Advent and the Issue of Light and Dark

 Advent is upon us, and with the season, the problematic language that talks about light overcoming darkness.  Those of us who grew up with this language might not understand why it's problematic.  Those of us who have worked with language know that language matters, and this language has an impact on how we treat people with darker skin colors.  Even those of us who have worked with language can be in a bit of denial.  

We might be in denial about the impact of theological language on modern race relations, but language shapes us, and the theological language of light and darkness is hard to escape during the holiday season, even if we swear we're secular creatures:

I've been wondering what would happen if we rewrote some of that scripture to get rid of light and dark dichotomies.  I tried writing it in haiku, just to see if that changed the reaction to it:

Those of us who use Advent wreaths to help us be more mindful during the season before Christmas may wonder how to avoid these pitfalls.  One of my Create in Me pastor friends, Naomi Sease Carriker, has created a wonderful idea.  It's a reverse Advent wreath, where all the candles are lit week 1, and each week, one fewer candle stays lit from the week before.  

She's even in the process of writing a liturgy.  Here's what she's written for week 1:

Thanksgiving Fragments Gathered into a Casserole

 Some fragments from an unusual Thanksgiving week:

--I finally saw Harriet last night.  Hmm.  Part of me loved watching the movie--so gorgeously filmed, with such beautiful landscapes.  I kept turning up the volume, until I realized that I could hear the movie, but I just couldn't understand what Harriet was saying.  Oh, I got the gist of it, and if I had the movie on mute, I probably would have known.  But the dialect came across as garbled to me.  I should try watching the DVD on a different device just to see.  

--The DVD came with no trailers for upcoming movies.  How strange.

--As I watched the movie, I thought about how Harriet had "spells" where God spoke to her, and John Brown felt that he was on a mission from God.  We could see them both as deeply disturbed or as deeply committed to a cause or maybe both.

--I am chagrined to realize that this Thanksgiving was no different than any other in terms of my exercise.  Even though I wasn't traveling and the weather here was lovely, I haven't done much exercising.  I've been enjoying cooking, but the real reason I haven't been exercising is that I wanted to get to stores early to beat the rush:  the garden center on Friday and Michaels yesterday.  I've decided not to beat myself up too much--it's been a wonderful vacation, if I couldn't have the vacation I really wanted, which is my family reunion in North Carolina Thanksgiving.

--I am thinking of Advent practices.  I an only just now thinking of this, but it's the first day of Advent, so it's not too late. I will try writing a poem a day every, and by try, I mean that I will sit down with my poetry legal pad.  I may not end up with a finished poem or a polished poem, but by Christmas, I will have 26 rough drafts.  Yes, that will be one of my Advent practices.

--Later I will post a picture of an Advent wreath with battery operated candles that I will make for the morning watch devotional time that I broadcast from my church's Facebook page each morning.  I'm leading an Advent wreath making workshop (distanced and masked) at church this morning, and I will make a special Advent wreath for morning watch. 

--Today I will have another version of my favorite Thanksgiving meals.  I'm making a sheetpan of dressing with this recipe from The Washington Post.  I'll heat up some leftover turkey and cranberry sauce, along with the last of the sweet potato casserole.  I'll try to keep from feeling sad by reminding myself that I could have this food any time I wanted.

--It has been a good Thanksgiving week-end.  It may not have been the holiday I anticipated for much of the year (until our plans changed a few weeks ago), but it worked.  It may not be the holiday I want every year to be, but I am grateful for its goodness.

Relearning the Piano Again

Last night, I decided that it was time to start playing our new-to-us piano.  My spouse has done a good job of playing every day, but I haven't.  So I opened With One Voice hymnal to "Soon and Very Soon."  I worked my way through the right hand melody line, which is fairly easy.  Then I added the alto line to my right hand.

Then I decided to be very brave and added the left hand.  It was easier than I remember.  There I was, each hand playing 2 notes--not always the correct note, but I got the note more often than I didn't.  My spouse said, "I didn't realize you knew how to do that."  

I let him in on my secret.  When we got the electric keyboard in 2005, I chose that song as the one I would learn as I worked to remember what I had learned in childhood piano lessons.  So it's not like I just opened the hymnbook and everything flooded back from childhood.

