Weekly Gratitude Post

The smooth, frozen Great South Bay, Long Island, NY is a reminder of God's presence in my hectic, rushed, distracted day.

The Loren/Elmo Project

Seven recipes in seven weeks, (come on now, I'm busy), can I ever do it? After seeing the Julie & Julia movie and attempting, but failing to get through reading the book, Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell, I have decided to do a little parody on Dude, Where Am I?. I'll call it,

The Loren & Elmo Project: My Seven Weeks of Screwing Up Preschool Desserts

This idea came to me last night while I was attempting to be a mother extraordinaire who bakes homemade cookies from her William Sonoma Baking cookbook.

While I was standing over the oven watching the world's flattest chocolate chip cookies cool, I had an epiphany. What if I screwed up my way through the "Sweets" section of the Sesame Street cookbook C is for Cooking, by Susan McQuillan just for your entertainment? Would it be a publicity stunt for this blog? Of course. Do I risk the possibility of ticking off Cookie Monster and Elmo? Most definitely. Oh, this is going to be good, I thought. I hope Julie Powell doesn't find out and cleave me.

So I'll start in a few days with Rosita Monster's Honey Pear Crisp. Stay tuned for that. I promise these recipe posts will not become fodder for a movie, unless I get to star as myself opposite Harrison Ford as my controversial, twice-my-age husband. Sorry Milk Man. ;)

Here's how to ruin homemade cookies:

1. Make the oven too hot
2. Make the cookies too thin
3. Don't rotate the pan while baking
4. Remove the cookies too soon ("Cookies not done yet!" warns chef Cookie Monster.)
5. Leave them in the pan too long.

OR

Soften the butter in the microwave because you are impatient. Then you get my infamous Flat Stanley cookies shown below. (Close your eyes, Grandma.):

Gratitude Monday

I'm so thankful that we had a white Christmas in New York because I love snow. The view from my den windows was such a gift. Above is my garden asleep for the winter and below the kids still outside playing outside at dusk.

Weekly Gratitude List

I usually start the week on this blog with the topic of Gratitude. The first thing that comes to mind today is the change in season. Here is a beautiful poem about the gift of Autumn by John Keats and a picture of my garden in the fall. The poem is meant to be read aloud. It was written in a time when reading was a primary source of entertainment.



Ode to Autumn


by John Keats (1795- 1821)

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing, and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

(Feel free to share what you are thankful for this week in a comment.)

Gratitude List

It's important to take time out to be mindful of the blessings in life. This week, as always, I am thankful for family, friends, health, etc. I came across this gratitude prayer today that I'd like to share with you.

My Help, My Hope Psalm 121

I lift my eyes to you

my help, my hope

the heavens (who could imagine?)

the earth (only our Lord)

the infinite starry spaces

the world's teeming breadth

All this. I lift my eyes

-upstart, delighted-

and I praise.

-Daniel Berrigan SJ

Tell me what you are thankful for...

Weekly Gratitude List

No longer forward nor behind I look in hope or fear; But, grateful, take the
good I find, The best of now and here.~John Greenleaf Whittier~

I am thankful for my home that I love so much. This is one of my favorite spots. When my house was young this space was a porch, but it is now enclosed with heat and tall windows.


Tell me what you are thankful for today. Send me a comment.

Weekly Gratitude List

I want to begin this gratitude list with a poem that I came across. It was written by a Confederate solider and it reflects a truly humble heart. As I was reading it I could picture this young soldier huddled in a ditch somewhere, dirty and broken from war. It really moved me. Although, unlike the author of this poem, I have been given many things that I have prayed for and I am fortunate, this is the type of perspective I'd like to keep. I think that having a mindset of gratitude will make me humble and hopeful throughout life.

I Asked

I asked for strength that I might achieve;

I was made weak that I might learn to obey.

I asked for health that I might do greater things;

I was given infirmity that I might do better things.

I asked for riches that I might be happy;

I was given poverty that I might be wise.

I asked for power that I might have the praise of men;

I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.

I asked for all things that I might enjoy life;

I was given life that I might enjoy all things.

 I got nothing that I had asked for,

but everything that I had hoped for.

Almost despite myself my unspoken prayers were answered;

I am, among all men, most richly blessed.

-poem found on the body of a Confederate Soldier recovered in Devil's Den after the Battle of Gettysburg

-Photo by Jim Lowney

This week I am thankful for:


1. a wonderful family
2. being blessed with all that I need plus more
3. fall
5. fresh pumpkin pie


What are you thankful for? Send me a comment.

