Joy to the world…

I've been doing more baking lately - the captivity of ice storms and the push of cookie exchanges has seen to that. It's such a busy, chaotic, and even painful time of year - for lots of people, not just clergy - and there's something relaxing about putting ingredients together and waiting…waiting for them to bake, smelling wonderful smells in the interim.

I grew up baking Christmas cookies with my mom. We used the same recipe every year - a recipe she'd cut out of the Little Rock newspaper when I was very little - a cutout cookie recipe for lemon-honey cookies. Every year - the same wonderful dough that we'd mix and eat before putting it into the fridge to chill overnight. One year, we forgot to make the dough ahead of time, and we figured out we could chill the dough in the freezer for a while instead.

We'd flour ourselves up, pull out the yellow rolling pin, and get to rolling and cutting. We had plastic cookie cutters that had some detail to them - detail we never worried about too much. We had aluminum cookie cutters in very simple shapes - we gravitated more to these the older we both got. We'd eat more dough. We'd bake the cookies and let them cool and decorate them. And then for a while, anyway, we'd have this delicious pile of lemon-honey cookies that tasted the same every year.

After I moved out of my mom's house, baking these together got more complicated. Between my travel schedule and Mom's work schedule around Christmas (she was clergy, too), sometimes she'd mix up the dough and put it in the fridge, and there it would sit, awaiting my arrival.

Mom would do other baking, too. She'd put on the local classical music station that played lovely choral, organ, and orchestra pieces she adored, and she'd move around the kitchen, quietly pulling things from the pantry and putting things into the mixing bowl. The house would begin to smell fabulous, and at this busy, chaotic, sometimes even painful time of year, she'd find some peace making goodies for those she loved (and herself).

Today, I had some time and began making a batch of chocolate cookies for a cookie exchange. I began with some annoyance - it's a busy, chaotic, and sometimes painful time, remember? To bake cookies felt frivolous. And so I began slowly - I put on my own classical Christmas music, began pulling together my own ingredients, quietly moving in and out of my pantry. I put things together into bowls, tasting less cookie dough than ever before in my life. And slowly, I felt the knots unwinding.

Not lemon-honey…but still smelling great!

I also slowly became aware of an old grief re-emerging.

Even after eight years, this is the one time of year that I can scarcely believe that Mom is gone. At this time of year, her loss sits with me more heavily than any other time of year. She can't really be gone, can she?

And the grief comes back, surprising me with its force, sneaking up behind me like a thug while I'm putting towels into the washer. It crams its fist into my stomach until I am doubled over, crying. And all I'm doing is baking cookies and getting a load of towels into the washer, for goodness' sake!

And I begin to hear the words of the songs and they become more poignant than ever…

"O come, O come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here…rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!"

Sometimes, I really want grab the joy and cast it away, into the outer darkness. Sometimes, the mourning in exile is so much more appealing.

And yet, the joy of God is a relentless thing. It comes to us, too, when we least expect it. It comes in the rising of a beautiful moon, or in the neighbors turning on their Christmas lights just as the darkness threatens to overtake us all.

Light, light, and more light.

Sometimes, joy is quiet. It moves around, putting things together with peace, until we realize that we are still OK, in both our grief and our joy. Until we realize again that Christ was born to make all things new, both our grief and our joy.

Joy to the world, the Lord is come…let heaven and nature sing!

Grace...

Hubby -n- Me

This past week was all about choices.

Oh, who the hell am I kidding? Every week is about choices, right? 

Anyway, over the last week, I've made some choices that have meant I haven't walked as much as I probably should have...

I got in a good, though short, walk at the beginning of the week. The middle of the week is where the wheels came off. I really, really wanted to walk on Thursday, but on Thursday, my Hubby came home after being out of town all week for work. 

So, I made the choice that evening to eat a nice, quiet meal with him and then hang out on the couch with him, watching ridiculous TV. I mean, really, really ridiculous programming - but programming that made us laugh and, most importantly, made him happy after a long few days away from home and his wife and his dog. The three of us sat together, collected in the same room, and all was well.

Except...I really, really wanted to walk. I felt kinda twitchy about not walking. As my normal walking hour came and went, it felt strange to be sitting on the couch - just as in the olden days - the days (and weeks, and months, and years) before diabetes and watching every bite and finding more motivation than ever to get off my ass and move around more. It felt strange.

I got out there and walked tonight. I pretty much insisted on it, telling both Hubby and the waiter at dinner that I was going for a walk when we got home. Hubby lovingly got his dessert to go. The waiter wished me well. And we made it home just in time for me to change, get all geared up, and head out for a lovely two-mile walk.

While I walked, I thought about this past week. I thought about the choices I made and that I'd only walked twice this week. I reflected on how strange that felt and then - AHA! Epiphany time! - I realized how wonderful it is that I walked over three and a half miles this week, and - really - that isn't too shabby. Not bad at all for someone who three months ago was still getting her blood sugar sorted out and was really good at sitting on her ass.

