Preparing for Sabbath

It is Saturday evening and my Sabbath rest has almost begun. It was a day full of work to be able to enter into this rest. And now whether my work feels complete or not, I must rest.

Without rest, we become irritable, weary, depressed; we lose joy, stamina, patience. Our Heavenly Father rested and the world I care for is much, much smaller than His, so surely I can find the way to rest too.

The children are all snug in their beds, clothes and shoes laid out. Baby bags packed with bottles, diapers, and an extra change of clothes (because isn't it always on Sundays they want to leak through their clothes or forget they are potty trained?!) I remembered an extra snack for a quiet car ride home so hubby and I can enjoy the beautiful ride we have. Breakfast is made, the table set, even a slow-cooker dinner is waiting to be turned on. The house is clean and tidied (well, clean according my standards anyway) and we are caught up on laundry.

You may ask why bother with all of this extra work on Saturday, instead of spending it doing X, Y or Z?


It is because I am learning that the Lord's Day is the culmination of our week, as Abraham Heschel writes, "the Sabbath is not for the sake of weekdays; the weekdays are for the sake of Sabbath. It is not an interlude but the climax of living" (The Sabbath p. 14). And as Christians on this Holy Day, we celebrate the greatest mystery of our faith, Christ rose from the grave. Every Sunday is Easter again. And so, we worship and feast, kneeling to be fed spiritual food.

And amazingly, in a culture always driven for more, on the Sabbath we are told to stop.

Yes, there will still be some work to do: we live in a fallen world. Yes, despite my efforts, it will not be perfect day: we live in a fallen world. But this work was good work. This work will bring PEACE: rather than a morning rushed and busy, we will have calm and togetherness as we prepare for worship. This work will bring REST: rather than cooking and cleaning and folding, we will have time for a walk, a nap, good music, things which restore our souls. This work will bring JOY: a surprise baked into the morning oatmeal, a comfort meal for dinner, time for celebration. This work will bring THANKFULNESS: we can feel gratitude when we have time to delight in the fruit of our labor and in the great gifts we've received.


Norman Wirzba writes that the "Sabbath is a discipline and a practice" (Living the Sabbath p. 20) which means it is something we can get better at. Some weeks, I am not as prepared as this week, but God's grace is so abundant, He still accepts my worship and still restores my soul. Some Sundays, I enter church filled with worry, sleepiness, or nothing at all which is why I never tire of the opening prayer in our church service. Every week we acknowledge before God that He knows all that we bring and we ask for His help to worship aright:

Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known,
and from you no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our
hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may
perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy Name;
through Christ our Lord. Amen.

(How amazing that until Thomas Cranmer, this was a prayer only for the priest as he prepared for worship but  now it is prayer that we all pray together.) However, while there is grace and forgiveness for all that we bring to church on Sunday, it does not lessen our need for Sabbath. The practice of Sabbath is an attempt to model or pattern our lives after God's: "Put simply, Sabbath discipline introduces us to God's own ways of joy and delight" (Wirzba p. 21). In Genesis, we see that God worked, rested, and delighted. This too should be our goal as the Commandment teaches,

 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Exodus 20

A Sabbath Sensibility

We have struggled in our attempt to observe Sabbath as a family. At times, it has been difficult to stop just because the calendar says it is Sunday—the mountain of work looms, the interferences are many. Then when we first tried to truly carve out time to rest, it was hard to know what actually we should do with the time. Jean Vanier writes in The Broken Body, “Rest, relaxation and discipline are important. I am surprised, at L’Arche and elsewhere, that many people do not know how to rest. They are like rolling locomotives, fuelled by anguish, and perhaps by the fear of stopping. And when they do stop, it is just to sleep more or to potter around, not knowing what to do. Each one of us must find our own secret rhythm of how to rest, relax and find re-creation, for each one of our bodies is different…This is all the more important for those of us who are called to live with much tension and to carry great stress. This tension and stress that we experience as we live with wounded people can prevent growth and stimulate anger and exhaustion…” (p. 120).

