Fuego (of Life as a Fuego) tapped me for a "six weird food quirks" blog. So here goes.

1. I have hated tomatoes my whole life. I have successfully hated them for over thirty-three years. The taste and texture were always repellent in and of themselves, but then there was the fact that they conflicted terribly with the appearance. Basically all aspects of the tomato were in conflict with one another, creating a overall experience of yuck. Don't get me wrong, I have tried them over the years, just in case I might some day like them, but to no avail. I have wanted to like them -- it's not easy to hate tomatoes, they're put on just about everything, but no matter what the medium (except in tomato sauce and ketchup) they have pretty much immediately activated my gag-reflex. A little over a month ago, Fuego offered me a bite of her Bagel with cream-cheese, tomatoes, and capers. Not a fan of either tomatoes or capers, I agreed to take a bite just to humor her... I liked it. Since then I have inexplicably enjoyed tomatoes. I've had them on sandwiches (on purpose), on bagels, on pizza. I can't explain it, but it's happened... I like tomatoes. (Is there some group I need to go to now?)

2. I make s#!+ up. I'm pretty sure other people would like these things if they would be willing to try them, but (sadly) people are put off by the ingredients. Frequently these creations involve peanut butter, cheese, curry, ground cayenne, and some form of bread (tortilla, bagel, toast). You might recognize some of these ingredients from my last post =o) I will admit that the peanut butter burrito-dog wasn't really worth it, but the burrito-dog itself was great and worth repeating. Of course I make other stuff up that doesn't have weird ingredients too, but that isn't so much a weird food quirk as just good cooking skills ;o)

3. I like SPICY food. I'm not just talking about the occasional Cajun, Mexican, Thai, or Indian food spicy that you find in restaurants, but of habaneras, tiny red chilies (the kind that make people cry when they accidentally eat them), extra spicy curry from India, ground tiny red chilies (also from India), jalapenos, and pretty much any other pepper that can be chopped, powdered, sliced, or eaten whole. Many of these go into my recipe for "Death by Chili" -- a vegetarian chili that I created to see if I could eat it... and then to see if any of my friends would be willing to try it ;o). So far only DJ Purgatory has been willing to eat a whole bowl with me more than once -- but he and I are part of how it got taken this far since we kind of egg each other on (okay, and Some-of-the-time-girlfriend eats it on chili dogs). If it doesn't make your eye brows sweat, it just isn't spicy enough. When your eyes start to water, you're getting there ;o) Anyone want to come for chili night?

4. Packaged artichoke hearts... seriously, what's with the rigid little, impervious to teeth leaves? You can't chew them, they're spiny feeling in your mouth, they pretty much ruin any bite of food containing them. Sadly the artichoke heart is one of the finest of the less-common food toppings other than these yucky little barnacle. I do love a good steamed artichoke, especially the hearts! But apparently machines just aren't equipped to tell the difference between the gross part and the good part.

5. I have two strange but somewhat beneficial food allergies -- MSG and Artificial Sweeteners (especially Aspartame/NutraSweet). The beneficial part is that it makes me read food ingredients, so I know what I'm eating, and it also keeps me from eating a lot of unhealthy foods. Of course, the other side of it is that MSG is in most flavored chips and highly flavorful inexpensive foods. The "itos" food group is right out (Cheetos, Doritos, Fritos [flavored], and Tostitos [also the flavored ones]). Aspartame and other artificial sweeteners are easier to avoid, but I've found them in some odd places over the years -- Alka-Seltzer Cold and Flu medicine and Airborne immunity booster are two of them. MSG gives me headaches, an itchy face, and seriously impacts my moods. Aspartame gives me tachycardia and arrhythmia (racing heart rate and an irregular heart beat) -- I figured out the Alka-Seltzer Cold and Flu one when I had a resting heart rate of 120 for over three hours (yikes!). Since aspartame has a negative cumulative effect on short-term memory and can mimic symptoms of Alzheimer's, I can't be too sad about that one ;o)

