So here's the deal: I am days away from giving this blog a new home. (You can actually see the home-building in progress at www.donteatalone.com). Blogger has been very good to me, but Wordpress gives me a few more options.
I will mirror posts on both blogs for the next week or two, and then this site will remain but will become an archive.
If you subscribe by email, you will find a link on the new page to continue getting the posts.
If you like to get the posts by RSS feed, there's a link for you as well.
Either way, I hope you will follow me across platforms and into the next chapters of this adventure.
I've been staring at the "posting" screen for several days now trying to
figure out how to join the world of food bloggers. Since I'm writing
from a Mac and I don't know much about HTML, I'm still not sure about
adding links and so forth. I wanted the blog to look less plain, but I
decided to work with what I have rather than wait for everything to be
perfect.
Tonight, Tuesday, December 27, 2011, I am still working with what I have rather than waiting for everything to be perfect. That train never comes. What has arrived in my life over these six years is a feast of friends and connections and experiences, along with the practice of writing which has helped me, challenged me, inspired me, and humbled me.
The good news is the people at the Apple store rock and my MacBook will good as new. The only bad news is I won't get it back until Friday, which means my blogging will have to wait until the new year. I will close out this one with much gratitude and keep good notes so I can tell you what's been on my mind.
I guess tonight might be the blogging equivalent of clearing off my desk.
I have not written as regularly as I would like over the last couple of months for a variety of reasons, this week however, it was not for lack of ideas. Before the time gets away, I want to comment on a couple of things and then make a request.
First, John Hughes died this week. He was the director of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Uncle Buck, Wierd Science, Sixteen Candles, and The Breakfast Club, to name a few. As a youth minister in the 80's, I leaned into his movies to help me understand the kids in my youth group. And, for that matter, to learn a bit about myself as well. He was not the greatest director ever, yet he made movies that mattered to me and that I still watch and quote extensively.
And I would still love to know the punch line to the joke Judd Nelson was telling when he fell through the roof.
Here is a tribute montage someone else put together that is worth passing along.
Second, and leading into third, we went to see Julie and Julia last night, which is a story about blogging as much as it is about cooking and finding out what matters most.
One of the things I found in the movie was a push to figure out why I am writing these days. What I mean by that is I know why I write (because I am a writer), and I want to do more with this blog than ramble this way and that. So, the "third" in this litany is a request. I am thinking about taking on some themes -- a week, or perhaps longer for each -- and writing in a particular vein for that time to see what sort of shape my writing might take beyond my fairly regular posts, and to see what I can learn and how I can grow. Though I know the days of regular commenting on blogs has passed, I am asking for suggestions of themes or ideas you think might be worth me tackling. And we will see where it goes.
Thanks for reading.
Peace, Milton
P. S. -- Speaking of Julia Child, I couldn't close without posting this favorite Saturday Night Live clip.
I’m about a week and a half into the resurrection of the ritual of writing my Morning Pages and I’m already feeling a shift. I’m getting used to getting up and, other than making the coffee, letting those three handwritten pages be the first thing I do. Those scribbles are starting to shake up my soul.
Something about waking up with a pen in my hand seems to set the prevailing themes of thought for the day. I woke up today realizing I had not spoken to my parents or my brother in several days and I found time to call them this afternoon. On a more profound level, I’ve felt a growing sense of restlessness in my job of late and this morning I woke with Paul’s words leaking out through my fingers:
“[F]or I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.”
The seed was planted last night when Ginger asked me if I was happy. When I said, “Yes,” she told me I didn’t always seem that way of late. And she’s right, yet the past few days have brought a shift. As a therapist told me long ago (and I have repeated here more than once, I’m sure), the only two things I can change in any given situation are what I do and say and how I feel. My control of the circumstances ends there. I was in a more observant place when I answered her question last night and followed her response by saying when I took time to remember who I get to spend my life with, my home, my friends, and the fact that I get to do something I love for a job, I think life is pretty good.
Two nights ago left me almost sleepless because I had brought home my frustration with me from work. The events of the day had left me feeling taken advantage of and I chose to pack my bitterness in a take out box rather than shake it off in the parking lot. The bleary-eyed morning pages that followed woke me to the realization that, rather than allow myself to feel victimized and bitter (as Cherry’s friend says, “Bitter is a flavor, not an emotion”), I need to speak up for myself (I’m working on that one) and I can chose how I want to feel at work. You see, part of the changes are I’ve been moved from cooking on the line to expediting the shift, which means I call the tickets and check the plates before they go out to the dining room. It also means I get to set the tone in the kitchen, for the most part.
