Sopapillas

Yummy. Sopapillas are Mexican dessert/pudding. They are a puff ball of dough that is slightly hollow in the center. When you get it pipping hot, you poke a hole in it and fill it with honey. Then you eat it trying to catch all the honey that escapes and runs down your chin. Very nice after a hot spicy meal.

Sopapillas are a treat, something I don't eat very often, that I remember from my childhood when my Grandparents used to take us to eat at Old El Paso restaurants, or better yet, Felix's Mexican restaurant where they had these little flags you could run up a stand to let the server know you needed more of something. Sopapillas were so light and hot and sweet and messy - a moment in life to enjoy to the fullest without worrying about calories (what kid does that?!) or etiquette or the next day's responsibilities. Sometimes when I am in church and the worship is good and I feel God's presence I don't want to leave. I just want to stay there in that feeling of love and acceptance and safety and have it go on and on. Today was a day like that.

Not Bread but Good

So there's this poem about having a hangover. It has two stanzas and the second one is the one I love. Here it is, "Two Hangovers" by James Wright.

Number One.

I slouch in bed.
Beyond the streaked trees of my window,
all groves are bare.
Locusts and poplars change to unmarried women
sorting slate from anthracite
between railroad ties:
the yellow-bearded winter of the depression
is still alive somewhere, an old man
counting his collection of bottle caps
in a tarpaper shack under the cold trees
of my grave.

I still feel half drunk,
and all those old women beyond my window
are hunching toward the graveyard.

Drunk, mumbling Hungarian,
the sun staggers in,
and his big stupid face pitches
into the stove.
For two hours I have been dreaming
of green butterflies searchign for diamonds
in coal seams;
And children chasing each other for a game
through the hills of fresh graves.
But the sun has come home drunk from the sea,
and a sparrow outside
sings of the Hanna Coal Co. and the dead moon,
The filaments of cold light bulbs tremble
ina music like delicate birds.
Ah, turn it off.

Number Two: I try to waken and greet the world once again.

In a pine tree,
a few yards away from my window sill,
a brilliant blue jay is springing up and down, up and down,
on a branch.
I laugh, as I see him abandon himself
to entire delight, for he knows as well as I do
that the branch will not break.

Scones or Biscuits

Ok, so Mandy is over today and I asked her what she had for breakfast. She said porridge, which she typically has. I said, scones. And she said, what?! Why would you have scones for breakfast?

This is what we call a culture clash. In England, a scone is eaten with one's afternoon tea, with clotted cream and jam on it. In America, a scone looks like what we call a biscuit which is eaten at breakfast, usually a full breakfast with eggs and bacon and sausage etc. What the Brits call a full fry up. So to me it makes perfect sense to eat a scone at breakfast but to my husband and friends it looks weird, out of place, out of context. It tastes the same. So what's the problem?

So I'm explaining all this to Mand, how in America we don't have a tea time around 4 p.m. where scones are acceptably eaten, which she gets.

But then I think what all do I miss out on because I think to myself, this is the wrong time or place to do this or have that? Am I tuned in to God's culture (what some people call the Kingdom) so I can live outside my cultural box (or the one I am transplanted into) and experience what He has for me today or for the person sitting next to me?

Bagels today

I have gotten into the habit of baking scones and having them around for breakfast of for afternoon tea. I quite like having them available, so when I get lazy and don't feel like making some fresh, then I want some, I'm out of luck. And there is nothing like a scone with a cup of tea.

So do I expect God to always be there, on tap, available, ready for some fresh word from Him, just because I turn to Him? He is there, always, but to hear from God you have to be tuned in and listening to Him. That takes practice. He isn't like some drive-thru' fast food place. I think I'm getting my metaphors messed up, but hopefully you know what I mean.

God deserves our time and attention. And love.

My first loaf

Just like the young boy brought Jesus his few fish and pieces of bread, and Jesus shared them with the multitudes of people who had come to hear him speak and had nothing to eat, this is what I have for you today, my first loaf.

The preacher said today that people need God. They don't need people who talk about God; they need people who have God with them, carry him around with them, so that others can experience the living God too. Just as Jesus is the bread of life, and we all need bread and water to live, so we need God to live in peace and joy and holiness in the midst of our very ordinary days just trying to make it.

And noone likes stale bread. (Although you can make really nice bread and butter pudding from stale bread!) We need fresh bread every day. We need a fresh word from God every day.

What do we all want? We want to be loved for who we are, now, today. We want to be with people who love us and who we love.

God wants that too. He wants us to love him and wish to spend time with him.