Concrete-sky and stew

Madi and I took Truff to the Trappist Abbey today for a very wet hike. The leaves were glistening under our feet in the brilliant colors of fall--russet and golden yellow and amber and coffee--and the gray sky made the perfect contrast for the few remaining trees with leaves. One tall tree was a dramatic goldernrod against the concrete-gray sky and it was beautiful. Truff was in dog-paradise going after every scent and checking out the pond and a the waterfall and rooting around in the wet leaves. We walked around the pond a few times, adventured up one path, discovered some communal walking sticks (one of which Madi selected and then was hard pressed to leave it behind) and found a few future paths we will have to take. We stopped at By the Way cafe on the way home in Lafayette. I have been looking for a place like this around here! I think that is only open for breakfast and lunch and is a true diner. I had a bowl of stew and a piece of texas toast and a midwest iceberg lettuce salad. It needed some serious salt, but I am not ruling this place out, I just need to try something else. And sometimes iceberg lettuce with honeymustard, buttered toast, and stew with some added salt is just what you need. Madi had the kid's one cake + bacon/sausage + one egg deal which turned out to be a real score for $3.50. Her pancake was bigger than her plate, the scrambled egg must have been three eggs, and she loved the sausage, although I got the bacon because it was too crispy. As we were leaving, I saw a man get the double hamburger which was seriously 9 inches tall. I want to take Clint there to try out the burger because he does like a good burger.

Madi worried about Truff the whole time because he was alone in the car and very despairing. She smuggled him back a piece of meat from my stew and a chunk of pancake, so I don't think he truly suffered.

Those are our sunday afternoon adventures. Now Madi has been assigned her room to make presentable, but I think that she is styling the American Girl's hair. I am contemplating what I should do this afternoon. Clint's taking a nap so the laundry I need to put away is off limits, happily. I am delighted in "At Home in Mitford" and perhaps that is a perfect read for today. It gives me a fresh perspective about life and challenging people and gives me more grace in my eyes.

Mom with her choice rose from the Portland Rose Gardens. Miss you, Mom!

OWL

Madi was in a drama camp this past week and she was Owl in a compilation of Winnie the Pooh shorts. The drama took place outside in a version of the Hundred Acre Wood.

District 9

Last night Clint and I went to see District 9 and I can't get it out of my mind. I have never seen any film like it. It completely took me surprise. I assumed that I was going in for a sci-fi thriller movie (which it is), but it is also this super-creative, thoughtful, realistic commentary on our world. I thought it was incredibly gruesome and bloody, way too much for me. And yet it was an excellent film in the most surprising way. The transformation of the main character (internal and external) was marvelous (although his internal transformation was really just a shred of humanitarian dignity, but it was there). But really amazed me was the way that they moved us emotionally to care about these very slimy aliens who in every way seemed at first more animal than rational. This is a brilliant film. The most creative, intelligent, fascinating blood and guts film ever.

Serendipity

So I got it all ready...the perfect picnic, the fam-friendly games, the blankets, the bug spray, the citronella candle, the crystal-light, the daughter, the husband--and into the car setting off to McMinnville to catch a little "As You Like It". I have fond memories of Shakespeare in the park in our Lexington KY days marking the end of summer. And we had been planning on this little outdoor theatre for awhile. We sped down the road to the 20 minute away destination and I realized one fatal flaw: no mapquest directions. I assumed I knew where The Ed Grenfell Park was in McMinnville, but now I was having my doubts. We quickly found what I thought was the right park, only to find that it wasn't and ONE HOUR later (and literally 7 relatively unhelpful people later) we finally found the park. By that time we were all stressy and hungry and the play had started. We opted for another park, picnic on our own, the scenic route through one of those fabulous wooden play structures and then a trip to the Serendipity ice cream shoppe. Definitely a place that needs to be spelled "shoppe" and not "shop" as Madi pointed out.

This is a fantastic ice cream shop, complete with player piano. Clint had a coffee ice cream malt, Madi had super-sour ice cream (green apple/watermelon mix) with sprinkles in a waffle cone dish, and I had a perfect dark chocolate fudge sauce sundae with whipped cream and a cherry. The evening was restored. We had a great time laughing on the way home. Everything that Madi said cracked her own self up. She was her own personal jester. A very happy fam night which could have been a small disaster (and was for the hour that we zoomed around McMinnville). And I ate a spider on purpose at the picnic...but that's another story.

Mindful of the Perfect Banana Chocolate Chip Muffin

I am reading mindful eating and so here I go:

I am eating a perfect banana-chocolate chip muffin. It's golden, smallish in size, but not so small to be considered mini. It's a normal homemade muffin on the small size. None of that cafe-style muffin that you might get in the bakery that catches your eye through the glass with its grandiosity and sugary-crumble top. Those kind of muffins are seductive and wooing, but with promise of indulgence and gluttony guilt to come. And then after you eat the extra-large giant bakery muffin, you have that overly-starched "I shouldn't have eaten that" feeling with the faint taste of preservative in your mouth and a slight sugarhaze that paired with strong coffee either jump starts your morning or leaves you craving bacon or another unsightly protein.
No, this muffin is homemade, home muffin tin size, perfectly golden, a bit crumbly, and unsymmetrical. It's perfect in that it is not perfect, it's irregular, which any more means that it is perfect. We have so much perfect in our lives: perfect houses, perfect teeth, perfect fake plants, perfect highlighted hair, that anymore to have something that is Real it has to be delightfully irregular. So this muffin is irregular and unsymmetrical. It has two or three half-melted chocolate chips on top and perhaps the chance of more hidden within. The smell is satisfying, and almost you could smell this muffin and be satiated, but not quite.
It tastes of sweet banana, bittersweet chocolate, warm, gooey muffin consistency and no strange aftertaste. It fills my stomach with warmth on the inside. And with my french roast coffee (with extra fat-free cream) my stomach feels so content. Did I say that this is the second muffin?
I have finished now. All that is left is a few crumbs on my white plate and a smear of chocolate.
The book says to pay attention to what my body is telling me about what I ate so that I will know if I am satisfied or in need of more. Mind? Heart? Belly? Tastebuds? Hands?
My mind tells me that the combination of coffee and banana-chocolate chip muffin is a winner. I could eat this everyday. I know that the muffin is fat-free (with the exception of the few chocolate chips I added in) and that it was small-ish so it was a healthy portion. My mind is thinking of what is ahead in this day and all that needs to be accomplished, but how much I am enjoying typing and journalling today and that this is perhaps the best work that I can do. But then there is the weed-pulling in the garden.
My heart is telling me that I need lots of time to write and reflect in life with the aid of perfect muffins to be truly happy.
My body is telling me...I have a slight sore throat, and perhaps the beginnings of a cold. There is some tiredness behind my eyes. My muscles in my shoulders and neck are a little tight. My body is kind of tired in general, like before you get sick.
My belly is full, pleasantly,happily.
My mouth would like another muffin. It really enjoys the tastes of coffee and muffin and would like to eat two more. My mind argues with my mouth. My belly is not needing it. My body would like some more because it feels as though it needs mores sustenance to ward off the cold and energize me into all that has to be accomplished today.
So apparently what do I really need right now?
More muffin? more coffee? more sleep? more writing?
In a perfect world I wouldn't have to accommodate my desire for sleep, writing, resting, playing around my need to pull weeds, fill the dishwasher, put away clothes, clean the fish aquarium, vacuum out the car, and convince my daughter to clean her room (which requires more work than for me to do it). In a perfect world everything would be perfect. But is it the irregularities that make this world perfect? Is the pull and press of all of the things in life that create the irregularities and cracks that make it Real and therefore most delicious? I don't know about all that.
I think I will just go get another muffin.

Unstoppable

Here is this 1989 inteview between Mother Teresa and Time Magazine. Mother Teresa's theology of ministry and leadership is captured well. Mother Teresa refused to become a celebrity.

Q. What did you do this morning?
A. Pray.

Q. When did you start?
A. Half past four.

Q. And after prayer?
A. We try to pray through our work by doing it with Jesus, for Jesus, to Jesus. That helps us put our whole heart and soul into doing it. The dying, the crippled, the mentally ill, the unwanted, the unloved -- they are Jesus in disguise.

Q. People know you as a sort of religious social worker. Do they understand the spiritual basis of your work?
A. I don't know. But I give them a chance to come and touch the poor. Everybody has to experience that. So many young people give up everything to do just that. This is something so completely unbelievable in the world, no? And yet it is wonderful. Our volunteers go back different people.

Q. Does the fact that you are a woman make your message more understandable?

A. I never think like that.

Q. But don't you think the world responds better to a mother?
A. People are responding not because of me but because of what we are doing. I think that before people were speaking much about the poor, but now more and more people are speaking to the poor. That is the great difference. Before, nobody bothered about the people in the street. We have picked up from the streets of Calcutta 54,000 people, and 23,000-something have died in that one room (at Kalighat).

Q. Humble as you are, it must be an extraordinary thing to be a vehicle of God's grace in the world.
A. But it is his work. I think God wants to show his greatness by using nothingness.

Q. You feel you have no special qualities?
A. I don't think so. I don't claim anything of the work. It is his work. I am like a little pencil in his hand. That is all. He does the thinking. He does the writing. The pencil has nothing to do with it. The pencil has only to be ) allowed to be used. In human terms, the success of our work should not have happened, no?

Q. What is God's greatest gift to you?
A. The poor people.

Q. How are they a gift to you?
A. I have an opportunity to be 24 hours a day with Jesus.

Q. Here in Calcutta, have you created a real change?
A. I think so. People are aware of the presence, and also many, many, many Hindu people share with us. Now we never see a person lying there in the street dying. It has created a worldwide awareness of the poor.

Q. Beyond showing the poor to the world, have you conveyed any message about how to work with the poor?
A. You must make them feel loved and wanted. They are Jesus for me. I believe in that much more than doing big things for them.

Q. Friends of yours say you are disappointed that your work has not brought more conversions in this great Hindu nation.
A. Missionaries don't think of that. They only want to proclaim the word of God. Numbers have nothing to do with it. But the people are putting prayer into action by coming and serving the people. Everywhere people are helping. There may not be a big conversion like that, but we do not know what is happening in the soul.

Q. People who work with you say you are unstoppable. You always get what you want.
A. That's right. All for Jesus.

Q. What are your plans for the future?
A. I just take one day. Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not come. We have only today to love Jesus.

Q. And the future of the order?
A. It is his concern.

-- Edward D. Desmond, "A Pencil in the Hand of God"(1989 accessed August 27 2007); available from http://www.time.com/time/reports/motherteresa/t891204.html.