I love the job.
After my morning musings, I came across Marcus Goodyear’s post at HighCallingBlogs.com and began to see the theme of my day, which was my day off. Part of what he had to say was:
We can talk about glorifying God through our work all we want, but if we’re not also serving our neighbor we are completely missing the point. We can’t love God without loving our neighbors. And loving our neighbors means showing mercy to them.
He also quoted a line from a Marge Piercy poem that is one of my favorites and worth including here.
To Be of Use
The people I love the best jump into work head first without dallying in the shallows and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight. They seem to become natives of that element, the black sleek heads of seals bouncing like half-submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart, who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience, who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward, who do what has to be done, again and again.
I want to be with people who submerge in the task, who go into the fields to harvest and work in a row and pass the bags along, who are not parlor generals and field deserters but move in a common rhythm when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
The work of the world is common as mud. Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust. But the thing worth doing well done has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident. Greek amphoras for wine or oil, Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums but you know they were made to be used. The pitcher cries for water to carry and a person for work that is real.
The real work of my life is in giving mercy: “a disposition to be kind and forgiving.” In the common tasks of the kitchen, I am called to contentment and compassion. I can’t do either one in my sleep. I have to be awake.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy,” Jesus said. Though my week has not necessarily borne that out, the real work of my life also entails leaning into those words as though they will come true, just as I must trust I am a vessel shaped to share love with those around me.
Sleeper, awake.
If I am going to be of use, I must remember every move matters: every cut of the knife, every spoon on a plate, every word from my mouth, every beat of my heart. If I am to be merciful, as I am called to be, I must be intentional. Compassion is not an accident. Neither, I suppose are bitterness or complacency.
The choice is mine.
Peace, Milton
P.S. – How could I not end with this piece? And I love that the guy is sitting in his kitchen.
When I first started writing my blog a little over three years ago, one of the nicest surprises was the comment window. I am by nature a collaborator. I love the give and take of working with somebody, so the responses to my posts fed me and kept me writing. Over the past year or so, even as my readership has grown, I’ve noticed fewer people commenting. I’ve also read other bloggers talking about the same dynamic; perhaps there is some sort of shift in how all of this works. All of that is to say last night’s post was fun for me because I got comments – thoughtful, conversational comments – that have given me more to think about. Here’s a sample:
I can't read John without remembering its purpose, as we understand it: to differentiate between Jewish Christians and the other Jewish people of a later era. Right from the beginning then, or from Chapter 2 verse, anyway, Jesus sets himself into opposition with the Way Things Are Done. (Martha)
What a scene it must have been: whip cracking, tables upended, money on the ground, doves circling, animals panicked, men cursing and screaming and scrambling for safety while the onlookers wondered what in the name of God was going on. And to think it was all set in motion by the anger of our precious Lord, blessed Jesus of Nazareth. Sweet Jesus. Righteous anger, brothers and sisters. Anger in the service of what it means to have a God who is bloody well determined to save us from sin and death. (Ray, from his sermon)
Preached from this passage yesterday. I've discovered something interesting recently. Nowhere does the text say that the people involved were cheating the poor. In fact, their law required the changing of currency so the Temple Tax could be paid. And if every family in Jerusalem for Passover is to sacrifice an animal, they have to buy them somewhere.
The text seems to indicate that Jesus drove the animals out with the whip. But he did overturn the tables of the moneychangers. My take this year: This is where a spirituality based on laws brought them. To the inevitable place where the complexity of their rules has turned their worship into something ridiculous. I think the key for me is Jesus' response. If this is where our temple worship has brought us, then maybe it is time for a new temple. (Gordon)
Yesterday at church, our pastor ended his sermon on this passage, which he wrestled with much as you are, by saying that Jesus wants to drive out of us all those things like greed and self-focus and hard-heartedness toward the poor that get in the way of our relationship with others and with God. “But,” he said as he ended the sermon, “if you look into Jesus’ eyes as he is doing this, what you will see is love.” (Todd)
Also, when we think of peacemakers, we unfortunately think of folks who are meek and mild. Perhaps this is a case for strong-armed peace, a peace that lives off the yin-yang of creation and destruction rather than mediation. (David)
No, I don’t plan to respond here to everything that comes to mind and heart reading their thoughts and feelings. (I suppose I could and take care of my Lenten Journal for several more days . . .) The creative tension in the comments reminds me of The Mission, one of my all-time favorite movies. Jeremy Irons and Robert DeNiro play priests trying to figure out how to take a stand against Spanish aggression and colonization, which was brutal and violent. One chose to turn the other cheek, as it were, and the other chose to organize the villagers to fight for their freedom. Both made compelling emotional and theological arguments for their stance. Both also ended up dying for the stand they took.