And so, I'm not going to get bogged down by my choices this past week. I am, however, going to celebrate every time I walk as some kind of progress - some kind of forward movement - and allow myself the grace to sit on the couch with Hubby from time to time. 

Ten Reasons I'm Staying in Texas

My chosen home state has been in the news a fair amount this week. For being such a big place, we're not often on the front page as much as we have been lately. We're showing up on the op-ed pages, too, with writers (including this one from the L.A. Times) giving their reasons to stay out of Texas.

Rather than slam someone else's home and write a post about five reasons to stay out of California, I have decided to uphold some of the good about Texas - at least, the good that I see and live here, and have for most of my life.


10. Mix of people
We have a wide mix of people here in Texas. People from all over the country and all over the world land here, creating a beautiful hodgepodge. If you want to be around people who only look like you, act like you, worship like you, or talk like you, Texas isn't for you.


9. The people
We're friendly. People here aren't afraid to lend a hand when it's needed, and sometimes, even when it's not. People here are warm, loyal, and smart. Obviously, there are jerks everywhere, including Texas, and there are warm, loyal, and smart people everywhere, too.


8. Art and culture
Because we have such a mix of people, we have fantastic arts and culture. If you want world-class museums and symphonies - we have them. If you want a world-class live music scene - we have it. If you want a corny (but well-performed) musical that pokes fun at us - we have that, too. Great restaurants with food from a variety of cultures - check. Fun shopping in both big chains and local favorites - check.


7. Higher education
Our higher education has something for almost everyone. We've got schools that are in smaller towns, and schools smack-dab in the center of our biggest cities, and everything in between. These schools attract students from all over, helping to contribute to the cultural mix I mentioned above. Driving around college towns, you'll see license plates from all over the country. And we like it that way.


6. The weather
OK. It gets hot here. Let's just say that outright. But Hubby loves not shoveling snow after doing that his whole life in Massachusetts. My in-laws recently retired here because my father-in-law was worn out from years and years of moving snow.

Don't get me wrong, I like snow fine - and cold weather, too. And I get just about enough of it living in Texas to keep me happy until the next winter. We do have four seasons - you just have to pay closer attention here. Fall sneaks up on you, like an old friend, tapping you on the shoulder from behind. And Spring in Texas? One word: bluebonnets.


5. The varied landscape
Mountains. Canyons. Beaches. Prairies. Ranchland. Cities. Small towns. Rivers. Bayous. Pine trees. Oak trees. Elm trees. Palm trees. Crepe myrtles. Hydrangeas. Roses. Cows. Goats. Bunnies. Cardinals. Red-winged blackbirds. All that - and so much more. You might have to drive a ways to get from the canyon to the beach, but they're there for you.


4. Mansfield
We live in a suburb of the DFW Metroplex now, called Mansfield. It used to be a small town out in the middle of nowhere but is now surrounded on almost every side by people. We've got Starbucks and local coffee shops. We've got almost all the stores we need on a regular basis. We've got small business and big business.

Our lovely home with its good-sized lot cost a reasonable amount. We're close enough to Dallas and Fort Worth that we can get to them easily (as well as a myriad of other suburban towns), and in fact I drive to one or both every week. We have beautiful city parks here, with another one going in just around the corner. As I've been walking the neighborhoods more and more, I've fallen more in love with this place.


3. Austin
I lived in Austin as a child. I lived in Austin in college. I lived in Austin as an adult. I love Austin. It's the place where my heart always feels at home. I got my first apartment there, got two college degrees there, got married there, bought my first home there, experienced both gut-wrenching loss and profound joy there, and got a hard-earned master's degree there.

It's a beautiful place, trying desperately to stay "weird," in spite of the fact that it's growing like crazy. The infrastructure hasn't kept up with the growth so well, and traffic sucks. But that can be said lots of places, and I had fun finding back roads that took me through beautiful areas of town while I avoided the highways. It's all what you make of it.


2. I am called to serve here
Hubby is an electrician, licensed by the State of Texas, and so when I finished seminary, we determined that I would restrict myself to Texas for the purpose of receiving my first call to a church. Eventually, I was called to serve Our Redeemer Lutheran Church in Grand Prairie - another suburb of DFW. I love my work there, but more than that, I love the people. They are hard-working, caring people who love the Lord, love each other, and love their communities. What a blessing.


1. It's home
There's a saying: "I wasn't born in Texas, but I got here as fast as I could," and this applies to me. I moved here at age six and have lived here off and on ever since. I haven't lived anywhere else for longer than a year because this is home.

Of course Texas has some screwed-up politics. Of course I don't agree with every statesman/woman's point of view. Of course I think we have things to improve on. Every place has all of these things! But what makes a place home is not its perfection. What makes a place home is that it captures our heart somehow, and holds it.

Texas isn't for everyone. But I'll take it.