To Everything There is a Season: Ordering Your Faith

If God is a God of order, then the way we serve Him should be orderly. Our faith should have a rhythm, its own routines, its little rituals. The ancient tapestry of Judaism is woven richly with these things, and the ebb and flow of the weeks, seasons, and years has remained largely unaltered for millennia.

Those of us who adhere to the traditions and teachings of Holy Mother Church have a similar legacy at our disposal. There is a rhythm in our weekly Sabbath, our Divine Office, our liturgical seasons that invites us to join in, to step into the flow of this ancient dance. But, the Church is rich in cultural heritage—so rich that it can sometimes be overwhelming to know just where to start.

Daily Prayer. When a task seems overwhelming, it is best to begin at the beginning. And, so as we endeavor to organize our faith, let us start at the source: Our Father who art in Heaven. Ann Vos Kamp has done such a lovely job of drawing up an inspirational guideline for structuring a life and home of prayer, that I would be foolish not to simply point you in her direction. And, if you feel so inclined, our family has found The Liturgy of the Hours to be the ideal focus for making and keeping us a family that prays together.

Weekly Worship. Six days, the Lord labored, and on the seventh day, He rested. Oh, sweet Sabbath rest. Is there anything more divine, especially in our go-go-go world today? But, do we always take it? Do we drink from the cup overflowing at our lips, or do we brush it aside? Still too busy. Six days was not enough. I have more work yet today. I am too important. It cannot wait. Let go. Make time. Breathe. Step back. Bend knees. Bow heads. Wait upon the Lord. Every blessed week.

Yearly Ritual. Tradition shapes our understanding not only of the year but of the world. Those things we do repeatedly take root. Just ask any Christian who has converted to Judaism what it was like to forego his first Christmas celebration, and he will tell you. Or the ex-pat who crosses the Atlantic and hears no fireworks in the sky on July Fourth; he knows how these things grip us and do not let go. It behooves us then, especially those of us who have the care and keeping of young children, to celebrate the cycle of the calendar in a faith-filled, liturgical way.

I often post about how our family celebrates the liturgical year. Many of you have asked me how I choose which days to celebrate. Since nearly every day In the calendar is marked as either a feast or a fast, the task can seem daunting. Here is the method to my own brand of madness:

Take a look at this month’s liturgical calendar. Are there any obligatory feasts (Sundays, for example)? Any holy days of obligation? What about the other optional feasts? Is there a saint for whom you hold a particular devotion, perhaps a patron or someone who shares your family’s cultural heritage? You should also celebrate anniversaries of faith, such as children’s baptisms (we renew vows each year in our home), wedding and ordination anniversaries, and milestones such as First Communion and Confirmation.

Don’t forget the fast days, either. The Easter Triduum, in particular should be a special and solemn occasion. You can keep the Ember Days, which mark the changing of the liturgical seasons. And, remember that Fridays are always days of penance.

How do you bring order to your walk of faith?

A Place for Everything: Ordering Your House

“A place for everything, and everything in its place.”

This was my mother’s mantra when I was growing up. I’m sorry to say, it didn’t really sink in until I had moved out and become responsible for my own housekeeping. What Ma did instill in me from birth was an expectation for order. Messiness was just not normal in our home. For all my father’s and my shortcomings in that department, there was Mom, scurrying through behind us at and putting things right while intoning words of wisdom—“Don’t touch something more times than you have to”—and the occasional, well-deserved reprimand that usually began with my first and middle names.

One reader asked me how to keep a small home tidy, even with many possessions. Another was at her wits’ end how to keep all the pieces of a toy together. The answer to both of these is what Mama always told me: Make a place for everything, and then be disciplined about seeing that everything is put in its place.

