Arugula is not a democrat... or a republican

So, here is the requisite “I’m sorry, I haven’t written, blah, blah, blah” but I’m not sorry, because I just moved and have been unpacking and trying to learn to live in a new place and no one is going to publish this blog and you who read it are simply kind to do so, so I’m not sorry and I’m not going to worry about the techno-god (little g).

But that’s what I’ve been up to.  Nashville is what I’ve been up to and avoiding work for my class and looking for a job and fretting over way too much.

But I just saw this article and thought I’d vent to you folks, since, after all, my beef is about food. Specifically, leafy greens.

I just want to say that if you don’t like a candidate because he likes a slightly-bitter form of lettuce and is, therefore, some part of an elitist conspiracy, that is idiotic. Not patriotic.

Especially, if his opponent, Mr. Iceberg USA, cannot recall the number of homes he owns.

Vote for who you want, but don’t let greens have anything to do with it, unless you’re part of the green party.

And here is a great recipe with which you can celebrate the mighty all-American Arugula, I got it from my sister’s blog and can’t find it there now, so this one is from the Washington post.

So, breakfast has always been a problem for me.

Apparently, when I was a wee child, I couldn’t say the word. Always, “bwefess”–that was the best I could do.  But besides that, I never know what to eat for it.  My tummy doesn’t really wake up until about 10 am, so food before that sounds gross, but, if I don’t eat, I get all shaky and headachey and bitchy.  So I want something small, but filling, that sort of gently coaxes my tummy to awaken.  And I want something that happens quickly. None of this 10 minutes of pancake stirring/oatmeal making for me.  I also am picky and am a human that is oddly addicted to variety- in food, location, whatever- I don’t even like to sleep on the same side of the bed every night, which drives the gnome crazy.  
Anyway, I think 99% of the planet eats the same thing for breakfast almost every day. So I’ve been in search of my perfect breakfast for years now.  MY breakfast. What I can eat almost everyday (I’ll never get to everyday about anything, not even teeth-brushing).

I’ve found some things I like a lot before, but they didn’t make the cut. I could eat Eggos ™ everyday and did from age 9-11, but with all its genetic modification and irreconizable ingrediants, it seems more science experiment than food (but, as Homer would say, “mmm… science experiment”).  I also love-with-a-capital-E chick-fil-a chicken biscuits, but if I had one every morning, by the end of week one, I, myself, would be a science experiment. So the clencher is, it had to be healthful on top of it all.

And I believe, after years of searching, I have found it.  
Here it is: 
A green tea and berry smoothie. Because, like me, it is half grassy/half sassy. 
I take a half cup of green tea* (just the perfect amount of caffeine and all the anti-oxidants, because I am strongly against oxidants–Does any one know if either candidate is anti-oxidant?), put in two tablespoons of organic plain yogurt and half a bag of organic frozen mixed berries (about 5 oz) and blend.  It is portable and so good. If I want a bit more, I microwave some turkey bacon for a pleasing combo.  It’s good, you should try it.
 
* I got tired of brewing two cups of tea in the morning (I drink “every woman’s tea” with nettles and raspberry leaves and other stuff that is good for women every morning too-they should add chocolate and foot rubs to it- ) so I brew a pot of green tea and store it in the fridge all week (If anyone reads this far-I’m trying to find out if this in any way lessens the nutrient value of it).

Well, it was a good experiment. But here is evidence that it didn’t work:

Kathie Steigerwald, a Dearborn, Mich. businesswoman who said she voted for Hillary Clinton but now plans to support McCain, offered an especially succinct recital of a narrative on which other interviewees offered numerous variations:

“I feel John McCain is a true American and I want to support a true American,” she said.

But isn’t Obama a “true American?” she was asked.

“I don’t know,” she said after a measured pause. “I question it.”

Why?

“I don’t know — maybe because of his name?”

 

From here.

I haven’t, historically, written much about my life on this blog before, but since many of you who read this (and aren’t just looking for pictures of tea) actually know me, I thought I’d give a snapshot of my week and the current skirmish in the overarching narrative of the universe there in.

I think a combination of hormones, the stress of an impending (unwanted) move, a lot of travel this summer, good old fashioned low-dopamine levels, and some other things that aren’t really the sort I discuss on the blog have conspired in my person and, thus, over the last week I was pretty depressed.  On Thursday, the gnome and I went to see a Bill Mallonee concert, and, afterward, I was feeling numb with a small twist of sadness and bitterness.  So after we dropped our great and amazing friend off, I thought we’d just go home.