Neither stopped the Spanish.
It’s interesting where our minds take us. David’s words about peacemakers made me realize I don’t think of peacemakers as meek and mild; I think of them as strong, though not particularly strong armed: Gandhi, King, Romero – to name a few. I’m not so sure, however, Jesus is playing the role of peacemaker in this story. I think he intended to disrupt, disquiet, and disturb. The other quote that came to mind, though I have no idea where I first heard it, was, “Responding to violence with violence is not a solution.” One note I saw somewhere (not in my comments) pointed out Jesus wasn’t responding to violence (unless we read it metaphorically), he was instigating it. So violence is a solution if you start the fight?
Though I’ve spent most of this post talking about the passage again, what moves me most tonight is the conversation that has swirled around it. Some of the commenters are people I count as friends; others are those I only know in cyberspace by screen names and blogs. The exchange between us gives me hope.
Christine's blog at Abbey of the Arts has been one I've visited regularly for about as long as I have been reading blogs. A couple of weeks ago, she offered me to take part in one of her "sacred artists interviews" that she does from time to time. She posted it yesterday. Here's the first question:
Are you rooted in a particular faith tradition?
I was born into a Christian family that was also Southern Baptist. I turned one on the ship going to Africa, where my parents served as missionaries, and left the continent for good on my sixteenth birthday. During those years I was exposed to Christians of many denominations, many of whom my parents took seriously as colleagues in ministry. As an adult, I have found my home in the United Church of Christ and it’s gospel of extravagant welcome.
Yesterday was our Schnauzer Lola’s seventh birthday and my brother’s forty-ninth. (I suppose that makes them the same age.) Today, my friend Doug is fifty years old. By coincidence, today also marks my four hundred and fiftieth post since beginning this blog on December 27, 2005. Eliot said we measure our life in coffee spoons; I’ve measured mine in recipes and blog posts for the past couple of years. I think of the posts a little like the marks my dad used to make on the door jamb to let us see how we had grown. I didn’t always feel taller, but the marks gave me external evidence that I was growing and changing.
Marking this milestone borders on being overly self-congratulatory, I think, and is also worthy of note, for me at least. Like Doug’s birthday, my blog count marks a place on the journey I have never been before. As much as measurements are about what has been, they are perhaps even more about what is possible. Doug has never been on the planet as long as he has today. I’ve never written as much as I have now. Each new moment is uncharted territory for us all.
The Romans’ numbering system grew out of notches they made as they counted. They weren’t thinking in letters; they were making marks to show their progress. Now we use them for tombstones, the periodic table of elements, the Super Bowl, and Wrestlemania. Go figure.
One of the books I go back to from time to time is Dag Hammarskjöld’s Markings. He was Secretary General of the United Nations, among other things in his life, as well as a man of deep faith and integrity. Here are a few of the marks he left for us:
He who has surrendered himself to it knows that the Way ends on the Cross — even when it is leading him through the jubilation of Gennesaret or the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Do not seek death. Death will find you. But seek the road which makes death a fulfillment.
Life only demands from you the strength you possess. Only one feat is possible — not to have run away.
Never, "for the sake of peace and quiet," deny your own experience or convictions. Never measure the height of a mountain until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was.
Respect for the word is the first commandment in the discipline by which a man can be educated to maturity — intellectual, emotional, and moral. Respect for the word — to employ it with scrupulous care and in incorruptible heartfelt love of truth — is essential if there is to be any growth in a society or in the human race.
We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours.
For all that has been — Thanks. For all that shall be — Yes.
Since I started blogging about eighteen months ago I’ve passed on most of the memes that have come my way (OK, all of the memes) mostly because I use this forum to work on my writing. This week, however, I’ve been tagged several times for the “Eight Random Things” meme and it’s Saturday morning and I’ve got an hour to kill before I pick up a friend at the train station and why not?
I’m what is known as a Third Culture Kid. I grew up as a missionary kid and lived in four different countries in Africa – as well as a couple of years in the US – by the time I was sixteen. From kindergarten to twelfth grade I went to ten different schools in six different cities. I’ve lived in over forty different houses. Finding my way home is no easy task.
