new heaven and new earth

this morning's readings from Isaiah 65 and Revelation 21

reverberating promises of a new heaven and a new earth 
   He will make all things new

a morning like this, where pink sunlight seeps into the darkness
pink backdrop for new white snow on roof tops and tree branches 

makes you consider that it might be possible
perhaps a Creator could take this world,
   turn it upside down, give it a shake, and renew all things

how much more difficult is that
than reducing himself to a specific space and time

immersion into this old earth
to plant seeds of eternity

like a pearl
like a treasure buried in a field
like a mustard seed
like a city, dressed up as a bride

like nothing you have ever seen

What is your name?

These spinning days after the death of my parents have left me sometimes groping for a footing.

Questions posed by Mark Buchanan, in Spiritual Rhythm:  Being with Jesus Every Season of Your Soul, are quoted from Monty Python's The Holy Grail as a travellor sought to gain permission to cross a bridge:

 

1.  What is your name?
Darlene (my father sometimes called me Darry, very few friends shorten this to "Dar")
Gloria (also the name of my grandson's 2nd favorite monkey ... because of his favorite Christmas carol)
Krahn Driedger Klassen (men I have been named after) 
Once, a few months ago, someone asked me my maiden name, and I said--oh so definitely-- "Guenther". 
"No it's not!!" corrected my daughter with some alarm. 
No.  I guess not. That was my mother's name.  But for a moment that felt true.
 
2. Where are you going? 

• to the coast
• a little insane
• always just a bit farther

ok.  The actual question was:
2.  What is your quest?

• to find beauty ... in gardens, and in friendships, and in this wonderful world
• Jesus
• faithfulness

3.  What is your favorite color?

A few years ago I would have said green.  This summer's color was yellow.  But I think that my favorite color is whatever color my flowers have chosen.  The bright pink of October  snapdragons answer the question today. 

 

 

 

marking Novembers by the gingerbread houses

The date on the Better Homes and Gardens Christmas Cookies gives me away.   

1993
Display until January 5 

... Make our Charming Fairy-Tale Gingerbread Cottage ...

For some reason, I picked up this magazine in the checkout at one of the Lethbridge grocery stores in our first fall living in southern Alberta, and thought to myself, "I could do this."  I think it may have sat on my shelves for a year while I gathered courage and made a plan.  and a list.  (I am not a crafty person ...)

I sent the girls off to school while my 6 month old observed the first foray into gingerbread house building.
My friend arrived around 9 in the morning, after sending the older kids off to school.  We mixed, rolled, cut, baked, re-cut, assessed building plans, assembled, dismantled, reassembled, built, salvaged, and decorated those houses, finishing them off just before midnight. 
In the midst of the general chaos, lunches were made, a few diapers changed, supper was served and family members send off to another room to leave the builders to their work.  We made our first apple cider that year as well - another recipe from the 1993 issue.

Next year, we decided, we would do the baking on a separate day, and then build them together. 
The year after that I let the girls contribute by putting the mini-wheats onto the roof. 
The year after that, they pursuaded me to bake them their own houses, forcing the project to a weekend. 

Candy, gingerbread and icing ruled the kitchen, and clean up sometimes took as long as construction.  Gradually I found myself relegated to the position of purchaser, porch-maker, chief advisor, roof caving-specialist, construction assistant and icing maker.  I didn't mind.  It was just as much fun to watch my kids build the houses as to make my own.  Usually we stuck to the pattern, although Jeana always had ambitious cottage renovations in mind, and Josie and friends loved to add creative landscaping ideas. 

The youngest was born into a home where gingerbread houses were what we did in November.  Construction had navigated quite permanently to the Remembrance Day long weekend.  Since I was perpetually involved in Christmas programs of some kind, Christmas music had already permeated the house by early November - whether it was "Go, tell it on the Mountain" for preschoolers, or the musical, "A Strange Way to Save the World"  for elementary kids.

Our move to Saskatoon brought a question to  our gingerbread habit.  Did it belong here?  Apparently it did.  There were some years that I baked up to 4 houses.  Each of the kids started with 1/2 a house (the full cottage had a double room plan, so it was easily divided)  till they could guarantee that they would stick through the construction and decoration of an entire house. 

One gingerbread builder and her husband have built their own home now, another is an engineer working on a degree in city planning, another is involved in the construction trade, and the final gingerbread builder will finish high school in another year.  18 seasons of contruction have slipped by.       