By seeing Sabbath as a practice has helped us begin asking the right questions about what to do and how to go to learn how to enter into God’s rest for our souls. For us, we begin on Saturday night with a special meal, Scripture and prayer. As we light a candle it is a signal, the time for rest is now, the time for delight is here. We quiet ourselves and hear from God’s Word, the passage for the Sunday sermon. We then are more prepared as we go on Sunday to worship at our church, entering into a beautiful rhythm of prayer, praise, confession, teaching, and feasting. Then home for a family meal, sometimes with friends, sometimes just our family. Especially since we have little ones, we then find a period for napping or resting with music or a book is restorative. Back when we watched television we began to realize that for us we were not restored or uplifted after watching and we turned it off on Sundays during our Sabbath. We like to go on walks when the weather permits…or find other activities which will help the children to play quietly or have family time with a game or a favorite read-aloud. And then with our Sunday dinner meal, our Sabbath is over which gives us time to clean-up and prepare for the week ahead which becomes much different in light of a Sabbath rest. It is just what our family needs, but perhaps yours might look quite different.

But as we attempted Sabbath a new problem arose, in deciding that the Lord’s Day should be a place for restoration, other areas begin to suffer. At first resting on Sunday meant an overwhelming Monday, so much laundry, dishes, and dirt it was hard to begin again. I then began to prepare more on Saturday but then this became a crazy day of preparing meals, cleaning, running errands so that we all collapsed on Sunday and found it hard to enter into an attitude of worship and delight.

This is where Norman Wirzba’s explanation of Sabbathobservance is helpful:

“…we have grown used to thinking of Sabbath observance as an add-on to the end of a busy week. Sabbath is a time for us to relax and let down our guard, to pause from the often anxious and competitive patterns of daily life. This is not what the Jews, those who first gave us the teaching about Sabbath, thought. In their view, Sabbath observance is what we work toward. As our most important and all-encompassing goal, it frames and contextualizes our planning, much as the desire to achieve a specific objective—a championship, a masterful performance, an exquisite meal or party—will require that we take the proper steps all along the way. Sabbath frames our entire life, helping us set priorities and determine which of our activities bring honor to God." (p. 22-23).

That is how an understanding of Sabbath became more and more life-shaping,changing our habits and sensibilities of what our work each day should look like. Why are we so exhausted by Sunday? What is my house such a mess? Why can’t I let go of the anxieties of my week? Why am I so drawn to escape during this time rather than experience true quiet and rest? How can I, in this present season of my life, deadlines from work nearing, or the parent of young children with constant demands, or requirements of serving in a particular ministry on Sunday, or…

And that is again where Vanier is so helpful,

We must learn

not just to free ourselves from tension and fatigue

on the Sabbath day, our day of rest.

We must also learn

as the mother must learn

in front of the never-ending needs of her children,

how to respect our energy

and relax in all the moments of our day

filled as they may be with arduous work

or often tiresome meetings,

and crises of all sorts,

and the hundred and one things-that have-to-be-done.

To do this we must discover how to harmonize

the active and the passive in us.

If we are just doers,

feeling terribly responsible and serious,

we will crack up one day.

We must nourish the passive part of us,

our hearts made for personal love,

learning to listen to others,

to marvel at nature,

to rest a moment in the presence of Jesus,

to receive the love of those around us

and be nourished by their trust,

enjoying the little things of each day,

not taking ourselves too seriously,

accepting to become like little children. (p. 121)

Sabbath Living

Time flys by. The Rat Race. Busy, Busy, busy. One day and then a week and then a year quickly blurs into another. We are left feeling tired and anxious. But is this what God has intended? Yes, He wants us to live lives of purpose; he has given us a weighty commission. But yet Jesus tells us that His yoke is easy and his burden is light (Mt. 11:30).

Living a life of Sabbath rest has been a way for our family to stop the fast pace of a world swirling around us. A culture that tells us we must always be working, striving, accomplishing. This is a day set aside to delight. To seek beauty. To quiet ourselves.

"...God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done." (Gn 2:2).

As a mom of little ones, the repitition of my work can be overwhelming. Always more dishes, more laundry, another toy to pick up. Diapers to change and another feeding. Even on the Sabbath these things must happen. But as darkness falls and the Christ candle is light to usher in the Sabbath, I become aware again of holiness. As we hold hands around the table, I am knit again to children I may have spent the day correcting and nagging. Hearing His word, I learn who He is and who I am to become. And there is peace.

If the God of the universe can rest, surely I can and must allow myself to do so. A rest which is restorative. I love the chance to escape the rush of life for a holiday, a day at the spa, a stop at a coffee shop. These are good things but I've found they have the tendency to turn my focus only further into myself. This type of leisure provides an escape but when I return to normal life, all is the same again and in contrast perhaps even more crazy.