I chose that song for a reason beyond that it's one of my favorites.  It's fairly easy with just a B flat.  I prefer songs with no flats or sharps, but this one isn't hard.  And at the time, I needed a song with lyrics that would uplift me.  Plus, I needed a song that I knew--it's hard to know if I'm playing the correct notes if I don't know the song.

Since we got the piano, many people have expressed surprise that I took piano lessons as a child.  In my family of origin and in my marriage, I'm seen as the non-musical one in families of vast musical prowess.  I confess that I don't often do much to counter those assumptions.  And compared to most members of my family, I do have the least musical skill and knowledge.  I forget that I have so much more musical skill and knowledge than so many humans do.

As I relearn the piano, relearning again, I'm surprised that I know/remember more than I thought.  I can't do a lot with key signatures and transposing songs, and that's O.K.  I can read music, which means I'm a lot further ahead than I would be otherwise.  I'm intrigued by how much comes back as I practice my rusty muscles, both the physical muscles of my hands, and the metaphorical muscles of my musical training.

Black Friday and a Last Look at Thanksgiving

I have not had the normal Black Friday experience, at least not the one you see in popular media.  A side note:  I had that kind of Black Friday experience exactly once, long ago in the late 90's, when I went to a mall with my sister and cousins in Asheville, NC.  They were going to go regardless, so I tagged along.  I want nothing that money can buy to make that kind of effort, but someone else was driving, and my cousins are burly/tall guys, so I felt we wouldn't be trampled.

In the years since, we often went to the Frugal Backpacker and got AMAZING deals--but sadly, that store relocated from Arden, so going there wasn't easy anymore.  There have been a few trips to Wal-Mart with my mom and sister where I snagged a deal or two, but again, not worth the hassle to do it on my own.

This morning's experience was very different.  This morning, my spouse told me that we had at least 17 caterpillars on our milkweed--our milkweed which only had a few leaves left.  This happens periodically, and usually we let the caterpillars fend for themselves.  But this year, we needed a lot of items that I could pick up from a garden store:  herbs, tomato plants, potting soil.  So off I went to Flamingo Road Nursery, out in the western part of the county--sadly, one must go way west to find a place that sells milkweed.

It was a beautiful morning to be out in a garden center, and Flamingo Road Nursery is a soul-soothing garden center.  I stocked up on some healthy milkweed and then I wandered amongst the herbs--oh bliss!  I picked up some tomato plants and a pepper plant.  I picked up more herbs.  I dallied in the Christmas area--I had promised my spouse that I wouldn't buy a tree, and I wondered if a potted tree would violate my promise.  I moved my mask for one brief moment to inhale a pine branch.

I thought about poinsettias, but in the end I bought some striped petunias.  They sort of have a candy cane effect, although I'm aware that they may have looked more like that in the holiday display with other white and red flowers.  I really wanted a rosemary bush that had been pruned to look like a Christmas tree, but they didn't have those.  Of course, they had plenty of other things.  I tried to be mindful of my small car as I made my selections:

I could have bought more--the whole back seat was empty.  But of course, there was also the household budget to consider.  Still, I was sorely tempted to go back and get more herbs and garden plants and several more bags of potting soil:

I came home happy.  I thought about when I was young and would save my money to go to B. Dalton Bookseller with the idea that I would buy all the books I wanted.  I thought about how lucky I am that my spouse will not be angry that I spent so much money on dirt and plants.  I thought about how many people are out on the road.

I also thought back to Thanksgiving, which I enjoyed thoroughly, even though it was different from Thanksgivings of the past.  I made this Facebook Post:    "I don't really need to pull out this recipe; I've memorized it. But I love seeing my mom's handwriting, and remembering the other women in the family who have made this dish through the years, as I will be making it today."

We had a lovely end of Thanksgiving with our quarantine pod, the friends we've seen throughout this pandemic; most of us are fairly isolated, and we've let each other know when we've done any activities (like out of state travel) that leaves us at risk.

We ate outside, as we always do when we're together, but instead of our usual cheese to go with our wine, last night we had a whole meal.  My spouse made a brisket, and our friends made a turkey.  We had a sweet potato souffle (recipe pictured above) and a pumpkin pie.  My friend made mashed potatoes, turkey gravy, and a carrot salad from her childhood.  We were so full that we didn't eat pie, although my spouse and I had a slice when we got home.