6. I'm a vegepescetarian who eats organic poultry. I stopped eating red meat and pork for environmental and humane reasons back in 1992 in response to a college biology class. In January of 2003, I learned why all of the chicken wings at Kentucky Fried Chicken are broken. I had never heard of factory farming before that winter, and not only was I not able to eat the rest of my dinner, but I wasn't able to eat chicken of any kind for the next six months. I literally felt sick to my stomach -- I just couldn't fathom the level of cruelty and environmental blight that factory farming represents. So I was a vegepescetarian for six months. When I discovered free-range organic chicken I went back to being able to eat poultry again, but although there is such a thing as organic beef and pork, I can't eat red meat anymore, and I really don't like pork all that much after having been away from it for fifteen years. Yes, I do realize that we're over-fishing the oceans and that in another fifty years 2/3 to 3/4 of the fish population will be depleted and extinct, so I don't eat fish very often anymore either, but at least there's still peanut butter ;o)

For Crobinhobin and Jbewan

Hmm... hungry... What's in the fridge? Nothing.

It's ten at night, not like I'm going to the store. Don't want to order out...

Grumble, grunt, snort...

Okay, time for an invention.

What do we have on hand:

One frozen blueberry bagel (Noah's of course)... good start

1/4 C Shredded Mozerella... hmm... pizza bagel?

Grunt... no sauce.

Hmm... there's peanut butter =o) Okay... Tai pizza bagel!

Rummage, rummage... good! Spicy Curry powder, ground Indian hot chili pepper ready.

What's good on a Tai pizza bagel? Hmm... we've got frozen hot dogs and eggs. Tough choice... Okay, both.

So we have a Noah's Blueberry Bagel topped with organic peanut butter, spicy curry powder, ground Indian hot chili pepper, organic chicken dog sliced into the thin little circles, mozerrella cheese, and topped with a fried egg. Sounds like we've hit every major food group... oop... almost forgot the beer group, okay now we're ready!

Hmm... Fuego's not hungry... poor Fuego, she'll miss out on this culinary delight!

...

wow. I'd make this again.

Sermon from last Sunday (2nd Sunday of Epiphany, 14 Jan 2007):

Readings: Isaiah 62:1-5, Psalm 36:5-10, 1 Corinthians 12:1-11, John 2:1-11

++++++++++++++++++++

John's Gospel is simultaneously the most earthy and physical of the gospels as well as the most symbolic. Taking today's reading as an example, Jesus' first miracle takes place at a very familiar, human, and celebratory occasion, the wedding feast.

The bride and bridegroom have just pronounced their lifelong devotion to one another in front of those people who mean the most to them in their lives - Jesus and Mary included - and they enter into the festive feast known today as the wedding reception. It is a time to display all the abundance of the lifetime of promise and hope lying before the newly married couple. A time to provide more food and wine than your guests can possibly consume as a demonstration of the abundance of life, love, and happiness inherent in this solemn and glorious occasion.

For the wedding I celebrated on the 10th of December, I helped the groom, one of my best friends, brew twenty-five gallons of beer [*I contributed one out of the five batches*]. To this was added about twelve cases of wine, two cases of Champagne just for the toast alone, and a seemingly endless supply of sodas and other non-alcoholic alternatives. By the end of the wedding, I was sent home with a full case of wine, two bottles of champagne, and two full cases of homebrew - this abundance was similarly shared with the best-man, the father of the bride, and the new couple also kept some for themselves. The food was in similar abundance - such that there was no possible way that the guests could have consumed it all.

It was not so for the couple in today's gospel reading. Somewhere over the course of the feast the supply of wine simply ran out. The new couple had not been able to provide enough. The guests would be at best embarrassed and disappointed, and at worst insulted - either way the new couple would be humiliated in front of all of their guests. Mary, having had some connection to the family that would make her privy to this information before it became common knowledge, tells her son - perhaps out of chagrin, perhaps out of hope - who basically says "what do you want me to do about it?"

