lenten journal: snakes on a plain

We had been with Julia and Larry for a couple of hours Friday evening before the conversation turned to snakes, mostly because both Ginger and Larry were going to preach about them following the lectionary passage from John 3 where Jesus said, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness . . .”

“Everybody has a snake story,” Larry said. And then we all began telling ours.

My seminary pastorate was near the little town of Oglesby, Texas, which was “famous” Rattlesnake Roundup every February. (They held the event when it was cold so the snakes weren’t moving too much.) Those who wanted to hunt the snake combed the land around the town, bringing in every rattler they could find, their goal being to lessen the snake population in their area. The rest of us just showed up for the festival where we saw rattlesnakes, touched rattlesnakes, and even ate rattlesnakes. One demonstration that sticks in my mind was watching a guy named Snuffy or Spunky lay down on an open sleeping bag. Once he was still, they began placing live rattlesnakes around him – twenty snakes or so – and then they closed the sleeping bag and zipped it up. Over the next twenty minutes or so, Spanky moved slowly – inched – to work his way out of the bag without any of the snakes biting him. When he was far enough out of the bag that we could see his chest, we could also see one of the snakes had coiled up on his chest and gone to sleep. Once his feet cleared the bag, Slappy moved his hands on either side of the sleeping snake and threw it across the pen he was in and ran off.

When the Israelites were besieged by snakes, Moses didn’t organize a snake hunt. Instead he fashioned a snake out of bronze and put it up on a pole. The people were told to look up at the snake if they were bitten and they would be saved. As Larry pointed out in our discussion, Moses didn’t chase the snakes away but gave the people a way to learn to live with the snakes instead.

During Lent, some folks have been meeting before church at coffee houses around the city to discuss different subjects. Ginger and Carla chose alliterative titles:

• Peacemaking at Panera
• Faith at Foster’s Market
• Stewardship at Starbucks
• Gratitude at Guglhupf (today’s topic)

Ten or twelve of us gathered with our coffee and pastries and a page of quotes to spur our discussion. The opening words were from Henri Nouwen:

Gratitude . . . goes beyond the “mine” and “thine” and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift. In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.

Gratitude as discipline: the practice of giving thanks.

Yesterday was a perfect spring afternoon. The air was cool, but I could still feel the sun on my skin. The sky was cloudless, save a white whisp or two, and felt expansive even from my backyard. Standing there with our pups prancing around at my feet, it was easy to connect with something beyond me, with all that is transcendent and hopeful and promising. How could I not be thankful? It came bubbling out of me. Though I am deeply grateful in those moments, I’m not sure that’s the same discipline Nouwen was describing. As the idea hung with me through the afternoon and my turn on the line for the dinner shift at the restaurant, I kept wondering how gratitude grows from response to intention, and I remembered a poem by W. S. Merwin that is one of my favorites:

Listen

with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
in a culture up to its chin in shame
living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the back door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you

in the banks that use us we are saying thank you
with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable
unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is.

We are called to say thank you not because everything is wonderful or there are no more snakes on the plain or we hit the lottery. We are called to practice gratitude because thanksgiving is healing, both for those we thank and for our wounded hearts. “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘thank you,’ that would suffice,” said Meister Eckhart. The way through the snakes and the dark and whatever else might foment fear or feed our anger is to give thanks, to practice gratitude, to train our hearts to sing a thankful song.

Even the hissing of summer lawns can’t drown out such a melody.

Peace,
Milton

saying thanks in the dark

After a day full of thanks and food, I sat down to write and was found, once more, by one of my favorite poems by one of my favorite poets, W. S. Merwin. (Thanks, Christine.)

Listen

with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
in a culture up to its chin in shame
living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the back door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you

in the banks that use us we are saying thank you
with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable
unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is.

Reading the poem again – particularly that last two lines – has brought me to a new conclusion: the opposite of fear is not courage, but gratitude. We are most fully human when we are most deeply grateful.