I have an irrational disdain for Celine Dion. I don’t want to hear her sing or talk. I don’t want to see her on television. She is the only black mark on what I see as Canada’s otherwise impeccable record. The Mark of the Beast is somewhere on her body, I’m sure of it. She is the reason for most of the problems in our world today. (Remember, I said my disdain was irrational; please don’t try to convince me otherwise.)
My favorite song is “Angel From Montgomery” by John Prine, songwriter extraordinaire. The person I most love to hear sing the song is Bonnie Raitt. My favorite story about the song is I was singing it at a coffee house one night and introduced it by saying I identified with it more than any other song I knew. Then I sang the first line: “I am an old woman named after my mother . . .”
As long as we’re talking about music, Christina Aguilera is my guilty listening pleasure. I know my cool quotient probably crashes here, in alt-country acoustic terms, but I like her music. “What a Girl Wants” is fun to hear. I also like her cover of “A Song for You” on Herbie Hancock’s album of duets.
I feel called to help raise other people’s kids. I have never felt called to have children of my own. Neither has Ginger, which has worked well for us. We have always felt our call was to have an open door for anyone who needed a place – and there have been several over the years. I love working with teenagers. Babies always seem to smile at me. I think it’s because we have the same haircut.
If I could figure out how to get paid for it, I would go to school for a job. I love taking classes and learning. I don’t really care what the class is, I just want to go. Sometimes I think about pulling into a community college and asking what class is about to start and enrolling. I’m not particularly concerned about a degree or even credit; I just want to go to school.
I’m an incredibly average athlete. My brother got the sports genes in my family. He also got the knee injury, unfortunately. In tenth grade, a kid who had a leg injury beat me in the hundred yard dash. I’m arguably the worst basketball player on the planet. Who else can only shoot a two-handed set shot? The one sport I can play well is volleyball.
I think Guinness may be the best liquid ever invented. It is the nectar of heaven, the ultimate substance, the drink of all drinks. Great – now I’m thirsty.
Those are the first eight things that came to mind. I will leave you to decide whether or not you want to meme.
How much information—all the Web pages, instant messages, video streams, and everything else you can imagine—passes through the Internet as a whole? Not an easy number to track down, but finally we got our answer from Clifford Holliday, author of Internet Growth 2006 (published by the telecommunications consultancy Information Gatekeepers). He estimates the total amount of Internet traffic by looking at the activity of end-user connections, such as dial-up modem lines, DSL, and fiber-optic connections. Broadband connections to homes and businesses, like DSL and cable modems, are responsible for generating most of the load, which also goes a long way toward Holliday’s discovery that 75 percent of all traffic on the Internet is due to file sharing, with 59 percent of that file sharing attributed to people swapping video files. Music tracks account for 33 percent of the file-sharing traffic. E-mail, it turns out, accounts for just 9 percent of the total traffic. And that total is... a staggering 40 petabytes, or 40 x 1015 bytes: a 4 followed by 16 zeros.
Taking Holliday’s 40-petabyte figure and plugging it into the same formula that we worked out for our 50-kilobyte e-mail results in a grand total of 1.3 x 10-8 pound. At last, after much scribbling (and perhaps a little cursing), we had our answer: The weight of the Internet adds up to just about 0.2 millionths of an ounce.
Love letters, business contracts, holiday snaps, spam, petitions, emergency bulletins, pornography, wedding announcements, TV shows, news articles, vacation plans, home movies, press releases, celebrity Web pages, home movies, secrets of every stripe, military orders, music, newsletters, confessions, congratulations—every shade and aspect of human life encoded as 1s and 0s. Taken together, they weigh roughly the same as the smallest possible sand grain, one measuring just two-thousandths of an inch across.
Here’s what a grain of sand looks like up close – real close:
Google was my next stop, where I typed in “grain of sand” and found a Dylan song called, “Every Grain of Sand”:
In the time of my confession, in the hour of my deepest need When the pool of tears beneath my feet flood every newborn seed. There's a dying voice within me reaching out somewhere Toiling in the danger and in the morals of despair. Don't have the inclination to look back on any mistake. Like Cain, I now behold this chain of events that I must break. In the fury of the moment I can see the Master's hand. In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand. Oh, the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear. Like criminals, they have choked the breath of conscience and good cheer. But the sun beat down upon the steps of time to light the way To ease the pain of idleness and the memory of decay. I gaze into the doorway of temptation's angry flame And every time I pass that way I always hear my name. Then onward in my journey I come to understand That every hair is numbered, like every grain of sand. I have gone from rags to riches in the sorrow of the night In the violence of a summer's dream, in the chill of a wintry night In the bitter dance of loneliness fading into space In the broken mirror of innocence on each forgotten face. I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea Sometimes I turn, there's someone there, other times it's only me. I am hanging in the balance of a perfect finished plan Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.