I thought it would take days to get everything repotted and placed, but my industrious spouse got it all done in a morning.  

I am a lucky woman.

As I thought, my striped petunias don't look as much like candy canes when they're not with white and red flowers.  But I love them anyway.  And I love this transition from autumn to petunia season.

I wish I had snapped a picture of this pumpkin a few days ago.  It really did have an enchanted house kind of look.  It also reminded me of those Easter eggs where you look inside and see a world.

And now it's time to decorate the inside of the house--for Christmas!

Thanksgiving Gratitude

Yesterday before the Internet went down at work again, I enjoyed seeing people's holiday preparations.  I even copied an old family recipe for "Mother's Dressing" (what Southerners call stuffing when it's not in a bird).

Did I go home last night and bake a small skillet of cornbread along with some biscuits that the recipe would need?  No I did not.  We're having a meal with plenty of carbs:  sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, gravy (I count gravy as a carb, but it could also be a fat), pumpkin pie--we don't really need a pan of dressing.  If I decide I'm wrong, I still have time to make a version.

I have a pumpkin pie baking and cranberries and in the same oven, apples stewing down to become a cranberry relish. We got up extra early to put a brisket on the grill.  I've thought of smells of brisket wafting through the neighborhood and wondered if our neighbors wondered what we were doing.  But we were probably the only ones awake and cooking at 4:30 a.m.

We are taking these delicious items, along with a sweet potato souffle/casserole with praline topping, to our neighborhood friends where we will have an outdoor dinner with a turkey my friend is cooking, along with mashed potatoes and green beans.  They are the friends who gave us the piano.

We've been seeing these friends every 2 weeks, as we have been doing for years, for outdoors wine, cheese, and crackers--we've done our happy hour outdoors, even in the years when it hasn't been crucial, through rain and heat and chill and perfect weather. 

We decided early on in the pandemic that it was likely safe to continue seeing each other--I'm the only one working outside the home, and their child is in the early teen years where she doesn't want to participate in group activities. We decided to be a quarantine pod, and when we've ventured outside our pod (like the few times we've traveled in the last 9 months), we've let each other know.

These days, just leaving the house feels like a risk with a contagious disease running rampant.  But joining our local friends feels like less of a risk than others are taking.  Sigh.

I'm glad we decided not to have a family gathering in North Carolina, even as I have spent time this week feeling wistful, nostalgic, sad, and wimpery.  We've had Zoom family meetings in the evening, which has been fun.  We've sent each other stuff in the mail.

I've had a nontraditional Thanksgiving breakfast:  I made a small custard cup of leftover pumpkin pie filling.  Delicious!  This past week-end, I tried to make oatmeal sandwich cookies that my uncle always brings from a baker in his area.  That cookie would be my traditional Thanksgiving breakfast, but I couldn't get the cookies just right.  I decided not to spend the week trying.

With luck, I'll be able to see my family next year.  This year, I'm trying to focus not on what is lost right now, but what I do have:  good food, a loving spouse, friends who have been keeping safe, a roof over my head, a job.  

For the Love of Pie

For years, my cousin and I have agreed that the Wednesday before Thanksgiving is our favorite day of the year.  It's early in the Thanksgiving holiday week-end, which stretches out before us with so much happiness still to come.  In my family, there's no pressure to get cooking done, although there's often a trip or two to the grocery store--but because we're doing it together, it's not the drudgery that the grocery store can be in regular life.  There might be a hike on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving; a hike means a walk outdoors, nothing too strenuous, because for the past 15 years, we'd have had a pregnant family member or very small children.  In later years, there might be some kind of group game, whether outdoors (a variant of soccer that's not recognized by any league) or indoors (Chess or something more complicated).

For a few years, on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, we went to a local restaurant, an old-fashioned cafeteria with a name that combined two letter and the & sign (S & K?  K & W?), that had the whole front part of the restaurant set up to sell pies for $8 to $12 a pie.  You could place your order early and come pick it up, but even if you didn't have the foresight to do that, you still had plenty to choose from.  They offered at least 20 varieties, from standard pumpkin, apple, and cherry to more complex pies like some sort of tropical coconut custard with bits of summery fruit or pies with rum flavors or mincemeat.  They offered not only blueberry, but also blackberry and raspberry.