Earning a place. My family of four lives (and educates!) in a relatively small home with no yard, garage, basement, or attic. Everything we own has a purpose by virtue of necessity. We haven’t the space to be lax when it comes to pruning our belongings. Each and every single thing must earn its place. I make a thrice-yearly sweep through our things (during Spring and Fall cleaning and at Christmastime) to determine what will go and what will stay. There are three questions I ask myself when evaluating whether or not we should hold onto something: Is it beautiful? Is it meaningful? Is it truly useful and receiving use? If the item in question does not make the grade, then I find it a new home—outside of ours.

A place for everything. Once you’ve evaluated your belongings and whittled yourself down to only those things that are earning their keep, it’s time to find homes for them all. Start by surveying each of your rooms. Consider how you use the objects in them. Make sure that those things which are used most often are within easy reach. You can afford to put other items which are not as well used a bit out of the way, say on a closet shelf or in a basket under a bed. Let family members choose “homes” for their own belongings.

Everything in its place. Here is where the discipline kicks in. You MUST put each and every object back into its home when it is done being used. You might also wish to have a “halfway home” for those things which take a bit longer to finish with. For example, you might have a table where puzzles or art projects are permitted to “live” for a time. Then, when they are completed, they may be stored properly. Books which are being read might find temporary homes on certain tables but not the kitchen counter or the mantlepiece. (Or you may choose the mantlepiece as your “halfway home.” The point is to designate areas where some clutter is permissible rather than taking a laissez faire approach.)

Everyone should be responsible for returning his or her own belongings to their “homes.” Children of even one year can participate in this with supervision. Be clear about how you would like things put away. If you want books stacked with spines out, then say so, and be sure that it is done correctly. Provide small spaces that are designated for specific belongings. For example, all Micromachines might go in a single basket under a child’s bed. Balls might go in a net bag in the hall closet. Unread mail belongs in a certain bin, etc. Just saying, “Pick up this mess!” is often too overwhelming for an adult—for a child, it is impossible. Having specific “homes” for things goes a long way toward empowering family members, especially children, in becoming tidier.

It has been helpful for me, as a mother, to also have a basket handy for wayward things. When my children have gone down for a nap or to bed for the evening, I make a sweep of the house and deposit anything that is out of place into the basket, which sits on our hearth. I can then carry all these things with me through the house at another time to return them to their proper places, or I can instruct my children to do this themselves.

Clean Routine. Be sure to have a regular, workable routine for decluttering and cleaning your house. If you go at it only when things are too abysmal to live with anymore, then you’re going to be overwhelmed by the task ahead of you. Moreover, you won’t really be enjoying the benefits of a clean, well-ordered home, since the majority of the time, you will be living in quite the opposite. If you and your children are home for most of the day, decluttering should probably take place either before or after each meal with a final sweep before bed. You may also need to clean floors or other high traffic areas on a daily basis. Every home should be thoroughly cleaned once a week, perhaps with a mini-clean a few days afterward. Deep cleaning should be done at least once a year. Most commonly, this is reserved for the spring.

Be creative with storage. Don’t think that closets are only for clothes or that a pantry or any other space must be used exclusively for that purpose. I have known many a family that used the trunk of the car for storing dry goods, though that would be inconvenient for me, living in a third-story condo. Find what works for you, and don’t be afraid to work modularly. If you have a sturdy shelf in your closet, use it. Do you have spare wall space below where your shirts hang? Add a shelf! Don’t forget the space beneath beds or underneath cloth-covered tables. Baskets and boxes help to keep things neat. Also, consider that some of your stored items might be better kept on display. For example, I keep my serving pieces and home-canned goods above my kitchen cabinets.

What advice do you have for keeping your house in order?

A Heart for Order

Whenever you begin any resolution, there is a single question which will answer quickly whether your resolution has any chance of lasting success: What is your motivation?

If you are dieting to look like the supermodels in the magazines or because you want a quick fix, you are not likely to get very far. Even if you do lose the weight, you are nearly certain to gain it back very quickly. This is because you wanted a single result (being skinnier) without having a heart for the lifestyle which will maintain your body at a lower weight.