While his response seems a bit terse to us today, it apparently gave Mary enough hope to simply believe that Jesus would do something and leave it up to him what was to be done. His response is to create such abundance of the finest quality wine - about 120-180 gallons worth - that it would take the guests months to drink it all.

On the surface, this is clearly a miracle of abundance. Christ demonstrating the abundance of the coming of God's kingdom becomes the hallmark of his ministry and teaching over the course of the next three years.

As I said earlier, John, while familiar, human, and earthy, is also the most symbolic of the gospels, so I'd like to spend a little time on some of the layers not as prominent in the symbolism of today's gospel. From the beginning of this particular story, we see undertones of messianic symbology. The opening of the story is "On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee." While it has been three days since Jesus was baptized, the greater importance of the statement is it's intention to draw listeners into an Easter mentality. Here the wine becomes the wine of the Eucharist, Jesus becomes the bridegroom - providing the wine - and the guests become the church in a wedding feast celebrating Christ's triumph over death and the reclaiming of humanity from the grasp of sin and death. Peeling back another layer, this is the promised feast of the coming of the messiah. Scarcity is turned into inexhaustible abundance, as the waters of purification are turned into messianic wine of the promised kingdom. It's no accident that the stone water jars, which are filled with water, are those used for Jewish rites of purification - John uses this as a symbol of the fulfilling of Jewish hope, promise, prophecy, faith, and law in the coming of Jesus. In essence, this wedding banquet is his own coming out party where the significance of the symbols changes the meaning of the feast to that promised messianic feast of the scriptures. As such, Jesus himself is the good wine that God has saved for last. The angelic visitations, the prophets, the law, these have all found their completion and satisfaction in Christ - the last which was first.

John closes this miraculous encounter by restating that this was the first of Jesus' signs - the first of seven that John will tell - which revealed Christ's Glory as God's manifested presence in the world.

But what does this mean for us today? While this glory is certainly good news in and of itself, what does it mean to me, in my everyday life in the world? For that answer, I turn to our reading from Corinthians.

Through Paul's words concerning spiritual gifts, I find a connection between the Gospel and us. Just as Christ was glorified by God's presence manifested in him, God glorifies us through the gifts of the Holy Spirit manifested in us. And just as Christ glorified God by revealing God to the world, so we continue to glorify God when we utilize the gifts we've been given.

While in John's reading, God's presence is revealed by Christ, we learn from Paul that we reveal God's presence in us through the gifts of the Holy Spirit that we share with the world around us.

As I look around the church this morning, I see that St. ECWIW's is filled with the gifts of the Spirit. I see teachers, doctors, counselors, artisans, lawyers, theologians, philosophers, homemakers, students, those gifted with eloquence, those gifted with deep listening and understanding. We are a community united in the gifts of the Spirit, mutually nurtured and strengthened by each others' myriad gifts, and we are also a community united in our intention to spread these gifts beyond the walls of St. ECWIW's through outreach, and even more so through our own lives lived in the world.

This is the good news of today! As we gather together each week to unite our gifts to the Glory of God, we strengthen each other in the bonds of community to go back out into the world revitalized, reinvigorated, renewed, refreshed, and reminded that it is through the gifts that God gives to us that we reveal God's glory in the world.

Jesus' miracles are not, in and of themselves, the good news of the Gospel, but rather are examples of the gospel in miniature. Put simply, the Good News is not just THAT the kingdom has come near, but that we have the power to bring it with every breath we breathe. In every moment in which we are faced with need, we have the power to bring the kingdom near. In every moment in which we are faced with suffering, pain, anger, fear, oppression - we have the opportunity to bring our own gifts - no matter how small we think they might be - to bear on this world, and thereby reveal God's glory and God's abundance to those around us.