It was too good for this world.  

We went last year, and the whole cafeteria had closed.  So we went to a local boutique bakery which would sell us a pie for $40, and they were doing a brisk business.  I don't begrudge small businesses the profits they can make, and yet, I know how much the ingredients cost in that pumpkin pie.  So we went to the grocery store and picked up some much cheaper, less glamorous pies.

If we had been in a place with a different kitchen we might have baked our own pies, but the house we have rented for decades has a very small oven with an unreliable heating element.  We can create an asparagus green pea casserole out of canned items or baked sweet potatoes, but we can't do all of that and bake pies too.  Hence the need for pies made by others.

My maternal grandmother made several pies a week, every week, for much of her life.  My grandfather didn't feel like he'd had a meal if there wasn't a dessert, so my grandmother made a variety of desserts for each day of the week.  Pies were his favorite.  I'm old enough to remember when my grandmother used lard for her pie crusts, and lard really does produce an amazingly flaky crust. 

After my grandfather died, when I still lived in South Carolina, I tried to go see her at least once a month.  I remember a time that she made sweet potato pie.  I thought it was pumpkin pie, and I didn't hide my surprise well.  She interpreted my surprise to mean that I didn't like her pie, and nothing I could say would convince her that it was a perfectly fine pie.  

Sadly, she was the type to remember those things.  Everything she served me a pumpkin pie, she'd remind me of the time that I didn't like her sweet potato pie.  If I could go back in time and redo my actions, I'd have a long list of time travel to do, but one of the stops would be at my grandmother's table with an untasted piece of sweet potato pie in front of me.

This morning, I've been thinking about that pie as a different kind of metaphor.  Some days we get sweet potato pie when we thought we'd get pumpkin pie.  It's fairly close to what we wanted:  same spices, same nutritional profile, same structure.  And maybe, if we give it a chance, we'll discover that we like it just as well or better.

Yes, it's probably a metaphor that's been done to death.

This morning, I was also thinking about God as the deity who brings us sweet potato pie.  We might be wishing for pumpkin or apple, but there is God, with sweet potato pie, an earthier cousin to the other pies.  There is God with fresh whipped cream.  There is God with a handmade crust that's flakier than anything we've ever tasted.

We might protest and worry about those 5-10 pandemic pounds we've picked up.  We may think about past Thanksgivings when we had a more athletic physique.  We may think that we can't afford the calories.

I think of God and God's sweet potato pie, all the nourishment that we refuse, all the love in the form of a pie that we think we can't absorb.   

I think of all the ways we make God sad.

Now, of course, I have a craving for pie.  I'd like to stay home and bake, but I'll be headed off to work.  It's been over two decades since I went to work on the Wednesdays before Thanksgiving.

Not Driving on Thanksgiving Tuesday

I had not planned to be at my desk, writing a blog post.  I had planned to be on the road already.  I had planned to get my spouse up at an ungodly hour to make our way to the family gathering in the North Carolina mountains.  We had planned to have a normal Thanksgiving, in a ramshackle house, multiple generations from across the southeast, gathering at Lutheridge, the church camp that has meant so much to so many members of my family.

For most of the past 2 decades, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving has been a travel day.  A few years, we flew, but most years, we drove.  We drove the kind of twelve hour long drive that I won't really miss, but Saturday will be the grueling travel day that I'll really not miss.  Tuesday's travel was leavened with the knowledge of a wonderful Thanksgiving ahead. 

I'll miss the opportunity for heart to heart conversations with my spouse--long car trips have often been a reconnecting point for us.  I'll miss the change in scenery as it whizzes by the window. I'll miss the inspirations I've often gotten for new writing projects.

I won't miss the feeling of exhaustion that comes from hours and hours on the highway when one is starting from a point of tiredness.  I won't miss the getting behind that happens when one leaves for a chunk of time so close to the end of the academic term.

I made this Facebook post at the Create in Me page:  "Many of us won't be travelling to see family or friends. Many of us will be creating a scaled down Thanksgiving. Maybe we can use the time we won't be travelling, the time we won't be cooking and cleaning, to claim some creative time that we wouldn't have had in a normal year. Let's make lemonade out of lemons that 2020 has given us."

It's good advice for us all.