Something similar happens when we desire to become organized. What is your motivation? Do you want to impress your boyfriend in the hopes that he will propose sooner? Are you tired of your parents or roommate nagging you about your messiness? Do you want to find a way to cram all those recent holiday gifts into your already bulging closets? None of these myopic motivations is likely to do much in the way of making you an organized person. However, if you seek a true change of heart and come to desire an orderly life, then you are already well on your way to leading such a life.

We can seek to be neat or orderly for many reasons, some of them perfectly good and some less so. But, there is one excellent reason why we—indeed everyone—should endeavor to lead lives of order, and that is because our God, in whose image we are made, is a God of order.

The God who ordered the seasons, the stars, and every hair on our heads should inspire in us a desire for order, purpose, clarity, cleanliness, simplicity, and rhythm. The closer we draw to Him, the more we marvel at His Creation, the more we are inclined to see the world as an ordered place rather than one of chaos. But, just as moral order requires discipline, so to does it require discipline, hard work, and forethought to create order out of our material lives.

Before we delve into some of the hows of ordering our lives, however, let us take some time to think and pray about the whys. Hopefully, your answers will all lead you back to a Who, our reason for living, our reason for order, our reason for everything.

Checking in, Keeping Sane

Hello, dear readers! I just peeked at the calendar and realized it’s been nearly a week since I last posted here. The family and I are all doing well, but my brain is a bit overtaxed at the moment. I’m in the midst of working on my first round of rewrites for my current novel, getting it cleaned up to send off to an agent (hopefully by the end of next month). Please keep my efforts in your prayers if you feel so inclined!

Needless to say, between my fiction writing and taking care of my family, life is very, very full. So, I hope you will forgive me if I’m a little lax in posting here at the moment. My brain and time can only be stretched so far it seems.

God bless, and thanks for your patience and understanding!

 

Photo Credit: Petr Kratochvil (public domain)

A Time to Dream, A Time to Plan

“We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers. They see things…in the red fire of a long winter's evening. Some of us let these great dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nurse them through bad days till they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes always to those who sincerely hope that their dreams will come true.”
- Woodrow Wilson

Winter, for me, has always been a magical time. There is a sort of hush that lays over everything, especially once the holidays have passed. The new year beckons us with calls of improvement, of starting again, of making things different and better this time around. Snow or rain fall softly from gray skies and cocoon us indoors where we light candles and fires and see things anew by the glow of the flickering flames. Winter is a time to dream.

It is also a time for bringing dreams into reality, for seeing through the plans that, on busier, brighter, sunnier days, we never quite found the time for. It is the season when I like to take a look at how I do things and evaluate whether I am doing them well, how I could do them better, why I am really doing them at all. It is my time to plan ahead for the coming year. It is a time to organize, to plan, and to restore order where it has been lost.

I’m hoping to do an informal “series” on these topics over the course of the next month or so with a particular emphasis on homemaking. Please, let me know what aspects of organization and planning you would most like me to cover. In the meantime, here is a brief list of ideas to get you started.

1. When you go to put away your newly received Christmas presents, see if you have something that already serves the same purpose. If appropriate, donate the older item.
2. Gather all the Christmas decorations you didn’t use or aren’t particularly fond of. If they are in good shape, see if someone else might like them. Newlyweds and singles who have recently moved out on their own are usually eager recipients!
3. Find one small space (a drawer, a closet, a tabletop) that is always cluttered. Clean it. Then, plan a strategy for how to keep it from returning to it’s messy state. Be sure to discuss your plan and even brainstorm with other family members who have contributed to it’s disarray. If the plan is going to work, it needs to work for everyone.
4. Plan to spend 20 minutes with the Lord today. You can use the time for prayer, Scripture reading, adoration, or whatever helps you feel closer to God. (I borrowed the idea of 20 minutes from my priest. It’s not an arbitrary number, and I will touch on the reason behind his choice in another post, but for now, just give it a try. See where it takes you.)
5. And, if you have a free moment, head over to Passionate Homemaking. Lindsay’s post on Understanding the Heart of Order is sure to inspire you and hopefully will offer you a deeper appreciation for the rolls of organization, simplification, planning, and rest in the Christian life.