Gratitude List

I'm grateful for abundant blessings...This week I'm preparing a World Vision 30 Hour Famine Retreat for the teens in my youth ministry. Seeing the harsh poverty that people in other countries face makes me feel embarrassed by the wealth that surrounds me here in the United States, which is my norm. It makes me feel restless to give and try to change things.

What are you grateful for this week?

Monday Gratitude List

Today I'm thankful for the birds that were singing outside my window when I woke up, and the fact that I was present enough in the moment to noticed this subtle, pleasant gift.

Tell me something that you are thankful for this week. I enjoy your comments.

Vision

I'm starting to see where I'm going in life, if that's possible. When I was younger I had certain ideas as to what I might become, both personally and professionally. In high school I had particular teachers whom I admired for different reasons. Gazing at them I could envision my adult life being very similar. My teachers, ironically, advised me NOT to become one myself. I, however, lured by the prospect of immersing myself and a captive audience in the details of classic literature, did not listen. So I became a high school English teacher for a while, despite the warnings. After some practice, I can say with certainty that this is a job I can do well, but I've also learned, as the Cat in the Hat says,

"That's not all I can do, oh, no, that's not all."

Writing is something I've always been driven to do, more so than other hobbies. I have a box of diaries from when I was growing up. I suppose it's an outlet. In college I'd enter a literary magazine contest each fall, in hopes of winning some extra cash to spend on Christmas presents. Every year, I'd win something, and I realized I could probably write for a living as an alternative career, if I chose it.

Personally, I had a secret goal first for family, children specifically. Making family a priority over my personal career goals, as scary and uncomfortable as that was, I admit, revealed to me other life opportunities. For example, youth ministry has been a way to meld my excitement for teaching with the chance to give teens the gift of strengthening their faith. Through this experience, I've learned that spiritual development is far more important than academic development, because it bolsters one's perseverance and endurance. I would not have had an opportunity to do the work I currently do (in youth ministry) if I did not leave teaching to raise children.

When I was a child my father lectured me a lot, and strangely, I enjoyed it. In fact, when I grew up and moved away from my parents, I missed those lectures. One of his little talks involved perspective. He said that we can only see so much in life, and that some aspects are blocked from our sight. He compared it to looking down the cardboard tube that is left after all the paper towels are used up. He explained that only God can see the whole picture, and that's where faith comes in on the part of humans.

Like he explained, it seems that I go through life with some invisible handicaps. Despite this lack of vision, I'm beginning to see threads in my life. I can see links between my strengths and talents, and ways that I can use those gifts on my journey. I'm not sure what I will do next, as my children pass out of diapers and I gain more freedom again, but I am certain that it will be very fulfilling. As long as I stay open to opportunities, and keep focused on my strengths, then inevitably I will make choices that lead to my growth.

As a new year begins I try to focus on this vision that I've been chiseling out for myself. Slowly, some form is realized. I hope that when my journey is over that I will have achieved my full potential, whether I think so or not.

"You got to be careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there."

- Yogi Berra

Picture is from Flickr

You're Not REALLY Gonna Hold Me To This List, Right?

Here are some New Year's Resolutions for Loren Christie, but before you get ready to pull this list out next year and taunt me, I'd like to say, for the record, that they're not set in blogging stone.

1. Shake off that corny sense of humor that Milk Man is encouraging with his 2009 Dumb Jokes For the Year 2009 Crusade.



2. Burn Trivial Pursuit and buy a new board game so next New Year's Eve your friends will invite you over again. Remember memorizing the cards and Milk Man's construction paper champion belt? How can we forget the first fight of the new year over trivial trivia like Leo or Leon Trotsky? Nuff said.



3. Walk two - four miles in front of the television three days a week during the winter with your new Ipod drowning out walk instructor Leslie Sansone's shrill laugh. No excuses now.



4. Pray more and worry less. (That's a serious one.)



5. Try to immortalize your big mouth in the form of a published something-or-other.



6. Poison Hell Hound with the used peanut oil from the New Year's Eve pizzas. (It didn't work.)



7. Start a book club! (classics only to simulate board-bashing-head- penance) That's a lie, kids, I actually love the classics.



8. Write every day, until everyone you know is afraid to come near, because things they do and and say will end up on your blog.



9. 9. Eat more salad, for the health benefits, rather than just because it's the only meal you cannot burn.



10. 10. Stop cleaning and play with the kids more often. Accept the fact that although you live with a group of filthy dwarfs, you are not Snow White.



11. 11. If you have trouble keeping the above promises, resolve yourself to become like the garbage pail cover-eating squirrel that stares at you from the den window every morning. That means just accept being the same old Loren for another year. Bet the squirrel isn't writing a resolution list. ...Or is he??

---Here comes one of the dwarfs now, better hide the resolutions.