Sabbath turns us to a God of peace, who restores our souls and opens our eyes to the goodness of his creation.

O God, in the course of this busy life, give us times of refreshment and peace; and grant that we may so use our leisure to rebuild our bodies and renew our minds, that our spirits may be opened to the goodness of your creation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, p. 825)

Sabbath is for Peace...

It is almost 2pm on Sunday and the house is quiet...all are asleep but me and I bask in this time, understanding anew that all the efforts to create space for this rest are worth it. We do not rest today so that we may work the rest of the week as we will, as Wendell Berry writes in his Sabbath poem,


"Six days of work are spent
To make a Sunday quiet
That Sabbath may return...."

From the Gospel reading for the Second Sunday of Easter,

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." (John 20:19-31).

One of the first messages of the resurrection: PEACE.

I go back to my own rest now, so that Sabbath may return.


Blessings dear readers! May the Peace of Christ be with you.
Amy

The Pursuit of God's Splendor: the theme of my blog

I've shared how much I love following the church calendar to provide a sense of rhythm and place for our family. Each year our most special days are centered around the life of Christ as we celebrate his birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension. We learn and relearn how we can be like him. And as we build these traditions we look forward with anticipation to what God will do in each new season. Over the last 10 years, we have created a rhythm of our days that brings us into deeper knowledge of Christ and one another.

As we have begun to create a rhythm for our family, I find more of a desire for rhythm and place in all parts of my life. It is not enough to have created space for God on Sunday or a Feast Day--I want more. Indeed, that space isn't even possible unless all of my life is centered on Him. When I race through my week, to come to a screeching halt on Sunday, it is hard to rest, it is difficult to hear his voice. Norman Wirzba writes that

"many of us submit to daily schedules that keep us moving at a soul-blistering, exhaustion-inducing pace, and we agree to ever-lengthening to-do lists that invariably leave us stretched or stressed to the breaking point...The frantic, fragmenting, multi-tasking character of contemporary living has made it likely that many of us simply evade or fail to consider with much seriousness or depth, life's most basic and profound questions:

What is all our living finally for?
Why do we commit to so much?
Why do we devote our selves to the tasks or priorities that we do?
Will we know when we have achieved or acquired enough?
What purpose does our striving serve?

...[and] in answering them we get a clearer picture of how closely our intentions and our living line up with the purposes of God.
Do we truly believe ourselves to be children of God and members of creation, and thus able to trust in God's beneficent care and provision?" (Living the Sabbath p. 19-20)

God creates and sustains a world dependent on his goodness and we are invited to find delight in His abundance. Not forced or coerced, invited. But it is an invitation we often chose to ignore and thus miss out on much of God's care. Wendell Berry writes that

"The creation is a living work in which every creature must participate...We humans, by our particular nature, must participate for better or worse, and this is our choice to make. Will we choose to participate by working in accordance with the world's originating principles, in recognition of its inherent goodness, in gratitude for our membership in it, or will we participate by destroying it in accordance with our always tottering, never resting self-justifications and selfish desires" (Living the Sabbath preface).

Much of our failure to see the abundance of God stems from a modern life disembodied from any sort of rhythm that we find in the created world. As Wordsworth wrote 202 years ago:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

So much of our modern life separates ourselves from the natural world. Many people no longer have to experience the cold of winter and the heat of summer outside their home or place of work. Yet then one day seems so very much like the next. And we can live indifferently here or there, and move when we wish, so it matters little to us what the city or builders do to our local creeks and forests (as long as it doesn't effect our taxes!).

As our family has found rhythm and place in the Church year and looked to Sabbath as the culmination and high point of our week, we also wanted and then found more ways to participate in the times and places of creation.

Spending time in nature on walks through parks, by creeks, around our neighborhood are small ways we have found to reclaim our hearts. We see the rhythms of work and rest, birth and death all around us. And we create rhythm as we visit and revisit the same hikes through each season. We travel at a snail’s pace as we go, following or waiting for our little ones as they investigate ants, leaves, streams (have you ever tried hiking with a 2 yr old?!). But at this pace and through our repeated steps, we begin to see changes in plant and tree and flower as we go. The repetition of our steps on these trails is not really about exercise, nature study, or even really time together, although this is all accomplished; our walks have opened all our eyes to the small wonders of God's creation. In the fall, our children fell in love with the yellow poplar leaves on the ground; then this Spring they found these amazing flowers covering our trail—to their amazement these flowers were from their beloved poplars! We would miss these wonders without repetition and rhythm.