Many of you have heard me talk about the friend who tricked me into going to his youth group during my senior year in high school... his name is Grasshopper.

Grasshopper and I have never lost contact. Through going to different schools, being half way across the world from each other, through difficult relationships when we couldn't be in touch [*okay 1, and it was mine*], through each of us getting married, and through the birth of his two children, we have phoned, emailed, and visited in person as often as we could. I invited Grasshopper to be one of my presenters for ordination last month and he recently shared with me his journal entry from that day. I may not quite put it the way he did, but he mentioned how many times over the years he's heard that story of his persistence in asking me to his youth group, and how small of a gesture he thought it was at the time. He just thought it would be cool if one of his new best friends could meet his other best friends and we could all hang out together at youth group. He couldn't imagine how that small gesture could some day result in his friend being ordained as a priest, and it made him pause to think of how many other small gestures every day of his life may have profound effects on those around him. He commented that it could be that his whole purpose in life may just have been to invite me to youth group... that he was pretty sure there was more to it than that, but what might have been different if he hadn't?

I love that Grasshopper reflected on this - especially in response to ordination! And I think it's a profoundly important lesson for each of us as we listen for the good news in today's lessons.

Our actions may seem small and even insignificant to us, but through God, they become the means through which lives are changed forever.

Let us join in the feast - bringing our gifts joyfully and carelessly to those around us, that God's glory might be revealed and the abundance of God's reign might be brought to everyone around us.

Amen.

Okay... all caught up.

Going to bed now.

g'night =o)

Okay... for those who check my blog regularly, you may want to read a few posts down as I've been totally swamped and am journaling retroactively so as to not post a seven page blog all at once. Or don't -- I'm doing it for me as much as for you =o)

I'll be interspersing sermons as you go backward... I think the earliest will be from the tenth of December (where you'll also find a blog about the first wedding I celebrated for Muddy and DesignGirl!). From 3 December you'll also find a post about ordination, which I never got to blog about because of the wedding, finals, Christmas, New Year's, and other various and sundry reasons. There will be a post about the five services in 24 hours, between Advent 4 and Christmas Eve (the same day this year), and Christmas Day. There will be a post about New Year's, lighting a whole lot of candles (just how many is a lot? you'll have to read to find out), our party, and of course there will be adoption updates!

Since I've only had one post between 13 November and today, it shouldn't be too hard to find them -- they'll be all of the ones in between that I missed. There will probably even be one from my 33rd birthday back on the 27th of November!

Okay... on with the fun.

Fuego and I had our second "module" class tonight for adopting our first child!!

We have another seven classes to go before we're elligible as adoptive parents, and what a weird, awesome, and scary thought that is!

We've waited for so long for a baby to come that it's almost unreal that in a very new and exciting way, we're already five-months pregnant (though someone else is carrying our future child).

We've been working on paper work, writing autobiographies, getting finger-printed, submitting DMV reports, getting assigned a social worker, and last week we started the required nine weeks of classes that will end in our being put on the waiting list for a child.

Our home study comes up in about five weeks, and by the middle of March we'll begin the final waiting stage as elligible parents. (Whew! Biological Parents should have such a rigorous qualification process!)

Since our only restrictions were that the baby be under six-months old and have no severe disabilities, we'll most likely get to adopt an african-american baby boy, and we've been told that the wait is surprisingly short for parents like us who aren't specific about gender or race. Regardless of gender or race, we know that whatever child God intends for us is the one that will come home with us.