Cue the violins for the sentimental music:

mini wheats and vanilla wafer shutters

graham wafer awnings

slipping sugar cookie roofs

candy cane lamp posts, listing and falling

woodpiles and chimneys

pathways and tree cones

kids' Christmas pageants playing their soundtrack

 trails of cookie crumbs, candy and icing tracking through the years

 

That this is worthy of the supreme teen-age boy's eye-roll, I am painfully aware.  A sentimental mother who often tried to slow down the days or years finds herself a fair way down the road from 1993.  This tradition happened accidentally.  I set out to do it once, and the next year, to improve, and then the next year our kids wanted to try, and then they wanted to bring their friends along.  Every once in a while there is a lull year, where I think perhaps there will be no houses built, but as I wander down the grocery aisles I see that mini wheats are on sale, and I pick up vanilla wafers, prezels, molasses, icing sugar, lifesavers and apple juice ... just in case. 

 

Bring on the next generation of builders!

 

 

 

Black bean and cilantro chili for a chili cook off!

We've had an annual chili cook off at church for several years now, where cooks bring their secret concoctions in crock pots and electric frying pans, and we gather after services to visit and sample the fun variety of food that shows up.  Each chili is named, and at the end of the meal, you can vote for your favorite chili (cowboy chili, carl's chili, 2 napkin chili, creamy white chili ... to name just a few).  

I decided to bring some chili this year, and when my son walked into the house last night, he commented on how good it smelled. That was problematic, because it had morphed over the evening into a completely non-reproducable recipe.

So.  when Lisa sat down at my table at the end of the meal to ask for the recipe, I tried to recall the steps ...

I browned a large tray of lean ground beef (about 3 pounds) in our electric frying pan.  Then added 2 cans of tomatoe soup, 1 can of diced tomatoes (with basil, oregano and garlic flavoring), 1 jar of tomatoes from Karen Friesen's garden last summer, 2 cans of drained black beans, and started it all simmering.

Then started chopping - the last 3 small onions from my garden, and 2 others medium sized onions, and 2 stalks of celery.  Added 5 cloves of garlic, minced, and sauted it all till soft.  Meanwhile, stirred in about 2 tablespoons cumin, and 2 tablespoons chili to the saute mix. 

When that was done, added it all to the meat mixture, and then began to add more flavor...  2 tablespoons Knorr bovril beef bouillon, another can of tomato soup, a really long and generous squirt of barbeque sauce, a thorough sprinkling of cinnamon,  and let it simmer. 

Meanwhile I made a spinach and strawberry salad for yesterday's supper, (dressing has oil, vinegar, worcestershire sauce, sugar and poppyseeds), and when the salad was done, there was a fair bit of dressing left over.  :)  Yup.  Added that to the simmering sauce. 

I refridgerated it overnight, and in the morning, added a whole bunch of fresh chopped cilantro to the mixture before letting it simmer for the morning.

Next up, if I can get it from him, Del's amazing spaghetti sauce!

another list of 50 ... from November's perspective

1. mounds of dirt
2. mother's hand
3. fresh fallen snow
4. christmas lights hung in the backyard in summer
5. hugs from a two year old
6. a surprise pumpkin spice latte from my son at the end of the day
7. Dakota, by Kathleen Norris
8. Circle of Quiet, by Madeline L'Engle
9. sitting on the floor with friends, legs crossed, talking about holy scriptures
10. echo's of angel choirs
11. unsolicited prayers
12. successfully absorbing and redirecting a solid hit from the other side of the volleyball net
13. my "exploding with fuschia blossoms in November" Christmas cactus
14. my new white garden swing, which has found a temporary home in the living room
15. my journal
16. a certain three story house in Winnipeg where my daughter is at home
17. old friendships
18. office with a window
19. hallway conversations
20. sacred watches through the night and past the sunrise
21. image of the invisible God
22. Salt of the Earth calendar - reorienting the days of the year
23. violin and guitar gigs (does playing for the Gideons count as a gig? :) ) with my Randy
24. wonderful in-laws
25. the anticipation of a book
26. my mom's journals
27. both of my sisters' music (one sings her own beautiful songs, the other plays Gaithers)
28. this city
29. my Dad's old 50 horse boat
30. a squirrel jumping through the new fallen snow on the back fence
31. a helpful salesperson
32. walking down Meewasin
33. pottery
34. quilts
35. bright eyes
36. life in West Portal's foyer
37. a long obedience in the same direction
38. canoes
39. Shekinah
40. McNally Robinson
41. long road trips
42. working together towards something grand
43. concrete dust in my house
44. sudden grin on a teenage boy's face
45. Shop Class as Soulcraft, by Matthew Crawford
46. a zip-lock bag of encouragement notes from Player's tour, orchestrated by Kaylee and Randy
47. open horizons for my children and grandchildren
48. the energy that my brother and family bring to a room
49. multi-colored guitar picks, and little fingers using them to strum my guitar
50. going out on a limb

a list of fifty, written in July

within 20 minutes, with no edits - just a random list of 50.  Because this is the summer of 50.  (Inspired by Elaine's list of 40!)

