Hospitality ~ Invitation

The invitation:

Come…bundle up with your boots and woolies to gather under the almost full moon and around the bonfire!

Come…celebrate the darkness on the Winter’s Solstice Eve and give thanks for the Light that is coming!

Come…there’ll be hot cocoa, wassail*, and s’mores.  Bring a plate of cookies if you’d like but it’s not required.

Come…Friday, December 21, 6:30 – 8:30; come for 20 minutes or stay for 2 hours!

Come…follow the luminarias to the barn in the back!

                                                         

   The luminarias were lit…

                                            

The fire roared…

 

                                                   

The table was spread…

 

                                          

A snowperson was built (at least 8 feet tall)…

                             

And, Winter began!

                                                                                

*Wassail:

Mix together 1 gallon of apple juice, 12 oz can of frozen orange juice and 3 cans of water, and 6 oz can of frozen lemonade and 3 cans of water.  Put in cheesecloth or teaball: 1 teaspoon cloves, 1 teaspoon cinnamon or 2 short cinnamon sticks, and 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg and put in the pot.  Bring to a boil, then simmer for 30 minutes or more.  Makes your house smell wonderful.  Serve hot!

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“Come, Ye Thankful People, Come”

Come, Ye thankful people come, Raise the song of harvest home.

Creator of all seasons, Giver of autumn: with grateful hearts we offer our thanks for the gift of life itself, for each of the earth’s seasons, for each day, for each hour, for each breath we take.

All is safely gathered in, Ere the winter storm begins.  

O Holy One, You invite us to a life of paradox.   In this season we both gather up what has been planted  and we are called to let go, to release our need for control.   Thank You for the farmers harvesting their crops and for the trees losing their leaves ~ both which invite us to this paradox of faith.   

God our Maker, doth provide, For our wants to be supplied.  

God of Abundance, indeed You provide in familiar and mysterious ways.   We offer these words of gratitude for Your provisions…    

Come to God’s own temple come, Raise the song of harvest home.  

In all times, in all places, with all people, You are present.   Wherever we are, we are in Your temple and for this we offer our thanks.    

All the world is God’s own field, Fruit unto his praise to yield.  

We marvel at the ways You bring us together, the stories we each  bring from places near and far, the experiences that have shaped  our lives and now add fragrance to our lives.  We praise You for  Your fields everywhere and offer our prayers for all Your people  living and working in each corner of the world, seeking to share  the message of Your love and grace.   

Wheat and tares together sown, Unto joy or sorrow grown.  

It is by Your grace that wheat and tares grow side by side,  both the joys and sorrows filling our lives.  In this season  of Thanksgiving, with an emphasis on family, we name those  who live in times of despair and sorrow right now, asking for  Your abiding love and comforting grace to be present with them…   

First the blade, and then the ear, Then the full corn shall appear.  

Over and over the natural world reminds us of Your wondrous ways.   Quiet our hearts, O God, when we are anxious about the future.   Give us pause to wonder at the miracle of the seasons and  the cycle of growth of all living things.   

Lord of harvest, grant that we Wholesome grain and pure may be.

You call us Your beloved and desire that we draw closer to You.   This day we ask Your blessing on our fellowship, our sharing,  our seeking, our desires that we may grow in our likeness of You.   This, and all prayers, we offer in the name of the One who fully lived Your love.  Amen.

 

(Adapted from the one of my favorite Thanksgiving hymns, “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come.”)

                                                                         

 

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Saving the Story

On this All Saints’ Day, with gratitude for all who have gone before, are with us now, and are yet to come…

                                   

Saving the Story 

There’s something that happens when women gather in the kitchen, preparing a meal or cleaning up.  The particular task isn’t important; what matters is that hands are busy and hearts are open. This is not a new phenomenon, it’s been happening since God was a little girl.                                 

On a Saturday morning, the sun rises outside as it casts new daylight on the barn out back.  I take out the “Ultimate Bread” cookbook, given to me by Mom two birthdays ago, to make Cranberry Muffins.  Mom comes into the kitchen, with one of her signature cloth bags, and we continue our conversation about creativity and writing.  “Whenever the day comes that you and your brothers have to go through our stuff, you know that there will be lots of papers.  I save all the cards and letters that you three write.  I can’t throw them away.  I just like the way you use words.”  We talk some more about saving cards and such.  At this point I open the back of the cookbook I was using, and show her the birthday card she had written to me when she gave me the book.  I had taped the card inside the book.  To save it.  “I think I understand,” I tell her.  “It must be in our genes and we can’t help it.”         

Mom continues to tell me about all the journals that her Grandma kept.  Great Grandma Frank is my mother’s mother’s mother – that direct maternal link that mysteriously weaves together our hearts.  Twenty-two years ago I wore Grandma Frank’s wedding dress as my own.  And now I feel a stronger bond with her as I learn of her writing.  Mom tells me more about her.  She kept daily journals, not necessarily poetic but recording life as it happened.  She wrote to senators and the like, expressing her concern about events and decisions.  But she didn’t spend all her time with pen in hand.  She was married to Bert, a farmer, which meant that she was also a farmer ~ skimming cream from the large milk basin, making buttermilk, growing and harvesting grapes (I remember the trellis near the kitchen), tending to the chickens which probably meant she also butchered and cleaned chickens (I’ve entertained the thought of raising chickens – but only for eggs – perhaps this too is in the genes,) and the countless other jobs that a farmer’s wife did 100 years ago.  She gave birth to seven children, and grieved the death of Phillip’s twin and of Margaret who died on her fourth birthday.  Various folk sought refugee in her home – her mother after she had a stroke, Aunt Lizzie, Bob, Johnny, Barbara, Tom, and probably a few others.  She was deeply interested in genealogy and researched the Howell and Newberry families – before the days of easy library access and the wealth of information available by Internet.  Fortunately Mom has a copy of this, among the papers that she is saving.                     

On her 63^rd birthday, Grandma Frank wrote, “Today I turn 63.  What do I have to show for my life?”  The age old question that us women ask of ourselves – as if we’ve done nothing!  Women who have raised families of their own and of others, who have nurtured and nourished family with what was on hand, who have found avenues to direct creative desires and gifts, who have contributed in countless ways to the larger community.  It is in the genes, but not just in this family.  The particular expressions vary from mother to mother, but it is how we have been created.  And when we listen to our hearts, and follow that leading, the world is a better place.                                         

Stirring the muffin batter, looking out at the barn that someday could house chickens, recalling the words that have spilled forth from my heart and how Ruthann and Rachel have done the same, the bond between daughter and mother and grandmother and great-grandmother grows stronger.  And my roots grow a little deeper.  And, from deep within my heart, I offer words of thanks. 

                                                                          

            

(This was written 2 years ago and this seems the place to share it, at least for now…)                                                           

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Favorite Dessert

Last week I spent time with 3 high school friends at our annual summer reunion.  As usual we ate well, went to the beach, laughed a lot and then laughed some more, stayed up late playing Hand & Foot, and ate some more.  We shared stories of parenting and families and pets, and ideas about how to eat better or how to at least have more fun eating.  We make a great group, and I’m sure our names give us a special identity: Cathy, Cathy, Kathy, and Dana (she’s the tall one.)  But one of the things I like best about our time together is dessert ~ that is, dessert at breakfast.  Organic Dark Chocolate for dessert at breakfast!

Now I’m debating whether to keep up that tradition at home to enjoy all year, or let it hold it’s “specialness factor” just at our summer reunion.  Hmmm…..

Do you have a favorite dessert for breakfast?

 

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