Recipe Repost: Oat Bran Muffins

I originally posted this recipe in the fall of 2009. It’s a staple in our household and, as it turns out, a few of my readers by this time! Since bran and, in particular, oat bran which has a lighter flavor and texture than wheat, is back in the spotlight in a number of food magazines this month, I thought it would be appropriate to dig this recipe out of the archives and dust it off for y’all.

Baker’s notes: The recipe calls for 1/3 c. canola oil and 2 eggs. I have since found that you can use 1/4 c. oil and 1 egg, plus 1/2 c. applesauce to make a lower-calorie-and-fat version. If you have access to whole wheat pastry flour, which is a finer grind than regular whole wheat, your muffins will be lighter and more tender, as well.

Oat Bran Muffins
Yield: 1 dozen muffins.

1 c. flour
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1/2 c. oat bran
2 t. ground cinnamon
2 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1 c. dried fruit (optional)
1/2 c. chopped nuts (optional)
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/3 c. vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 1/4 c. buttermilk or "sour milk"
1 T vanilla extract
2 t. grated citrus zest (optional)

Combine flours, oat bran, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in bowl. Stir in dried fruit and nuts. Whisk together sugar and oil. Whisk in eggs, one at a time. Add buttermilk, vanilla, and optional zest to sugar mixture. Make a well in the dry ingredients and add wet ingredients all at once. Mix with a wooden spoon, just until moistened. Do not overmix, or muffins will be tough.

Divide batter among cups in muffin tin sprayed with cooking spray. Bake at 400F for about 18 minutes, until tester comes out clean. Cool on rack for 5 minutes. Eat warm or serve at room temperature. Muffins keep surprisingly well for 2-3 days in air tight container or ziploc bag at room temperature.

Favorite Variations at the Apple Cider Mill:

• raisin-pecan (with or without orange zest)
• dried blueberry-pecan
• fresh blueberry-pecan (with or without lemon zest)
• dried cherry-almond (reduce vanilla to 2 t, add 1/4-1/2 t. almond extract)
• dried cranberry-walnut (with or without orange zest)
• chocolate chip-pecan
• chocolate chip-walnut
• nectarine-pecan (fresh nectarines, peeled and chopped, with or without lemon zest)
• maple walnut (add maple extract in place of vanilla)
• apple-walnut or apple-pecan (peeled, chopped apple)
• fresh date-apple (1 diced, peeled apple and 1/2 c. chopped, pitted dates)

Stewardship Brownies

My resolution for 2011 is to live a year of conscious, conscientious stewardship. My husband pointed out that it is an ambitious goal, and I agree. We live in a consumer culture, and one of the tenets of consumer culture is indulgence of the self. What works for me? What is cheapest? What is the most convenient? What is easy?

By contrast, godly stewardship is a call to self-sacrifice. What is best for everyone? What products are safe for the environment? Which are being made by workers who are receiving a fair wage for their day’s work? What is the best use of my time? Even if something is not easy or is inconvenient, is it what I should be doing?

Stewardship teaches us charity and spurs us to live lives of gratitude. But, it comes at a cost. It requires planning. It requires discipline. It requires self-restraint. It means thinking of others before ourselves. It means thinking of humanity and Creation in its entirety and not focusing merely on my small corner of the globe. Often, good stewardship requires hard work.

But, all work and no play makes Bethany a dull girl. Sacrifice is always noble, but placing overwhelming emphasis on sacrifice results in asceticism. Besides, I’m Catholic, and as my priest always says, “We are a fasting people, but we are also a feasting people.” And, on that note, bring on the brownies!

