veneer, lacking substance. It attempts to gain broad power through deceit.

I believe a wink is best shared in mutual relationship, between consenting parties. The wink is intimate, embodied communication.

Simple and loaded with layered meanings, I cherish its multivalent possibilities. Across a busy room, the wink flies under the radar of the dominant discourse, carrying a silent greeting, a daring acknowledgement, or recognition of the absurdity of a situation. With grace, subtlety and speed, it builds connections between winker and recipient, and invites creative response: another wink, a smile, rolled eyes.

Free of the baggage of words, and easily layered on top of other, more public conversation, the wink connects two people in an instant, with more than words can say and without missing a beat.

Lately I have noticed my own hesitation to use this beloved gesture. Instead, I’ve found myself turning to bold smiles—which convey a similar meaning but lack the covert grace of a wink.

So, I hereby commit myself to reclaiming its usefulness. If you happen to catch one across the room, I hope you’ll wink back.

8 reasons I oppose Proposition 8

On our November ballot here in California, we will be asked whether we support a proposition that would remove the right of same-sex couples to enter into legal marriage.  As a heterosexual, married, Christian woman, I oppose this proposition for many reasons.  Whether you agree with me or not, I would be honored if you'd consider these 8 reasons why I'm voting against it.  In my mind, any one of them is enough reason to vote against this proposal.

1.  This is a matter of legal rights, not a referendum on how religious people should interpret marriage.  As a part of a nation built on ideals like justice and equality, I see no reason to restrict the legal rights of people to enter into the marriage contract with one another.   I would like to live in a California that affords rights, not one that adds clauses into its Constitution to deny them.

2.  This proposition has nothing to do with the rights of homosexual people to have children. Regardless of marital status, gay and lesbian people are already raising children.  I would contend that it does our society good to have children being raised by people who are married--that the commitments made in marriage tend to help create home environments that are more stable, especially because of the way the community beyond the couple understands what it means to be married.  Allowing same-sex couples to continue to marry in California will give greater stability to families, not less.

3.  Heterosexual marriage does not need protection from same-sex marriage.  I do believe that heterosexual marriage needs work in our culture--too many marriages end in divorce.   It is a challenge to succeed in marriage--I struggle with the difficulty of separation during deployment, with my own independence, and much more.  My marriage is not, however, threatened by the marriages of same-gender couples.  I wonder what we believe we're protecting marriage from?

4.  Our understanding of marriage, in the church and under the law, has been continuously evolving.  I celebrate that, as a woman, I enjoy rights to choose my own spouse (as well as the right to choose not to have a spouse and still own property) that have not always been available to women--certainly not always in our biblical tradition.  I also celebrate that marriage does not exist only for the purpose of having children.  I give thanks for the love shared between couples that have chosen not to have children, and between couples that have been unable to have children.  I delight in couples far beyond their child-bearing years who are able to marry.  There is not an unchanged understanding of marriage stretching back through the Bible, nor through our nation's history.  The Supreme Court's decision to extend the rights of marriage to same-sex couples is another change in this evolving history.  There is no one "original" understanding of marriage that we can preserve. 

5.  I have been blessed and enriched by same-gendered couples.  Both as domestic partners and as married couples, they have shown me what mutually-life-giving, committed relationships can look like.  Often persevering through immense challenges, they have demonstrated how married couples can care for each other and strengthen one another.  These couples have been a blessing to our communities, too.  I welcome ways that we can do more to honor committed relationships and let them be an asset to our communities.

6.  Opposing this proposition does not mean that clergy are required to perform same-sex marriages.  As a pastor, I always have the right to refuse to marry a couple.  Opposing the proposition does not compel churches to change their definitions of marriage.   Already, many churches have requirements for marriage in that church--such as requiring both spouses to be members of the church.  Churches can continue to define their own rules for marriage, even without this proposition.

7.  This restriction of rights does not belong in our Constitution.  In my mind, a Constitution exists to provide rights, not take them away.  

8.  I am bothered by the fear-inducing tactics used by supporters of Proposition 8.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ demands that we move past our fears to dare to include more of the world in God's love.  I refuse to be convinced to restrict legal rights to members of our community because I am afraid.    I do believe that there is real evil in the world, and that this campaign is distracting us from work is necessary for God's kingdom.  Over and over, Jesus commanded us to care for the poor.  Never once did Jesus speak about same-sex marriage.   Proponents of this initiative are asking us to be afraid of the wrong thing.  We have a lot of work to do if we want to follow Christ's example of love for our neighbors.  This Proposition will not help us in that work. 

fruitful life

I didn't make a conscious decision to plant holy-sounding fruits in my garden, but this week's yield certainly does have that appeal.