One of our Thanksgiving traditions is to go around the table before we eat and each offer something for which we are thankful. My friend Terry, who plays harmonica on my Christmas story, said he learned again this year how much joy and sorrow are connected and was thankful to be living in the middle of them. Everyone around our table was acquainted with grief, as I’m sure was true wherever meals were shared today. Sorrow and sadness are ubiquitous in our world. Therefore, if Terry is right (and I’m betting he is), joy is just as far reaching. We, then, are left with a choice: we can look into the night, dark though it is, and wonder what is coming next to get us or we can look up at the stars shining in the dark and say, “Thank you.” And it’s a choice we have to make again and again, broadcasting our gratitude in every direction, thanking God and thanking one another.

May we be those who choose to say thank you and wave, dark though it is.

Peace,
Milton

late night thanks

It’s late. Everyone else in the house has gone to bed and I’m waiting for the last pie (of eight) to finish baking so I can sleep as well. Here as Thanksgiving Eve gives way to Turkey Day, I’m in full blown food mode, so this time food is food more than metaphor. Here’s our menu for tomorrow:

deep fried turkey (hey – I’m in the South now)
cornbread dressing (my mother’s recipe)
buttermilk mashed potatoes
green bean casserole (Ginger’s favorite)
roasted corn and crushed pineapple risotto
chipotle sweet potato and pecan gratin
maple glazed brussels sprouts
roasted butternut squash with plantains (I'm making this one up -- I'll let you know how it goes)
refrigerator rolls

And for dessert:

amazing pumpkin pie
sweet potato pie
apple pie
pecan pie
brown sugar buttermilk pie
blueberry pie

I’m a thankful boy.

Peace,
Milton

tell me a story

I come from a family of storytellers.

Actually, I come from a family of slightly exaggerated storytellers. We tell good stories and we feel free to alter the details to spice it up a little, too. I love to listen to a story, or read one, or even watch one, almost as much as I like to tell them. A great story leaves an indelible mark on our hearts. Like a great melody, it inhabits and haunts and pulls up feelings with a simple phrase, reminding us we have been changed by our listening. We are no longer the same.

Today was “Mountain Sunday” at our church (as well as Stewardship Sunday and Thanksgiving Sunday and the Last Sunday in Ordinary Time). The title refers to the music we sang and heard today, which came mostly from Appalachian and gospel traditions, both of which know of and speak from a deep acquaintance with both suffering and gratitude. And so, our service began

I am a poor wayfaring stranger
traveling through this world of woe
but there’s no sickness toil or danger
in that bright land to where I go

From there we wandered across rivers and up and down mountains through our songs and scriptures, until it was time for Carla, our associate pastor, to preach. She began her sermon by talking about stories and then saying she was going to tell part of hers, I leaned in. She told us about how her family settled in Charlotte and survived the coming and going of the textile mill, and how they built homes to be close to one another. As she talked about their Thanksgiving traditions, she told of one tragedy that had befallen the family – the death of a child – and how that marked the holiday for all the years after. As she described one of her relatives, she used a descriptive phrase that turned the story from information to incarnation as she spoke of the “sacred sorrow so bound up with his gratitude.”

Her words landed on me with resonance and power. In the same moment, I knew she was right and I wondered how it is the two are so inextricably tied together. From my English teacher days I remember a story needs conflict or suffering to move it along and to move it toward redemption or reconciliation or even disappointment. What the stories tell us is we were built to learn from our suffering, not simply to endure it. Perhaps that is how stories were born in the first place – the good ones, anyway. Carla had a phrase for that as well: good stories are those that shape our souls into vessels to hold our gratitude.

Her words made me wonder what kind of story I’m telling and how well the stories I hear and tell mold my soul into a thanksgiving tank, if you will. So many of the gospel hymns tell stories of heaven. We even closed our service with a rocking rendition of

some glad morning wihen this life is o’er
I’ll fly away . . .

Many of those songs were born out of suffering, yet their response is more than asking for relief. It’s not about getting out, it’s about getting through. Gratitude grows when we trust that suffering is not the last word.

The story is not yet over.

Suffering that doesn’t breed thankfulness turns to despair. Gratitude that is not informed by grief may quench our souls only briefly, but quickly evaporates. Memory – remembrance is the thing that binds the two so essentially and stories remind us to remember, as the saying goes, who we are and whose we are.