(I picked the Nash cover because I could understand the words and I’m trying to learn the chords.)
Some Like Poetry Some - thus not all. Not even the majority of all but the minority. Not counting schools, where one has to, and the poets themselves, there might be two people per thousand. Like - but one also likes chicken soup with noodles, one likes compliments and the color blue, one likes an old scarf, one likes having the upper hand, one likes stroking a dog. Poetry - but what is poetry. Many shaky answers have been given to this question. But I don't know and don't know and hold on to it like to a sustaining railing.
Shot in the sprawling refugee camps of the North West Frontier Province in Pakistan and Kabul, Afghanistan, View From A Grain of Sand foregrounds the individual voices of three Afghan women, each dramatically affected by the different regimes of the last twenty-five years. Principal taping began almost a year prior to September 11, 2001. At that time the issues of Afghan women’s rights were of little interest to the international community. Subsequently returning to the region in November 2001, the director was uniquely positioned to portray the extraordinary shift, which had taken Afghan women from being a forgotten population to becoming a focus of global outcry. Through the personal stories of these women, the broader history of Afghanistan (since the late 1970s) is elucidated, offering a first-person perspective on the socio-political context behind the situation in which the refugees now find themselves. The documentary follows the three women over a period of three years: 2000, 2001 and 2003, to form a continuum through a period of dramatic change going from one year before the Taliban fell, during the time of their fall, and one year after.
Here is the trailer.
When I left the house this morning, the wind was blowing in from the ocean. Some of the sand from the beach was blowing past my head, no doubt, each grain large enough to carry everything I found today and more. And I thought sand in my eyes was a bad thing.
When I was teaching high school, I started putting stickers on vocabulary quizzes (and then on other papers and tests) for good grades. The kids went nuts over them. I was teaching junior Honors Brit Lit and they were clamoring for Sponge Bob stickers. I know how they feel. I started back to Weight Watchers a couple of weeks ago. They give you a star for every five pounds you lose. A small, very disposable, gold star. I got my second one on Tuesday. I think I'm as excited about the little sticker as I am about losing the weight.
A good word goes a long way.
Maggi Dawn affirmed me this week by giving me a Thinking Blogger award. I greatly appreciate it. (I would also like to say thank you to two other folks who did the same while I was writing my Lenten Journal. I intended to follow through after Easter and lost track of your comments.) The award is a meme that began with this post.
One of the things I like about the meme -- besides getting an award (my first) -- is it's designed to foster greater affirmation. Maggi mentioned me as one of five blogs that make her think; my task is to do the same. Here are some folks who feed me:
tgraypots web log is a wonderful mixture of pottery, faith, and a fair amount of pizza, as well as other cool food. Reading Tom's work has led me to some great stuff on learning to eat locally and ethically. The passion and tenderness with which he writes is contagious.
Spilt Milk is a blog I discovered recently. Tee's writing is thoughtful and challenging. She writes about some of the political issues in our world with a personal touch -- particularly when it comes to Christian - Muslim - Jewish relations. Her writings and links took me to both Hometown Baghdad and Raising Yousuf, Unplugged. Look What Love Has Done is a blog with which I've had a connection almost since I started blogging. She was one of the first people to begin to comment with some regularity. Beth writes beautifully and poignantly about what she is learning about faith and family in these days. Her latest post is about affirming her son. She's a good mom.
Closeted Pastor is a new find for me. Cecilia writes about pastoring and working through not yet being able to come out to her congregation. I'm hopeful that she will find affirmation and encouragement here among the blogs to help her move toward feeling more integrated. I'm thankful I get to be a part of the journey.
Simply Simon is writing about "life, food, faith, and the city" -- the city being Melbourne, Australia. Simon is a professor, writer, cook, and all around interesting guy. There's lots of stuff going on at his place. He's one who helps me to keep paying attention.
There are others that move me (as it is, I managed to sneak in a couple). Today, these are folks I want to affirm as blogs that make me think. I'm grateful for the connections.
There's a new site worth visiting (actually a new version of something already going pretty well called The High Calling of Our Daily Work, which looks at what it means to be called to our vocation whether or not that means we are professionally spiritual. They have some great stuff. I particularly like the categories things they explore: work and family, gifts and talents, leadership, excellence, integrity, attitude, professional relationships, and service. The site is easy to navigate and full of good things.