Here's a bunch off my Praying Hands Banana, named because the bunches (called hands in banana-speak) look like hands held in prayer.

And passionfruits, named because the flowers reminded Spanish missionaries of Christ's passion.
Pretty good choices for the backyard of a preacher who images it to be here little promised land, in the spirit of Micah 4, complete with vines and fig trees, eh?

 

So far, I've mostly been freezing passionfruit juice, or dumping it into iced tea--but I'd be very keen on hearing of any favorite uses you have of either bananas or passionfruit.  Maybe there's a jar of passionfruit-banana jam in store for whoever can come up with the best idea...

in remembrance

Sharing communion last Sunday, with a congregation divided by our US border fence, reminded me just how much work remains to be done in remembrance of Christ.  Our border much more easily dismembers the human community.

The broken bread, handed through the fence in violation of the US Customs rules our Border Patrol says they're to enforce, became a vivid symbol of our own division.  In sharing it, we mark our belonging together.

It seems to me that whatever border policies we might choose for our national interests are irrelevant to our call to see one another as brothers and sisters in Christ across this fence.   In our Christian practice, if we are going to take Christ's salvation seriously,  we must be willing to share this sacrament across anything that might seek to divide us.

Of course, once you've shared in holy moments together, it's hard to imagine advocating for a policy that would treat others as anything less than people of infinite worth.

I suppose that's part of why I love communion so much: it makes Jesus real.  Sharing the broken bread helps me know and taste that Jesus really meant those wild and crazy things he said.

a taste of fall

I was up in Julian today, and last weekend, too; even though San Diego's weather is mostly sunny and 80, it's possible to get a hint of real seasons by going uphill for an hour or so.

We've been working on a house up there for a long while now.  Today, I had some time to walk around a bit, and find some lovely signs of fall.
Last week, after a little work, I explored the joys of apple season, with my moms.  It was a beautiful (though a bit hot) clear day.  Tasty, too.
During some canning adventures earlier this year, a friend found a recipe for Swedish Apple Pie that I love.  It's fabulous with just-picked apples.  Really, it's as much like a giant, apple cookie as it is like a pie.  A pookie, perhaps?   I'd post a picture, but it didn't last long enough to catch in pixels.  Dad suggested that it might have been even better with some oats that he brought out from the family farm.  I'm confident that it would be fun to try.
The least-expected part of my fall days in Julian was the appearance of local belly dancers at the festival.  But hey: why not?!

transformation (worth more than a hill of beans?)

I have a whole bunch of blog posts swimming around in my head.  Mostly, I haven't committed them to actual words yet.  So, in that spirit, I start this post with a picture.  I don't have any deep thoughts to accompany it; I just thought these beans had wonderful colors.  They came out of the garden as I was tearing out the last of the summer garden.

After the help of many friends and a load of compost, the winter garden is now doing its underground magic.  There's something daring about starting with seeds.  It feels much more dangerous and beautiful than seedlings from the nursery.  And it reminds me that garden life starts with dried up, dead things: seeds from old plants and a pile of decaying compost.
Speaking of dying things, or at least, things dying to their previous selves, I've been taking note of the gulf fritillary that love my passionflowers, and enjoying their transformation.  I caught this one in the act of making its cocoon.

Thanks to recent conversations with Colleen, my dad and others, I've been pondering the transformations that may be life-giving for the church.  As I read the communion liturgy, proclaiming that Jesus Christ saves us from "slavery to sin and death," I mourn the way our own, institutional fear of dying seems to occupy much of our attention.  As people of resurrection, I pray that we might trust more (and more fearlessly) in new birth.  

And, as Colleen helped me consider just this morning over coffee, birth is not simple, clean or solitary.  I wonder what it would look like for the church to put more energy into the life-giving, painful, uncontrolled process of helping prepare for new life and new birth?  (Perhaps we should put energy into dying well?)  I suspect our priorities would need to shift a bit, and that we'd need to be open to a considerable bit more uncertainty.