Me: I’m tired. Let’s go home.
Gnome: There is no way in hell I’m taking you home. You are depressed. You need Chocolate. 

So we went to Dolce Vita, a gelatto bar, one of those trendy spots where the drinks and gellato are so yummy and overpriced, every one there is super hip and the baristas are sexually ambiguous.  I had dark chocolate gellato and a Dolce Vita coffee (coffee with bailys and fragelica), which we took to go, and then walked around one of the prettiest neighborhoods in Austin.

We ended up sitting in a parking lot and having a good talk about following Jesus.  I have a lot of friends who have walked away from the faith in the last few years and it has really been brutally painful to watch.  And I’m at this place that many of them came to where I’m having to make some choices that I don’t want to make in order to be faithful to Christ- places where it feels like death to follow the Way and I have to believe (by the miracle of faith alone) that what feels like death is life and what feels like life is like fool’s gold.  The gnome said that this may be the first time that following Jesus is costing me something.  If you saw my life, you’d think that that was crazy.  I’ve always tried to be “hard-core”, given stuff away, gone overseas, worked with poor folks, stayed a virgin until I was married (which wasn’t easy to do) and have been on staff at a few churches– I’m really grateful for these things in my life, but all of them were my choice.  I chose how to “sacrifice for Jesus” and I got the thrill of the fair amount of ridiculous self-righteousness that comes along with those choices.  But now I’m in a place where he is calling me to follow him in ways that I didn’t choose to, in ways that I wouldn’t choose to.  And he’s calling me to trust him when it is really hard to do so. He’s calling me to “sacrifice” my desires and trust him to fill up the holes that the sacrifice leaves in my heart. 
So I cried in the parking lot into my coffee.  And the gnome prayed for me.  This is the abundant life, but it isn’t always the dolce vita.  But I’m learning, that following Jesus only becomes real when it costs you what you don’t want to give up. 
And I’m still here, as John Bunyon would say, narrowly fleeing the “castle of doubt” but still a pilgrim on the path.    

I just came back from papa fest in Illinois, and it was one of the best experiences I’ve had in years.  I met some other “ordinary radicals.” Learned a lot more about being ordinary and being radical and generally grew from the good nourishment that comes from being with thoughtful brothers and sisters.  Got hot. Got sweaty. Danced. Sang. Got dirty. Pooed in pootown.  (That’s my disembodied voice in the video–apparently I got cut from the visuals.–I’m not cool enough for poo.) And grew maybe just a little more into the freedom I was made for.

I saw Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw give their presentation that they are giving on their book tour of Jesus for President. They (along with musical guests Jay and Scotty) do a bang-up job. Go see it, if you can.

It really hit a nerve with me.  If you read this, you know I have supported Obama, but, honestly, I do it somewhat reluctantly. There are ways that I disagree with him and, honestly, ways I don’t quite trust him, so giving him my vote is a bit awkward for me.  I am trying (often faultily) at being a biblical follower of Jesus, and, as such, there are ways that the republican platform is just sickening to me (economic justice, war, race issues, death penalty, humility, etc.) and at the same time I’m not quite at home with my leftist friends, and there are beliefs I have that make my most non-violent, good-natured lefty friends want to kick my butt (abortion, sexual ethics, pluralism/absolute truth, humility, etc.).  The fact is that at the end of the day, I don’t have much allegiance to the donkeys or the elephants, but, instead, follow a different king, a slain lamb, and exist in a different kingdom.  And the other fact is that, when push comes to shove, even Obama is willing to drop a bomb to defend the best interest of the nation-state and our consumption habit.  I can not support that as a Christian. I’ve been radicalized beyond either candidate.

So what do I do? not vote? vote but keep quiet about it? vote and don’t keep quiet but admit that even Obama may end up being against all that I embrace? 

Shane and Chris never encourage or discourage anyone to vote and they don’t endorse, but they make a good point.  As a believer, voting for any one is, at best, damage control.  No one can be our savior.  That job has already been filled.

“Christians know that the world did not change on September 11th. It changed in 33 A.D.” -Shane Claiborne

FightTheSmears.com 

more to come. i’ve been sick and out of town.

So I’ve been MIA…Those of you who read this frequently know that that means that I’m either (a) sick (b) gone (c) in the middle of a big hairy theology class or (d) all of the above.  Well, the answer in this case is c.  I’m working on an independent study on theology and consumerism.  It is amazing, but leaves no time for blogging or anything else really.  