I used the following recipe from Tartine, a marvelous cookbook put out by the owners of the San Francisco bakery by the same name, Elisabeth Prueitt and Chad Robertson. They are, without a doubt, the best brownies you will ever eat, if you are all about the moist, fudgy brownies. Which I am.

In order to bring the brownies up to “stewardship scratch,” I was highly intentional with my use of ingredients. I used organic flour, butter, eggs, and chocolate, which helps both the environment and the agricultural industry. I also purchased chocolate from a local producer, meaning that it did not require tanks and tanks of gas to have it transported from the factory to my store.

Considering the health of my friends and family members for whom I made these, I used finely ground whole wheat pastry flour and chocolate which has not been “Dutched".” “Dutching” destroys many of the vital nutrients in chocolate. I also made sure to use chocolate that contained over 65% cacao, which is the true specification necessary for “dark” (the FDA places their rating for dark chocolate at 40%), the most nutritious chocolate.

I hitched up my socks and splurged on chocolate that was not only USDA organic but also fair trade certified. It’s not something my budget will allow on a regular basis, but then, my waistline won’t allow chocolate on a regular basis, so I figure it’s okay. Everything in moderation. Most of the farmers who produce the world’s cacao live in appalling conditions and are very poorly compensated for their work. In fact, most of them have never even tasted chocolate—they could never afford to purchase it. By contrast, Theo pays it’s co-op farmers a fair wage, helps to educate them about better farming techniques, and considers them a part of the family of this whole chocolate-making process, giving the farmers a greater sense of purpose in their work. And, they even get to eat the end product that they are helping to produce; owner Joseph Whinney always makes sure to bring plenty of chocolate bars along on his trips to visit the workers at their farms so that they can all share the fruits of their labors!

The original recipe calls for cutting the 9 x 13 batch into 12 brownies, but I thought that was overkill, so this recipe calls for dividing the pan into 20. Even so, I had trouble finishing a portion in one sitting. But, naturally, I persevered. I mean, that’s what responsible stewardship is all about, right? Waste not, want not.

Brownies
barely adapted from Tartine by Elisabeth Prueitt and Chad Robertson
Yields one 9-by-13-inch baking dish; 12 brownies

¼ c. unsalted butter
3 3-ounce bars Theo’s 70% Dark chocolate, chopped
2 3-ounce bars Theo’s Spicy Chile chocolate
¼ c. + 2T flour
5 large eggs
2 c. light brown sugar, lightly packed
½ t. salt
1 t. vanilla extract

Topping (optional)
2 c. nuts, such as walnuts or pecan halves

Note: If you do not have access to Theo’s chocolate, you can substitute other bars. Stick to dark, though, and if you can find a chocolate that incorporates chilies, all the better! They are particularly delicious with just a touch of heat. The original recipe called for 1 pound of chocolate, so you can also use any bittersweet. As you can see, I made mine using only 15 ounces. If you’re buying bars, you probably will, too. It did not effect the outcome to go a bit short.

Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter a 9-by-13-inch glass baking dish.

In a small saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. Remove from the heat and add the chocolate. If the heat from the butter does not fully melt the chocolate, put the pan back over the heat for 10 seconds and stir until melted. Set aside to cool.

Sift the flour into a small mixing bowl. Set aside. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the eggs, sugar, salt, and vanilla. Using a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat on high speed until the mixture thickens and becomes pale in color and falls from the beater in a wide ribbon that folds back on itself and slowly dissolves on the surface, 4 to 5 minutes. Using a rubber spatula, fold the cooled chocolate into the egg mixture. Add the flour and fold it in quickly but gently with the rubber spatula so that you don’t deflate the air that’s been incorporated into the eggs.

Pour the batter into the prepared dish and smooth the top with the spatula. If you are using nuts, evenly distribute them across the batter. Bake until the top looks slightly cracked and feels soft to the touch, about 25 minutes. Let cool completely on wire rack.

Using a sharp knife, cut into 12 squares, or size desired. The brownies will keep in an airtight container in a cool place for up to 1 week.