Gardening has become another way for us to create a rhythm for our days. We have participated in our "membership," as Berry puts it, with this earth as we work our little garden plots. All that goes into tending a garden forces us to be aware of the forecasts for hail or frost or heat. All that planting and weeding and watering creates a feeling of membership and place; so much so, that on our last vacation if you would ask any one of us what we missed most about home, we would have all said "our garden." And so we have found a rhythm as we follow the seasons and the needs of our garden each day. It is this work that builds in us a capacity for delight and gratitude. The time spent makes us long for the first bite of that first ripened tomato. The first leaves of spinach are eaten with wonder and gratitude. So even our cooking and eating according to what's in season has become another way we've marked the time and created a sense of place. A few weeks ago we were surrounded by empty plots of dirt and in faith planted our seeds. When we eat from our garden we know these fruits were so recently unavailable to us and in a few weeks they will be gone again.

And since we cannot grow all we need, shopping for fresh produce at our local farmer's market is another step. At first, it was hard: what do you mean tomatoes aren't in season yet, we can't eat blueberries anymore, the pears were all damaged by hail? But again the longing and desire.

I remember too that last summer I was very pregnant and it was very hot and I had 2 small children in tow and at times I wondered if it was worth it. Couldn't I get this same produce at the air-conditioned, wide-aisled, large cart supermart down the street?

And then I tasted this produce still filled with sunshine- it tasted like I remembered it as a child. Blueberries as big as eyeballs tasted like blueberries. Tomatoes like tomatoes. Fresh, not waxed or coated, not sprayed to color (ripen is hardly a word you can use to describe most of the brightly colored “produce” at the grocery store).

If I thought it was work to just buy the produce, how much more work the farmers and their children had to work that very day to bring me the food (the very people I got to meet and shake hands with, the very people who greeted my little ones with smiles and samples, who gave me advice on storing and cooking). Whether it was rainy or hot, whether I showed or not.

And I learned wonder and gratitude.

Wordsworth continues:

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.

The Sea, the winds are in tune with the moon, the hours. And we are not. It is a rare thing to find delight and wonder and gratitude with the very ordinary things of life.

I want to find splendor in dirt, seed, sun, and rain--"the ordinary stuff lifted up which is holy."

And so, my days are filled with the repetitious work of a mother and homemaker, gardener and teacher, wife and friend, and my attempts to do work that fits the world's originating purposes reveals the "inherent goodness" of creation and the glory of God. I’m more able to rest and delight in the work and in the work He has done. Living out the liturgy of the church year is just one small step. There are many more to take.

sabbath poems

We have a 20 minute ride to our church on Sunday mornings and so lately we've taken to reading a poem on the trip. It's just about enough time to read it, work through it, and then read it again with meaning and appreciation. This week we turned to Wendell Berry's A Timbered Choir: Sabbath Poems.

Even if you do not go out "among trees" on this Lord's Day, may you find the place and time so that "all [your] stirring becomes quiet." Wishing you a day of Sabbath rest...

I Go Among Trees and Sit Still
by Wendell Berry
I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
Around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
Where I left them, asleep like cattle

Then what is afraid of me comes,
and lives awhile in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings and I hear its song.

Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it
and the fear of it leaves me.
It sings and I hear its song.

After days of labor,
mute in my consternations,
I hear my song at last,
and I sing it. As we sing,
the day turns, the trees move.

Sabbath is for Growing Fat Souls

When we finally stop the hurrying, the busyness, and put the to-do list down, we have the space for love and affection.