I wonder what our caterpillar is thinking as it forms this cocoon.  Does it have any idea what life might be like on the other side?

passion

a little urban passionflower

and some butterflies learning about the birds and the bees

My garden is really a mess.  I haven't taken good care of it for a while.  So, I'm just counting it as grace that beautiful things are lurking in it, if you look closely. 

crossing over

So, in preparation for this Sunday's worship and sharing the story of Moses leading the people of Israel across the sea, I've been trying to think of other dramatic and transformative water crossings, from the world of film.

So far my list includes:

-this clip from Man from Snowy River where Jim Craig follows the wild horses on down the edge of the ravine and through the snowy river.

-Into the Wild, where Christopher McCandless crosses a river to get to the bus where he makes home in the Alaska wild, and then gets trapped by that same river when it's risen.

-The Mission, where Robert DeNiro's character keeps trying to carry an incredible load of armor and things up the waterfall, as if penance; he finally gets cut free from it.

Who can help me with more?

jazz worship

I've been playing with ideas for how to name and promote jazz worship this November, and I came across this gem.  I couldn't resist posting.  It comes from here.

Several years ago, in my Bible study at the Rescue Mission, the women there talked me into going through Revelation with them.  One day, as we were beginning conversation about end-times, I asked how they thought we'd know if Jesus were coming.   I was imagining we'd have rich conversation about how to discern what's "real."

"There's gonna be trumpets," one woman said, without missing a beat.

I guess she didn't grow up in the church with the sign.

labor day creations

I spent part of my holiday weekend making stuff, inspired by my garden.  First came these cupcakes, which were really an excuse to use my first passionfruits in the kitchen.  That's a mango and passionfruit curd you see, right on top of a rich, dark chocolate ganache.  

"Ganache" and "curd" are new cooking vocabulary for me this year.  Exotic, eh?  I also put a little tangelo-pineapple marmalade into the yellow cake, for kicks, so this little guy could become an attempt at a 5-minute tropical getaway.  And, it's a getaway partly grown in local backyards: new heights in imaginary eco-tourism?

My adventure from yesterday involved playing with fruits and vegetables, exploring their printmaking possibilities.  Turns out I really dig the look of limes and onions as stamps.
Slowly, they're becoming napkins and placemats, I think.  I printed them onto pieces of an old duvet from the thrift store.
Here are the stamps I tried.  I wonder what else I could use out of the refrigerator...  

flattened leadership and steep hills

In June, I was captivated by the enthusiastic cyclists who rode post my house as a part of a Critical Mass ride.  Last night, I went along for their August ride.

Since I've been thinking about flattened models of leadership, it seemed especially fun to watch and participate in a big group ride with no official leadership.  I enjoyed watching riders gather in the park, as some began circling the fountain, and, eventually, more and more people starting yelling to get the ride going.  Finally, we took off.  

Being a part of a thousand cyclists riding together is a trip; when the big group decides to go on through red lights, for example, it just doesn't work to stop.  It's certainly a rush to ride through San Diego in the dark, not stopping for anything (except the trolley, and, I noticed, folks were definitely ready to stop when we heard an ambulance siren).  

The diversity of people (and bike styles) on the ride was pretty fun.  There's a young, aggressive, testosterone-driven energy that is probably the most visible dynamic, but I wouldn't say it described even close to a majority of the riders.  For every one biker yelling the kind of words people usually apologize for using in front of preachers, I heard three others saying "thanks" to cars that had stopped, or cyclists who were helping provide safety to others.    

I treasure the image of riding through the underpass under the 5 freeway on Laurel Street, away from the Harbor, and seeing the vast swarm of red tail lights on the hundreds of bicycles ahead of me, climbing that steep hill.

You can check out the view of this month's ride here.

The ride has no official leaders, and most riders (well, I, at least) didn't know where we were going as we took off, or as we rode.  Some people were clearly more involved in helping make the ride work, and they seemed to know a basic plan.  All along the way, people participated in various ways, like by calling directions, wishes or warnings.  

Sometimes, it felt powerless to not know what decisions were being made or who was really making them; at other times, it was darn cool and liberating to ride along in a community, trusting that the group wouldn't go too far astray, because we were doing it all together.

Today, though, I'm most keenly aware that it's been a long time since I have ridden my bike for 20 miles.  And up, as I said, some hills.

free

One of the women who works at the produce market on my block always laughs and waves her had dismissively when I try to put my 3 little serrano chiles on the scale to pay for them.

flattening worship leadership

I've been contemplating two ways to make worship leadership and participation more communal.  I've had fun thinking about them, and thought they might be even more fun to think about together, with you:

-Using text messaging to share prayer leadership.  What if, during worship, people to text their prayer, it would appear on our screen, and be shared by the community?  I love the opportunity to share prayers, but feel like our "joys and concerns" time often creates a sense of insiders/outsiders that isn't overly welcoming to new people.  And, it sometimes takes a lot of time.  (I like the idea that texting might push us to say things with fewer characters.)  