And I remembered this morning, thank you.



Peace,
Milton

great, with child

I know it’s not even Thanksgiving yet and I’m one of those who wish the stores could wait just one more week before putting out the decorations and I’ve been thinking about Mary preparing herself to give birth, even though we aren’t quite done with the Pilgrims just yet. I think what set me to thinking about it was a note from my friend, Heather, saying her water had broken and she would be giving birth some time between now and tomorrow morning. Thinking of her also reminded me of why I like to read Luke 2 just the way Linus quoted it: from the King James version. No other version gives you language like this (trust me, I’ve looked):

And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David) to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

She was great with child. The words are full of illustration, animation, and metaphor. I love the image of this young, poor, humble, and pregnant girl being (read this in your best Tony the Tiger voice) grrreat, as though she was both things. You know: great, with child. She apparently must have been a pretty good mother, so as Jesus grew (in wisdom and stature), perhaps they said in a different way that she was great with (her) child. Of course, if someone feels the need to point out great has to do with girth, then some of us have to come to terms with being great without child, but that’s another post.

The verses hold a companion phrase that also speaks to me: the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. (I picture the translators in a room somewhere coming up with that phrase and saying to one another, “That’s smashing, old boy. Jolly good show.”)

I’m captured by the verbs: accomplished and delivered.

Even as I prepare to spend the weekend getting ready to feed those who will gather with us for Thanksgiving, and that this is one of those years when Advent doesn’t begin the Sunday after the turkey, I find the animals in the stable of my heart getting restless, waiting for the days to be accomplished, or whatever needs to be accomplished, so we can gather around the manger. Tonight, as I wait for word that Heather has welcomed her new son, I give thanks for them and for the KJV guys and Linus and all those who sweep the barn clean so the baby can be born and we can all be delivered.

Peace,
Milton

P.S. -- There's a new recipe.

what it takes to get ready

Though it is only Tuesday, today is the day I start working on the turkey. I’m writing from the café at Whole Foods Market in Birmingham where I called last week to reserve my bird: free range, fresh, never frozen. “I want one of those birds who spends all day running and playing and sitting on the couch eating ice cream every evening watching Andy Griffith reruns,” I told the woman who took my order over the phone.

“A happy turkey,” she responded. “That’s all we have.”

I’m picking it up early today because I like to brine the bird before I cook it. Brining, which means soaking it in salt water, prepares the bird. The big-breasted white turkeys we all buy these days are not the most flavorful of birds, to be honest. Brining helps them retain their moisture and gives them some flavor.

Here’s what I do: I take two big Reynolds turkey-sized browning bags and put one inside the other. Then I mix a gallon of water, 1 cup Kosher salt, 1 1/2 cups brown sugar, and a handful of black peppercorns and stir it until the salt and sugar are dissolved. I then stand the bird bottom side up in the bag and pour the brining mixture over it. Seal the bag tightly and refrigerate or, if you’re working with limited refrigeration space, put it in an ice chest and pack with ice. Close the lid and leave it alone until tomorrow morning at least (eight to eighteen hours). (When I open the bag tomorrow, I have a second soaking for my turkey you can find here.)

I guess the brining is on my mind because I’m having a hard time getting ready for Thanksgiving on a personal level. Though I’m happy to get to be with both sets of parents, I’m in the wrong town, I’m shopping in the wrong stores, and it’s too damn hot.

A Boston friend who also just moved from the Hub but who is back for the holiday, left voicemail for me this morning saying cheerfully, “It’s snowing! It’s snowing!” I know he was working to reconnect, since this is the first Thanksgiving we have not shared together in many, many years, yet his sentimental elation was not helpful for me. I was standing in a hot kitchen wearing shorts and a t-shirt, trying to figure out how to get dinner ready when I can’t use my front porch as a refrigerator. I need to go soak in something to get ready for our shared day of gratitude. I need something to help remind me that life is flavored with much more than grief and uncertainty in these days, because I know it is. I just can’t taste it.