While this can be difficult for us in every stage of life, Scripture seems to indicate that the young wife must be taught how to go about it (Titus 2:4 "and so train the young women to love their husbands and children," noting that many translate this mention of love as the "affectionate" love). Why? Does it not come naturally? Perhaps, but while I may not exactly count as the "young wife" anymore (!), I know it is still easy for me to get so caught up in the loving care of my children that I often don't leave time or energy for that affectionate love. A Sabbath Sensibility, finding a rhythm of rest and work, gives the needed time and energy for affection. And so, what better moment then the Lord's Day for us all, not just the "young mother," to learn the lessons of Charity:

"Is [the living room] not a picture in ordinary terms of what families are all about; namely, that these few people, thrust together and bound by the odd ties of flesh and blood, are given the chance to begin to learn the one big lesson that all men are given to learn--the lessons of Charity? That is, we were made for love, we are commanded to love, and since it doesn't come naturally to us, we have to learn to love. The family situation is, as it were, the elementary schoolroom where we start learning in small, easy, and natural ways to love--that is, to discover that self-giving, freedom, and joy are all one thing" (Splendor in the Ordinary, p. 47)

As we bask in self-giving, freedom, and joy are souls expand, bringing life and peace.

"All the loving attentiveness [the parent] gives [their] children is food for their souls. When the child is a small baby, all those smiles and kind words, the laughing and playfulness, and the [parental] delight and pride in each new accomplishment is used by God to prosper the baby's soul. And it continues as the child grows. Even the smallest gesture, if done in love and kindness, is nourishing. We want our children to have fat little souls, to be healthy plants, as in Psalm 144:12: "that our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth."...We cannot think that a prayer at bedtime and reading a Bible story to them occasionally will counteract the damage done day in and day out by the foul air the children breathe in the home day after day all year long...By the grace of God, [parents] can provide peaceful and joyful feasts which nourish both body and soul. Listening to your children, taking them on your lap and talking with them, and being affectionate and loving to them will of course take time. Just as preparing and serving good food takes time, so feeding our children's souls take time...We cannot see how reading this story one more time will be like a second helping of mashed potatoes but it is. God uses all these things we do, when we render them unto Him by faith, to strengthen, nourish, and grow our children up into men and women with fat souls..." (Building Her House, p. 62-63).

*These pictures were taken by Amy on a Sabbath Day in September 2009.

a defense of home food preservation and how to start with a bunch of little ones underfoot!

This is the time of year for good eats. Vegetables and fruit are plentiful in the garden, at the farmer's market, and on sale at the grocery store. The time of year when many of our great-grandmothers and their mothers and their mothers (the first frugal, simple, green-living mommas--thanks, Allie!) began preserving the harvest.

But then we were persuaded that this sort of work was drudgery. We were convinced that what came from the grocery store was more convenient and more sophisticated...That faster was better...

But after reading books about eating a local, sustainable diet (Nabhan, Pollan, Kingsolver, Berry, Slow Food Movement) it's hard to not want to lock up as much of the summer goodness as you can. And it's hard not to question thin promises of convenience, efficiency, and freedom. I've had all kinds of work that I could label at times as drudgery--sales clerk, teaching, writing, grading, even when I was a travel director. I've waited in line at the fast food restaurant and no matter how fast it comes, do we really think it's worth it? We're beginning to hear more of the costs of this type of eating for our health and our environment.

And yet, for me, trying to preserve our food myself is a challenge. First, I don't know what I'm doing! Second, I've got 3 children under 5. Isn't it enough to spend my time caring for them? Why learn this new time-consuming task?

It's a way to be frugal by stocking up on fresh fruit and vegetables at their cheapest (though there is the initial cost of jars and other equipment).

It's a way to eat well--produce is at the peak of its freshness and tastiness, packed with sunshine and vitamins. No additives, high-fructose corn syrup and other things we can't pronounce.

It's a way to become self-sufficient and productive. Most household economies produce nothing. We consume and consume and consume with little to show for it. We grow so tired consuming that we need to stop at the fast food store on the way home to cope; we complain of the drudgery.That's not the way it always was. And women's lives were filled with the knowledge and effort of real work for the good of their household. Work which brings delight to a family when a jar of homemade strawberry syrup is cracked open on a wintery morning.

And for these reasons and more, it's a way to eat sacramentally. In chapter one of his book, Living the Sabbath, Norman Wirzba explains that sacramental eating affirms the grace and beneficence of God made concrete: "we can learn to grow food and eat in a way that reflects thanksgiving and praise to God" (p. 27). As an illustration, he describes his grandfather, a small-time chicken farmer, who ate with a "realistic and palpable sense of the goodness and the costliness of creation--after all these chickens had died so he could eat. Their death could not be taken lightly, nor could their living. And so [the chicken's] very being demanded [the family's] respect and care. His eating was a sacramental eating, because it affirmed the grace and beneficence of God made concrete in the midst of his living. It was a Sabbath eating, permeated by his thanksgiving and praise to God" (p. 28).

