Many thanks to my German friend for introducing my family to the advent calendar even before we fully embraced the tradition.  This year, however, I came up with something each day for the children to do before they get their daily treat.  Sundays are busy for us, so I decided to make use of the Christmas cookie sheet molds I received as a gift and make tasty sugar cookies as a treat for all.

Advent is a season of waiting, of preparation.  I also think it’s a time of excitement, merriment to be spent with family and friends, not without consideration of those in need.  Of course, I encourage you to make your own list, but to jump-start your brainstorm, here’s our list, some names removed.

May your December start with a heaping of kindness.

1. Do a kindness for a sibling.

2. Donate clothes to shelter.

3. Send a letter to a friend.

1. Make sure the house is especially clean.

2. Be kind to your Dad.

1. Happy St. Nicholas Day!!!

2. Make cards for teachers.

3. Do a chore not on your list.

4. Help Mom prepare Christmas cards.

5. Draw a picture for a grandparent.

6. Spend 5 minutes in prayer before school.

7. Give thanks outdoors! Play outside if you can.

8. Enjoy your cookie!

9. Call Grandma and Uncle.

10. Mark cards for a nursing home.

11. Call Grandma and Uncle.

12. Call Grandpa and Papa.

13. Call Nana&Papa and Cousin.

14. Call Godparents.

15. Enjoy your cookie!

16. Get thank-you notes ready.

17. Spend 30 minutes in prayer.

18. Do something kind for Alexander; it is his birthday.

19. Help Mom in the kitchen.

20. Merry Christmas! Rejoice!

Just when I thought I was keeping the house clean (or at least tidy), we discover a little surprise.

Need a close-up of our apparently not-so-clean sink?

Yep, that’s a plant growing in the sink trap.  A bean plant, it seems.  I didn’t even know a bean had fallen in there.  We really don’t use this sink that often.  In my defense, beans grow quickly and with little assistance.  Perhaps you home-schoolers could do this as a project in your own home.

Of course, now I’ll have to transplant the little guy.  I figure it’s meant to bean, I mean, be. 

A friend shared this recipe with me several years ago, and I’ve made it every Thanksgiving since.  How grateful I am for our family and friends and the food, shelter, warmth and Love we are so blessed with.

So, I share this with you, with thanks and attribution to Erin W. 

(and this is my kitchen at past-midnight, Thanksgiving-eve)

Sweet Potato Casserole

This casserole is sweet and yummy, almost of dessert quality, so a little goes a long way.

5 medium sweet potatoes, cooked and peeled

2 beaten eggs

1/4 cup evaporated milk

1 tsp. vanilla

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

2 Tbsp. butter

Topping:

1/2 stick butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 cup chopped pecans

*In medium bowl (or the 2 qt. dish you’re baking in, if you’re lazy like me!), mash potatoes.  Add eggs, milk, vanilla, sugar, salt and butter.

*Pour into buttered baking dish (if you used a bowl — I always omit this step/forget to butter the dish!)

*Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 min.  Mix the topping ingredients.

*Remove, heat oven to 375 degrees F.

*Sprinkle on topping.  Bake additional 6-8 minutes.

May your season of harvest and abundance be filled with thanks for blessings big and small.

Part of being home is nuturing and nourishing the family.  After husband read In Defense of Food, a renewed sense of commitment to nutritional quality and wellness arose.  I find it difficult to buy manufactured loaves of bread.  Hopefully this is a practice that will last because the allure of homemade bread is irresistible and extremely enjoyable.

Many thanks to this book for making it so easy, though it does eat a chunk out of our refrigerator.  I know I’ve mentioned it before.

I think it’s worth it, though, and I’m sure the kids do, too.

Some days, some seasons, I find myself pulling toward something, someplace.  It may be outward or inward, but the pull is almost gravitational.  Now must be the season of my introverted self, and the home is my sun.

My to-do list is manageable, filled with much, of course, but the first half of the list are things to do around the house.  Okay, really the list was just home tasks.  My other obligations were brought to mind, too, though, so I added those.  Most of what I am accomplishing are the home tasks.  This feels right and good.

I figure I have to honor my body, heart and soul.  As the house becomes filled with the fragrance of a wood-burning fireplace, I feel at home, at peace.  I knit one of many rows in a Christmas gift and feel grounded.  It’s not so much what I am doing as what I am being.

At least for now, I am being home.

-Mark 13:1-8

This past Sunday evening, I realized I hadn’t fully listened to the Gospel during the morning church service.  My lapse in memory baffled me.  Others were talking about how unpleasant a reading it was, but I had no recollection, no point of reference.  Could it have been that bad?