So I’ll share some of it with you…

This is from the latest edition of John Kavanaugh’s Following Christ in a Consumer Society-  highly recommended. This man is intense about prayer.  No wonder it is so hard for me to find space and time for prayer and solitude–it goes against the grain of our culture.  

Silent solitude is filled with risk.  It lacks pragmatics.  It is hopelessly unmarketable.  The centering of prayer is an exercise of honesty, in getting in touch with our needfulness and poverty so shrilly denied by commercialism and materialism. …Prayer is an assalt upon the fradulence of mere roles, of social and cultural pretense, of the idols we cling to and are enslaved by.  As such it carries with it all of the existential terror of any act of intimacy with another person.  Afraid of being “found out” we avoid intimacy…Yet we long for personal communion . Somehow we long to be found out, to be seen as we are–to be accepted as we are. This is what takes place in the intimacy of prayer.  We discover that God who is revealed to us in Jesus Christ has “found us out” already and not rejected us. …the declaration of our poverty, of our dependant needfulness of our incapacity to save ourselves through idolatry, of our ontological incompleteness, is not a shameful discovery, but a discovery of our being loved for what we actually are… Thus, prayer is not only a countercultural act.  It is a reappropriation of our personhood and identity. It is a dealienation, a decommodification of our very lives. 153-154

“Don’t call me a saint. I don’t want to be dismissed that easily.” - Dorothy Day

 Today is International Workers Day- a day to remember,celebrate, and work for rights of the worker worldwide.  I also heard that it is the National Day of Prayer.

So all day long my mind played with this idea of prayer and the worker. The call to work for those who are often neglected and oppressed, crushed in the wheels of the capitalist machine.  And the call to prayer, to trust, to worship, to pleading, to rejoicing.  This interplay between Christianity and the marketplace.  Personal piety and holiness and social good and equality.

So, of course, all day long, I had Dorothy Day on my mind.  Because this woman embodies a love for God and a commitment to the worker. 

And after feeling like I was walking around with Dorothy Day all day long, I found out that today was also the birth of the Catholic Worker. (A surprising non-coincidence). Today the movement celebrates 75 years. 

So our challenge on this day is to pray and to pray for the worker and to thank God for Dorothy Day. We celebrate the legacy of Dorothy Day and all the thousands of folks who have been part of the Catholic Worker by continuing the work she and Peter Maurin began to make a society where it is “easier for men to be good”- to love God with all that we are and get our hands dirty loving our neighbor. She loved the Church.  She loved Jesus. And she loved the worker. She believed that work should have dignity and that the teachings of Jesus challenged the hegemony of the free market.  I am no where near the woman Dorothy Day was and I hope to be more like her, but I want to say thank you to her and the Catholic Worker, God has used her and it to help challenge and shape me. 

My favorite book in the world is the Long Loneliness, Dorothy Day’s auto-biography.  And if you never have read it, I highly recommend you do so. I wanted to share a quote with you from it, but it is impossible.  It is the story of Day’s life and to take any one passage out of the rest would just not represent how rich a meal this book is. 

But as an appetizer…

Here is a great little article by Jim Forest, who knew Day and was part of a Catholic worker house.

So the theme of my year is smallness. These huge problems: global warming, violence and war, greed and consumerism can be overwhelming and what I’m finding is that there is something good and rich and buried in small places that offers hope and, to use the buzz word of our year, even change. 

This year I’ve thought a tremendous amount and written a tremendous amount about Christian practice.  And Christian practices are, by and large, small. We are called to earthy (not earthly) things like bread and wine, prayer, stewardship, service, and faithfulness in the ordinary stuff of mundane life.  It often feels like the things of this world- absolute relativism, violence, and endless consumption are Goliath, and we’ve been given such small stones.  The word. The sacraments. The Community.  Hospitality. Stewardship. Sabbath. Forgiveness. *

But we have to trust that what we’ve been given and called to is sufficient.

This is an article about smallness. ** I’m a huge Michael Pollan fan, and while he is not a Christian as far as I know, this article fits into to this year’s “small is the new big” theme.  It is a great article, easily digestible and tasty. You should totally read it.

*Granted, the resurrection is big, not small, and it infuses this smallness with eternal weight. This is most true– however, subjectively, as teeny little humans, our experience of mundane life is often one of smallness.

** Thanks to the urban farmer for sending me this article.

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