And so, in this light, my small attempts to seek out good, healthy, sustainable, (yet affordable) food and then to preserve it for our family's use becomes a way for me to move toward more grateful and worshipful ways of being.

But how do we begin? Though I suggested some of these possibilities in this post, I'd like to suggest that preserving food through canning, freezing and drying is another place for sacramental eating to start.

And so here are a few ways that I have begun my attempts at food preservation over the last few years even when pregnant or with a new baby or little ones underfoot.


1. Learn from those who know. While I am a book person and I turn to the Internet for the littlest questions, there is nothing better than getting to watch up close and ask questions from someone of experience. Back in Wisconsin, I showed no shame and asked the women in my church who I heard put up their own tomato sauce if I could come over on one of their canning days. I asked a pie baker and a pesto maker to give me lessons. I was surprised when they seemed flattered and graciously shared advice and techniques. I enjoyed their company and hope I even helped. Space was created for fellowship as our conversations floated to topics such as house management, schooling, discipline, and God's work in our lives. "Work Bees" aren't part of most communities anymore and we wonder why it is so difficult to naturally create the kind of nurturing that Titus 2 describes.

If you don't know of anyone, ask a like-minded friend who also wants to learn. My sister-in-law has been great for this as I posted about here. With a friend, someone can hold the fort down, while the other nurses the baby or changes a diaper; children are occupied with a friend to play with.

2. Start with a clean work station. Tidy your house the night before, clear off lots of space on your counter tops. Wash all your jars and lids ahead of time.


3. Check and prep as much as possible the night before. Reread the directions and ingredients list. In a busy household, nothing can set you back more than a sink of dirty dishes or missing 1 tablespoon of lemon juice!


4. Plan ahead for meals that day. This is your morning for cold cereal and a banana and an even easier lunch. Have dinner ready to go in the crockpot or use up meals in the freezer. Nothing is more frustrating that to have worked for hours in the kitchen to then realize its supper time and you have nothing to show for it.

5. Plan what you'll do with your little ones. Maybe you can swap babysitting with a girlfriend--what an incentive to preserve--a morning to yourself?! But otherwise, have coloring books, playdough, or a new book on tape ready to go. And though we try to limit all screen time in our house, we're all about letting them watch an online classic sesame street video or an old Disney opera from the 1930s here and there.

But best of all, try to incorporate them into your activities.

Even preschoolers can fill the measuring cup with berries, be in charge of the mashing, cut off stems. In doing so, they get time with you. They learn all sorts of skills-measuring, counting, volume, following directions, fine motor skills. You also start instilling a culture of work and good habits into their life which can turn into their own experiences of delight.


6. But since your household is a busy one, minimize as many distractions as possible. Like the telephone! Use a timer; I never used one before kids but now I can stick something in the broiler for 3 minutes and then head off to change a diaper and completely forget the oven. Canning has lots of directions like boil for 15 minutes or simmer for 3 so I use a timer.



7. Start with easy stuff. Try one new thing each week or month or year!
For those of you who have never canned before, freezing your fresh herbs and vegetables is a simple start. Freezer jam is another great way to cheat at canning for the first timer. It requires little effort and is so delicious. Then build your repertoire slowly. Conquer your favorite fruit, put up your prized tomatoes.

Well, like I said, I have much to learn in this area and for much of my life I would have been resistant to the idea, but my hope is that "as our sensitivities expand and as our appreciation for the complex, gracious ways of God grows, we will gradually find that gratitude and praise are irrepressible. To experience God's hesed or covenantal love in the midst of our practical living is to enter God's domain of blessing and joy...As we learn to attend and respond to the creative, vivifying action of God among us, we will learn to participate in a Sabbath singing that is now attuned to and extends God's rhythms of delight and peace" (Weirzba p. 29).

All that from a jar of tomato sauce? Sign me up!

Sabbath Poem-The First Greens of Spring

While I'm not cool enough to know how to forage for greens yet, I'm pretty proud of those lettuce greens sprouting. This winter has also seemed especially long for us and so the first green of spring was much cheered!




I love this poem's hints of resurrection--" we and the world / are alive again today, and this is the world's birthday" and, perhaps, life-after-death-- " this green, this life, / harbinger of things to come." I thought the poem appropriate for the day we celebrate the Resurrection, not just in Easter Season, but every Sunday of the year! Hope you were able to enjoy the sweet first green of spring this Lord's Day!