Stay and Pray

This fall, Brian and I, along with our fellow youth group leaders, took a couple dozen teens into the mountains for a weekend retreat. While we were up there, we led them out into the snow for a hike that ended inside an abandoned train tunnel. The tunnel was…how shall I put this politely? Disgusting.

It was dank. It was damp. It smelled mildly of sewage and mildew and stagnant water. You had to walk on random, dropped pieces of two-by-four and sheet metal to keep your feet from sinking into the slimy pools left by run-offs from the snow. And, once we were inside, the only place to sit was a cold, wet slab of concrete. Well, it was either that or the murky ground. No thank you. And, did I mention that it was freezing?

Not the most comforting place, to say the least. But incredibly intriguing. The history of the tunnel gets you wondering about what went on there before it became derelict. You can’t help but wonder if it’s safe, and you cling to your flashlight buddy so you can see your feet. But, no matter what else you might think about it, you know from the moment you step inside that this is a place where things can happen.

Now, odd as it may sound, I am going to go out on a limb and compare this abandoned Snoqualmie train tunnel to the Church, and more specifically to a church, the one in Wittenberg to which a now-famous monk nailed a piece of paper with 95 grievances.

When the Christian Church first formed, I think it was something like this train tunnel. It was mysterious and somewhat unpleasant and scary as all get-out. Well, then Constantine made Christianity “legit,” as my teens would say, and suddenly things were up and running. In fact, it took over the entire Western world and changed the course of humanity. Like the railroads at the turn of the twentieth century, the Church was in business.

And then, things derailed.

Unless you’re God, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and well, the Church ain’t God. But it is His power on earth. When Christ gave Peter the keys to the Kingdom, he established the authority of the apostles, and the Church has been the safeguard of that authority and of the teachings of those apostles ever since. For over two thousand years. It’s a long time not to make a mistake. So, mistakes were made. And Martin Luther, among others, recognized them and did what all men of good conscience should do in such a situation. He pointed them out to the powers that be. He wrote his 95 Theses, and he nailed them to the church doors.

So far, so good. You will never hear this devout Roman Catholic say a negative word against the 95 Theses. What Luther wrote was solid, and it needed to be said. In any case, he wasn’t the only one saying it; his was just the most famous (or infamous) outcry. But, what happened then?

Luther left.

Only decades before a Counter Reformation would sweep in and abolish the very heresies Luther initially spoke out against, he broke from the Church, and he took a large chunk of Christendom in his wake. Since that day, the Church—the Body of Jesus Christ on earth—has been in schism. We have been torn apart at the seams, and we have become a people who abandon. We are a legacy of leavers.

When we don’t like the music or a pastor rubs us the wrong way or a priest is a lousy homilist or we decide that we (or John Calvin or John Piper or Rob Bell or Rick Warren) now—two thousand years later—miraculously!—finally understand what the Bible is really saying (which, of course doesn’t fit with what those people we used to fellowship with believe), then we pack up our bags, and we split. We hit the road for greener pastures.

What do we leave behind? Brokenness. Division. A crippled Body of Christ.

But let’s turn back the tables of history for just a moment. What would have happened if Luther hadn’t left? What if he’d stayed and fought against the injustices and the blasphemies of the Church and instead of breaking the Body of Christ, stayed and prayed and helped to heal it?

Today, we would be a unified Church giving a unified witness to Christ born and crucified and risen. We would stand shoulder-to-shoulder defending human dignity in a world derailed. We wouldn’t waste time in sin, squabbling over all our petty differences. We wouldn’t need to pack up our bags whenever our local parish doesn’t quite fit our aesthetic or convictional bill. Instead of a legacy of leaving, our children would be born into a legacy of prayer, of pray-ers who stay in the dark, in the trenches, in the muck and work until Christ is revealed fully for everyone—until the entire Body is united and whole and healthy again.