I think something like Twitter would be cool, but I'm not much of a tweeter, so I don't know if it's best; if people have to create an account, that would be lame.  My other current best idea is to ask people to text message to an email address; it could be received by the computer running MediaShout with our projector, and cut and paste into the presentation.  I'm sure churches are doing this already, but it's certainly not the norm in ours.  I think it would be nice to think about using text msgs for praying, though.

-Xerocratic worship leadership.  "Xerocracy" is my new favorite word.  It comes from Critical Mass bike riding communities, and refers to the practice of making decisions based on who has the convincing photocopy; the hierarchy-free Critical Mass community apparently chooses its rides by xerocratic decision.  So, I'm thinking, what would xerocratic worship leading look like?  What if folks just showed up, and the person with the best worship design would lead?

Dangerous to the power of clergy like me, I know.

But, as I explored the idea on Wikipedia, it seemed to sound a lot like one of my favorite moments at General Conference this past May: when we elected a new group of Judicial Council members based on the unofficial, last-minute, communal and authentic hallway networking of a bunch of delegates, who had $20 to spend a Kinko's to help make their consensus known to others.  There was no name on the flyer, which was passed among delegates; it honestly came from no official group.  Xerocratic-style.  And, there, it prevailed over much better-funded efforts to keep our Judicial Council dominated by the same folks who brought us exclusive and Spirit-limiting decisions for the past 4 years.

I wonder how to help cultivate that spirit of investment, participation, authenticity to the people involved and innovative revelation in our weekly worship...

(I'm also excited to be headed out on my first Critical Mass ride this Friday!)

juicy

I gathered my first passionfruit today.  I've been keeping an eye on my vine, which is loaded with fruits.  Every time I look, they all seemed to be still green and very firm.  Then, today, I noticed something different: something deep red and purple, lying just under the vines on the ground.  

I took them inside and here's what I found!

I'm totally new to passionfruit growing, but I've since read that if I let them get wrinkly, they'll be even better.  So, I guess we'll see what happens with the two on the counter.

Anyone have any favorite uses for passionfruit?

dude!

I got excited by this article, which told me that invisibility cloaks might could actually come to be!

Though I still treasure the moment when Colleen and I ditched a seminary class one Halloween to go to JoAnn's Fabrics to buy shiny silver material so I could sew my effective-only-with-a-good-imagination invisibility cloak for Joel's birthday. The woman cutting the fabric asked, so pleasantly, "What are you making?"

"An invisibility cloak," I answered, enthusiastically.

She was suddenly silent.

"Like from Harry Potter," I added.

After another moment of silence, she simply noted. "I still don't get it."

a few words to help me organize the week ahead

The NYTimes had a piece on Jon Stewart this weekend, noting that he's among the most trusted sources of news in our country. I think that doesn't scare me at all. Because, with good comedy, he's taking us closer to important issues than most main-stream news is willing.

I particularly liked the last bit of a passage quoted from him, at the end of an explanation of why they're interested in tough subjects:

"Everyone here is working too hard to do stuff we don’t care about." -Jon Stewart

worn

I feel like my garden has gotten out of my control; I've been away too much, and, when here, I've been distracted and busy.  It's been hot, too.  So, I spent some time on Friday evening doing my least favorite garden tasks: tearing out overgrown and dry plants.  There's still a bunch more of that work to do.  

Today, I started some new seeds, which is a happier job.  

And, as if a sign of grace and possibility, the fig tree yielded up some delicious fruits.  I love how figs hide their fleshy beauty inside such misleading, shriveling brown exterior. 

In between a bunch of other adventures (including fashioning 5 veils to make clergy robes look like nun costumes for our Sound of Music Singalong at the church), I also finally sewed a wraparound skirt from an old sheet I got at the thrift store.  It's deliciously soft, and lined with another dangerously soft (and worn) sheet.  

On Friday, I tried to take care of myself a bit: a fresh haircut, buying some watercolors, and a massage; when I was in Santa Fe, I relaxed enough to notice how tense the muscles in my shoulders were.  I still feel tender from having those muscles loosened.  A good, looser kind of tender.  Enough to make me think I should not wait so long next time.