The First Green of Spring

by David Budbill

Out walking in the swamp picking cowslip, marsh and marigold,
this sweet first green of spring. Now sautéed in a pan melting
to a deeper green than ever they were alive, this green, this life,

harbinger of things to come. Now we sit at the table munching
on this message from the dawn which says we and the world
are alive again today, and this is the world's birthday. And

even though we know we are growing old, we are dying, we
will never be young again, we also know we're still right here
now, today, and, my oh my! don't these greens taste good.

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2001/04/09

See other Sabbath poems, by clicking the subject heading in the LABELS toolbar to the right!

Sabbath Poem-Spring by Hopkins

Here is the Sabbath Poem we read last Sunday on our drive to church. It was so fitting as everything is becoming "long and lovely and lush." This is our first Spring in Pennsylvania and it simply amazes us.

There were several times during the week that lines of the poem came back to me.
I often asked myself when outside in our garden, on a nature walk, jogging through the neighborhood, on a trip to Longwood Gardens with my mom and sister-in-law: "What is this juice and all this joy?"

It is the end of my husband's first year teaching at a new university, the baby is now 7 months old, we are feeling more settled after our move and so I feel the weight of it all being "rins[ed] and wring[ed]" away! My fear, though, is much like Hopkins. All is so sweet and beautiful, will it "cloud," will it "sour"?

Well, wishing you a blessed Lord's Day. On this Sunday in Spring, as Hopkins, "have, get" a glimpse of Eden and thus, be filled with the hope of heaven.


Nothing is so beautiful as spring—
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden.—Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid's child, thy choice and worthy the winning.


For a further basic analysis of the poem.

The Lord's Day is for Delight

Let us not forget, even in this season of Lent, our hope is sure. On the Lord's Day we remember what Christ's death and resurrection accomplished for us and we rejoice.

“For behold, I create new heavens

and a new earth,

and the former things shall not be remembered

or come into mind.

But be glad and rejoice forever

in that which I create;

for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy,

and her people to be a gladness.

I will rejoice in Jerusalem

and delight in my people;

no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping

and the cry of distress. Isaiah 65: 17-19.

We enter into the Lord's delight of his redeemed creation.

 

A Sabbath walk, enjoying sunshine and melting snow.

We learn to receive with open hand the sun and the snow.

 

The Fast is broken with this gooey goodness.

These all look to you,

to give them their food in due season.

When you give it to them, they gather it up;

when you open your hand, they are filled with good things...

When you send forth your Spirit, they are created,

and you renew the face of the ground. Psalm 104:27-30.

 

We celebrate with joy the gifts from His Hands. 

 

 A Blessed Sabbath!

Amy

Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places

For this Sabbath, a bit of Gerard Manley Hopkins:

— for Christ plays in ten thousand places, 

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his 

To the Father through the features of men's faces. 

I caught a glimpse...

May you too find one of those ten thousand places on this Lord's Day. 

A Blessed Sabbath. 

Amy

Third Sunday after Epiphany-Following Jesus

Our Prayer for this week:

Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.



For this week's Sabbath Feast, our focus will be about Jesus' call to his disciples to follow Him from the Book of Mark. We will discuss how we too can "proclaim the good news of God" in our home, neighborhood, and church with our family, friends, and strangers.

This call fits so well in the season of Epiphany. He has made Himself Manifest and as we follow Him, we can reflect His light to others.

For our feast, we will begin 3 courses: a simple green salad, Roasted Chicken with mash potatoes and asparagus and finish with brownies. I hope to use the leftover chicken for chicken salad sandwiches on Sunday, Chicken Tetrazzini to go in the deep freeze, and a Chicken Soup for Monday.

I've printed these coloring pages for the kids: http://new.catholicmom.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/01_25_09.pdf

And we will play a fishing puzzle we have too!

I'll let you know how it goes! Love to hear how your family time went and what the Third Sunday after Epiphany means to you.



Readings and collect can be found at http://www.io.com/~kellywp/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpi3_RCL.html



Jonah 3:1-5, 10Psalm 62: 6-141 Corinthians 7: 29-31Mark 1:14-20

Sabbath Poem- A Call to Wait

Milton always believed he possessed great powers for which God would hold him responsible. He believed he would write an immortal poem but sacrificied his eyesight during England's Civil War.