Ah, end of times talk.  All the buildings will fall.  Earthquakes.  Famines.  My husband saw the title of this post and asked me if it was about aikido.  No, not that.

But what if it’s not mainstream apocalyptic thought.  Jesus mentions that all this earth-shattering, darkness, foundational collapse “is but the beginning of the birthpangs.”  Now birth I can relate to, and I was listening during the service.  What I hadn’t heard was a negative message, one of destruction.  I heard about a fundamental shift, a promise of a new paradigm, a re-birth.  I heard what had to happen for God’s dream to be realized.

As an active participant in the Servant Leadership School, I’m familiar with the talk about how our authority-driven model is not sustainable, is grounded in fear.  To live into God’s will, God’s dream, would be to assume the servant role, to serve one’s self and others with unconditional love, compassion, to participate in communion.  The servant is in the receptive posture, vulnerable yet open to receive divine guidance, to channel God’s love.  It’s one thing to know this and quite another to practice it.

To live one’s life open to the Divine requires a new way of thinking, of being.  Throw down the walls that bind.  There is no ground upon which to stand.  The fruit of your labors might not be in sight and the path narrow and difficult.  The only sustenance you have is your Faith and a Love that surpasses all understanding.  This living is the active birthing.

The child to be born is God’s dream.  The light at the end of the tunnel is no other than the Light that illumines all.  Jesus knew this.  He lived it.  He was It.  And we, in our sheltered, self-centered lives are still rooted in fear and have yet to take the leap of faith into Faith.  If we could but live rooted in Love, we could get a glimpse of our lives as God sees them.  We could tap into the infinite potential written into our souls.

We just have to let all our illusions fall away, surrender to Love, and live what is real, what is here.  Now.  This is our practice.

This whole week embodies an Indian summer.  We’ve had our first frost.  All the trees have come aglow, and most have dropped their leaves.  I chanced upon this ginko tree at the park the day before Halloween; they drop their leaves so quickly.  Their golden leaves must be too heavy to hold for long.

And this week (which happened to include my birthday) reminds me of the renewal I feel in the fall, the creativity, optimism and groundedness.  Quite simply, I give thanks.  My blessings abound.  My gifts continue to create a beautiful harvest and provide me with plenty of work to be joyfully busy.

Even when the sun hides behind the clouds, as it undoubtedly will sometime soon, and the nighttime increases, I’ll let the Light glow from within and cherish the time to let my hands create gifts for those I love.

After promising myself I would get started in July, I’ll have to settle for starting in October.

The first gift gives me practice at switching colors while knitting, which will be good preparation for another scarf of many colors and great length.    Other gifts this season will include pottery, quilts, sewing and baking as we continue in developing our tradition of handmade gifts and quality time together.  I hope for you much the same in the upcoming season.

For this project, though, I give thanks for Charmed Knits.  So far, though I’ve been working on it openly, none of the kids know for whom the scarf is being made.  (They have figured out it is a scarf.)

I highly recommend the double-layer scarf done on the circular needles.  There’s something highly comforting about knitting every row; it’s downright meditative.

If I don’t think it will give the gifts away, I’ll share photos of other gifts as they’re in progress.

Enjoy!

Many of my friends knew about the “bowl project” I volunteered my husband and myself for.  In short, Rev. Peggy Bosmyer, the first Episcopal woman priest in Arkansas (and the first west of the Mississippi), died last year of cancer, being only 60 years old.  As Episcopal Church Women, we wanted to do something special for her in memoriam.  We’ll do something larger at Camp Mitchell, but we also wanted to do something unique and personal . . . something special.

Thus, the bowls.

Peggy adopted a practice inspired by the Benedictines.  The story is that she herself had a pottery bowl she kept by the front door.  To remind herself of her Baptismal vows, she would cross herself with the water from the bowl before she would leave the house, and she would bless her children, too.  Others were inspired from her sharing of this practice.

The bowls were made . . . somewhere around 70 of them . . . by Casey and me.  I trimmed and stamped them with a leaf.  Some of my friends helped me paint on the glaze.  Rev. Marti Dalby blessed the bowls at our ECW Fall Gathering on October 24th at Camp Mitchell.

The remaining bowls went back to St. Margaret’s, Peggy’s church.  I kept one of the blessed bowls for myself and my family.  It sits on a table near the front of the house, one of our altar tables.  Now I, too, am reminded of my Baptismal vows, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.