But, we can’t turn back history, and sometimes it seems that the state of the Church is as bleak as the state of that abandoned railway tunnel in the mountains. The good news is that the Church is still a place where things can happen. If we believe the Gospel, then we know…

…sometimes, the greatest graces are found in the darkness by those who are willing to stick it out.

Resolution: Stewardship

We live in a beautiful world. I live in a particularly glorious corner of it. You can’t step outside your door in Western Washington without being bowled over by the wonder of Creation. I have never been in any other place where nature and humanity seem to fit together so seamlessly. When it rains—and it rains a lot this time of year—you can tell the natives instantly because we’re the ones without umbrellas. This is our home. If it’s going to rain, then let us feel the rain on our skin and let us soak it in. Let the gray become a part of us for today, and tomorrow, let it be a blazing sunrise over snowcapped mountains, a gull adrift over the Sound, a golden cherry kissed with red plucked from the branch at dawn.

There is something infectious about Seattle. There’s this unspoken rule of live-and-let-live that can seem cold at first, but underneath it, if you listen, there is a deeper beat singing, “Let live. Let live. Let live.”

For all we may seem laissez-faire at first, there is really a passion among all Seattleites for life in its richest form. We love dogs and salmon, recycling and reinventing. We are innovators and imaginers. We are a people looking forward with an eye for conservation and an ear for invention. Above all, we value humanity and we strive, I think, to make the world a better place not only for ourselves and our children and our children’s children but for people we will never see and never know, in every corner of the world.

This year, my New Year’s resolution is a simple one, but it is one that I anticipate will stretch and challenge me in all sorts of unforeseen ways: I am going to live a year of conscious, conscientious stewardship.

I am going to look on each day as a new creation and view my part in it as essential and necessary and capable of goodness.

I am going to strive to consume less and to make any necessary consumption work not only for my family but for the world.

I am going to radically defend life, whether that be a commitment to buying fair trade chocolate or boldly defending the rights of the unborn.

I am going to view my time as a gift. All of it. And, I am not going to waste that time on sloth or on anger, on gossip or on pity parties.

I am going to look at my children and see infinite, inexhaustible worth no matter what else is happening. I am going to play with them and pray with them. I am going to take them out and teach them life, one act of love at a time.

”Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”
– Colossians 3:23-24

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas…

And, we’re back! I hope you all had a happy and relaxing Christmas. We certainly did!

Today is Epiphany, the ancient feast celebrating the day Wise Men arrived in Bethlehem to bring their gifts to the Baby Jesus. I thought it was just as good a time as any to present you all with a gift of my own. No, it’s not a new post, though hopefully y’all are happy I’m back. It’s a new recipe! I invented in honor of the sugarplums that never got made and served it following our traditional Christmas dinner roast beef.

Sugarplum Pie
If you like pecan pie, you’ll love this.
Makes one 9-inch pie

One 9-inch single crust, rolled out, fitted into a pie plate, and edge trimmed and crimped
3 eggs
2/3 c. firmly packed dark brown sugar
¼ t. salt
¼ c. unsalted butter, melted
1 c. light corn syrup
1 T flour
1 t. vanilla extract
2 T brandy
1 t. grated orange rind
¼ t. ground nutmeg
¼ t. ground cinnamon
1/8 t. ground cloves
1 c. chopped walnuts
1/2 c. chopped Medjool dates
¼ c. chopped dried apricots
¼ c. chopped dried figs
sanding sugar

Preheat oven to 375F. Crack the eggs over a large bowl. Add the brown sugar, salt, melted butter, and corn syrup and whisk together until well blended. Blend in the flour. Stir in the vanilla, brandy, orange rind, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg, then stir in the nuts, dates, apricots and raisins. Pour the filling into the pie crust. Sprinkle the top liberally with sanding sugar. Place in the oven and bake until the filling is set, 35 to 40 minutes; the pastry should be golden brown and a knife inserted in the center should come out clean. Let cool on a wire rack. Serve slightly warm or cool with a dollop of whipped cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream, if you wish.