This poem is his response to that; one in which I find great comfort when I'm particularly feeling the smallness of my world and question if my "talent...lodged with me useless." Patience' answer is not one we hear often anymore in this age of self-esteem and self-acutalization: "God doth not need either [Amy's] work or [her] gifts." I will serve Him best when I "bear his mild yoke...and wait."

Milton went on to write Paradise Lost, considered by many the greatest poem in the English language, dictating to his daughter since he could no longer write.

Hoping we may find the courage today to stop all of our busyness even when the cares of the world are heavy upon us and our to-do list long, remembering that "his State is Kingly: thousands at his bidding speed...without rest." Whatever we may think is so important we must accomplish it today, our job on this Lord's Day is to find comfort and rest in Him.

Now enough of me, the poem:

On His Blindness by John Milton

WHEN I consider how my light is spent

E're half my days, in this dark world and wide,

And that one Talent which is death to hide,

Lodg'd with me useless, though my Soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, least he returning chide,

Doth God exact day-labour, light deny'd,

I fondly ask; But Patience to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need

Either man's work or his own gifts, who best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best, his State

Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed

And post o're Land and Ocean without rest:

They also serve who only stand and wait.

My Summer Reading List

Here are the books I hope to read over the next few weeks while we're traveling or hubby is away from home. Most I was able to find at the library, if we don't already own them. We have a moratorium on book-buying until we can afford more book cases!!

But we don't always save up to buy books from one of our top 5 favorite book store in the country, the Inklings. The store owners have the "vision to promote 'the good, the true, and the beautiful,' with a special concern for fostering good reading from a Christian world-view." If you are in ever in Lynchburg, VA, you must stop to browse and enjoy a plate of Beignet!

I cried when the Harry W. Schwartz Bookstores, after 82 years in business and surviving the Great Depression, closed in the Milwaukee area this last year. Its founder was one of "the first champions of then-controversial 20th-century authors such as William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway. He also sold erotically charged literature, including "Ulysses" by James Joyce and "Tropic of Cancer" by Henry Miller." They made their business successful by knowing good books and the community. Schwartz distilled a philosophy he believed would help his small chain survive: A book is "a precious article that can change people's lives... it is a social prophet; we have a social contract. The bookshop is larger than a place of commerce. It really believes in the book and bookstores and the people. This is not something you can buy. This is not a clever marketing concept." But sadly this was not enough after all for this bookseller.

And I will cry again if the Inklings ever closes due to economics, the Internet or the big box "bookstore" chain.

So though I have linked the books to Amazon.com for easiest reference, if you have a great bookstore in your neighborhood like Schwartz or the Inklings, by all means, go now before it is too late!

Christian Non-Fiction:
Evangelical is Not Enough by Thomas Howard
A User's Guide to Holy Eucharist by Christopher Webber
The Eucharistic Way by John Baycroft
rereading and working through Sabbath Living by Norman Wirzba

Homeschooling/Parenting:
Honey for a Child's Heart: the imaginative use of books in family life by Gladys Hunt
When Children Love to Learn by by Elaine Cooper, Eve Anderson, Susan Schaeffer Macaulay, and Jack Beckman
A Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola
Start The Original Homeschooling Series by Charlotte Mason if I can save up money to purchase it!

Fiction:
Home by Marilynne Robinson, sequel to Gilead
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
More of Wendell Berry's Port Williams series


Food/Gardening/Cooking:
The Busy Person's Guide to Preserving Food by Janet Chadwick
Ball's The Complete Book of Home Preserving
How to pick a peach:The search for Flavor from farm to table by Russ Parsons
Local Flavors by Deborah Madison
Slow Food Nation: Why our Food should be Good, Clean, and Fair by Carlo Petrini
Second Nature: A Gardener's Education by Michael Pollan
Plenty: One Man, One Woman and a Racuous Year of Eating Locally by
The Green Gardener's Guide by Joe Lamp'l


With the Kids:
Classic picture books according to the letter of the week. This week is K-K-Kangaroo.
Little House on the Prairie at bedtime

Christian Books with the kids:
A Children's Guide to Worship by Ruth Boling
Come Worship with Me by Ruth Boling
A Child's Guide to the Holy Eucharist Commentary by Sarah Horton
What we do in church: An Anglican Child's activity book by Anne e. Kitch
The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes by Kenneth Taylor