  

1. books
2. lilies
3. rhubarb
4. biking along the meewasin
5. easter sunrise
6. july thunderstorms
7. first harvest of raspberries
8. a three year old's prayer
9. a seventy seven year old's baptism
10. watching my daughter tend to her growing sons
11. tasting my daughter's new world
12. listening to music with my son
13. watching my son play basketball
14. early spring walk abouts in my yard
15. camping at rick and rene's in Grand Forks
16. tubing at rick and Rene's in Grand Forks
17. driving with my family
18. eating the food that Randy makes
19. tending my garden
20. weeding prayers
21. my freshly mown back lawn
22. the smell of my morden sunrise
23. playing volleyball
24. church with Norah
25. Del and Lois's back yard
26. first snow
27. skyping with Ray and Lisa
28. hearing Tyler coming up the front steps
29. long friendships
30. an evening of laughter
31. telling stories to children
32. listening to children tell stories
33. my new vacuum cleaner
34. the wicker chair on the front porch
35. the smell of the lilac
36. the sight of Hobbs draped over the kitchen railing
37. dirt biking along the river
38. tide pooling
39. the sound of the ocean all night long
40. sleeping under the stars
41. an unexpected note from a friend
42. a canoe on a glassy lake
43. everyone all together, remembering and laughing
44. a quiet place all to myself, for writing
45. a fresh artistic perspective 
46. pottery
47. garden tomatoes
48. singing with my sister
49. anything that makes my sons grin
50. my Escape

puzzle pieces 1

one of the tasks left to me in these days after Mom and Dad is 'puzzling' - the taking apart and the putting back together of a picture

dismantling
pulling apart the days and words,
the looks and the events,

finding fragments, scattered pieces
of conversations and stories
held together by Mom and Dad all of their days

notes from my journal

August 2, 2009
Clear Lake

So. Mom and Dad show their fragility differently here. Mom stood under the Saskatoon bush, determinedly ... and matter of factly – not with joy, exactly, but with great pleasure, picking the luscious berries. It was not long before Dad joined her under the bush, harvesting. She wears her hats pointedly, daring you – but only a small dare with her eyes – to make a comment. “Baldy” she whispers accusingly to me as I hug her. She picked 8 buckets of Saskatoons last week, she says with pride. After 6 you get one free. And she brings out her pail, with sugar and cream, for us to feast on her fruits.

Their love language is provision. It is no gift to tell them not to bring anything; that we will provide. It is robbery. They place their provisions on the table, and their eyes shine as we savour.

We (the non-golfers) went on a hike to the boardwalk yesterday. A fairly level, and short hike with resting places that wouldn’t make them feel weak if they chose to sit, I thought. Dad doesn’t like the grandchildren’s rough play. He is afraid someone will get hurt.

We came to the fork in the hike – where you could choose to go longer, or choose to go back. Mom knew, and without apology said she was going the short way, but we could continue if we wanted. We all went the short path, and mom didn’t need to be convinced to sit for a while on the bench before the final hill to the cabin.

They have become observers – taken a step away from being enablers. This is the greatest sign I see of their journey. Dad wants to play the games, but the rules frustrate him. They dominate him, taunting his long domination over them. The colors elude him, the rules confuse him, and wrestle with his desire to engage in play with his children and his grandchildren. And mom must explain again. And play his hand with him. And this frustrates her. Her backpack is loaded to capacity, and perhaps exceeds capacity, for on these miles of their journey she carries much of his load as well as her own.

They retire early, they are easily chilled.

Dad joined us at the lakefront yesterday, followed us after we had gone.

Sat on the bench with Janine for a while, watching our football in the sand.
But the wind was cold if you were not running.
So he soon got up and walked back,
his frail frame listing – only slightly – towards the water.

His grandchildren throw the ball for miles, and chase each other in the sand, pushing each other into the ever cold Clear Lake (where Grandpa long ago baptized us into his family with a 50 horse West Bend moter)... wrestling and laughing and competing.