And so I’ve been sitting here stewing in Whole Foods, posting a few more recipes (see the post below) and working hard to taste the gratitude. Actually, it’s less work than it is simply cleansing my palette, if you will. I’m getting to spend some good time with my father-in-law, whose Alzheimer’s is progressing steadily. This may be the last Thanksgiving that he knows who I am and we are here together. Last night, a couple who are my some of my in-laws’ truest friends came by to visit and to see us. They brought their nineteen-year old granddaughter with them who is mentally handicapped because of chemotherapy she received as a baby. She is full of joy and spent most of the evening looking at me and laughing.

My mother-in-law, Rachel, was amazing with her. At one point, she asked if I would get my guitar and sing for Hailey. I sang a couple of songs and then her grandfather asked if I would play and sing her favorite song, “Amazing Grace.” I started to sing and she began to sing along in her own way. Regardless of my pace, she sang a couple of words behind me the whole way, adding powerful punctuation to the end of each line. When we finished, she laughed at me again and said thank you.

It’s easy for me to get the turkey ready for Thanksgiving Dinner. I know what I’m preparing it for and how to prepare it. I don’t always know how to get ready for life. For all the love that has infused the Brasher household over the years, they were not prepared for Alzheimer’s. All nine months of her mother’s pregnancy could not have prepared Hailey’s mom for, well, motherhood as it is incarnated at her house. For all the weeks that have passed since we said we were moving to Durham, and all the boxes packed, and all the things passed on to others, and all the dinners and cards and hugs and goodbyes and smiles and tears and miles, for all that has been and all that will be, I don’t much know how to get ready for what is to come except to keep singing:

through many dangers, toils, and snares
I have already come
‘tis grace that brought me safe this far
and grace will lead me home

I don’t imagine the dinner the first pilgrims shared so many Novembers ago looked anything like the spread I’ll stretch out in a couple of days anymore than I think the dinner was much more than thanksgiving for not being dead yet. We’re a week away from joining another band of pilgrims in Durham with much more for which to give thanks than our ancestors. As I look at the days ahead, I can’t see any farther around the bend than they could, so I will follow the same path, tracing their footsteps through the forest of faith. They were faithful because they soaked in the Spirit, allowing God to infuse them with grace and gratitude to sustain them for the journey.

Maybe I can be ready for Thanksgiving after all.

Peace,
Milton

new to our turkey table

Here are a few of the new recipes I'm trying out this year. Some have already been checked out in the Don't Eat Alone Test Kitchen, others we'll all taste for the first time on Thursday. I think they'll all measure up just fine.

Here are a couple more vegetable ideas:

• roasted red curry carrots
• green bean casserole (from scratch)
• sweet potatoes and apples in browned butter

And for your dessert table:

• black and blue berry pie
• state fair pecan pie
• rachel's nut brittle

Happy eating.

Peace,
Milton

ideas for turkey day

I made it to Birmingham all in one piece; both me and my Cherokee were weary and heavy laden. Though still in transition, at least Ginger and I are in the same place, which is my in-laws' house. Next week, my parents are coming to Birmingham and we are all going to celebrate Thanksgiving together. With that in mind, I thought I would go back through my recipes and index some I think might be worth looking at as you gather around your table of gratitude.

Here is a turkey recipe that has proven to be a favorite for years now.
I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start with a couple of soups:

• pumpkin-apple soup
• curried squash soup
• parsnip and apple soup
• autumn bisque

Moving on to breads:

• I learned to make refrigerator rolls from my mother;
• this monkey bread recipe is all about convenience -- and it tastes good;
• pineapple cornbread is a twist on a couple of old standards.

Here are a couple of vegetable ideas:

• brussels and berries
• maple glazed brussels sprouts

OK, so I need to cook something other than brussels sprouts. Here's a recipe that combines squash, apples, and onions:

• autumn galette

In the tuber department, try these:

• three potato au gratin
• sweet potato salad
• sweet potato polenta

And in our miscellaneous department:

• cranberry sweet tarts
• pilgrim punchers

I have a few other recipes we are trying out in our Don't Eat Alone Test Kitchens and I know I haven't posted any desserts. Stay tuned -- more on the way.

Peace,
Milton