We couldn't be more excited =o)

Sermon from 9 January 2007

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Readings: Hebrews 2:14-18, Psalm 105:1-15, Mark 1:29-39


The beginning of Mark's Gospel is filled with stories of healing, stories of Jesus' teaching in the synagogues, and stories of people being astounded. By today's story, in the middle of the first chapter of Mark's Gospel, Jesus has already called four of his twelve disciples, who simply walk out on their previous lives as fishermen to follow him, earlier in the day of today's story he had just taught and astounded listeners in the synagogue, and been recognized as the Holy One of God by a demon whom he cast out, as soon as they left the synagogue, they went to Simon's house where he healed Simon's Mother-in-law, then that evening the whole town came out with their sick and suffering and brought them to Jesus for healing. Jesus was instantly famous, and his disciples were thrilled.

While his earliest and closest disciples reveled in Jesus' fame and success, Jesus got up before dawn to seek out a deserted place where he could pray. Upon hunting for him and finally finding him, Simon and the other three confronted him saying "everyone is searching for you" - as if to say, what are you doing here praying? Don't you know you're famous! Come celebrate with us!

Jesus answer is redirective, and foreshadows his struggle to teach his disciples his true purpose over the whole course of the next three years - "Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do."

For the rest of Jesus' ministry, he seems to constantly be seeking those dark deserted places where he can steal away for a few precious moments of personal prayer. As his fame spreads, however, it seems that he can go nowhere without being followed, anticipated, or headed off by the needy throngs of people hungry for his healing and his teachings. At this earliest sign of the years to come, we see already a gap between Jesus' understanding of his purpose and ministry and the disciple's understanding. Here the path that Jesus and the disciples will walk together is established, but there is a crack in the middle of this path that will eventually open into an ever widening chasm with the disciples on one side and Jesus on the other. What will separate them, and what has and continues to separate us from God is prayer.

The highpoint of the disciples' walk with Jesus comes not too long after today's story, when they are sent out and given the authority to cast out demons and to heal in Jesus' name. The low point comes not too long again after the high point when the disciples find themselves unable to cast out a demon, which Jesus later tells them could only be cast out through prayer. Where had they lost sight of their reliance on God for the authority granted them? When had they fallen into that all too human trap of believing that somehow they as humans had what was necessary to heal and cast out demons?

The rocky start to the disciples' ministry with Jesus, described in the tension of today's Gospel between prayerful and humble acceptance of God's grace working through us, and our own human desire for power, glory, and the self- sufficiency to claim authority over the challenges that face us are a good place to start.

I take my own life as an example. There are days when I just simply feel stressed out. I've been working tirelessly to manage family, home, job, future planning, social life, finances, and still have enough time left to eat, sleep, and spend some good quality time with Fuego and the pets. "What's happened to me," I wonder to myself as I feel the soreness in my neck and feel my shoulders pressing against my ears, "this isn't who I am, this isn't who I want to be... where did the easygoing and mellow person that I usually am go?" And so I wonder to myself, "okay, what is it that's stressing me out?" Well, there's the two-hundred pages of homework that I really didn't want to read last night at the end of a long day... but I really don't think that's it." Unable to find an answer on my own, I finally turn to God and realize that even though I work every day in ministry, just as the disciples did with Jesus, it has been nearly a month since I've had the time to just sit in contemplative prayer. And so I sit. In the midst of preparing for my sermon, running out of time to get it all written down, I simply stop. I sit in silence, and I pray.

The beauty of the disciples is that they are us. They are the human reaction and living misunderstanding of God's purpose amongst is in Christ. Jesus, as he redirects and strives throughout his ministry to teach them, similarly strives throughout our lives to remind and to teach us that we aren't meant to take on life from our own authority. There is quite simply too much for us to do and see and get accomplished in this life for us to try to do it without God's help. We were created to be in relationship with God, and it is sometimes only through the constant reminder of our stress and failure to accomplish everything we need to accomplish with any sense of peace that we come to be reminded that even when we are working to God's will in the world, it can never be enough if we forget from where our strength, our authority, and our peace comes.

The author of Hebrews reminds us today that Christ shared with us the same things that we go through in our existence of flesh and blood. He is our help, he is our example, he is our reminder that a life lived for God can only be done cooperatively with God through prayer.

In the words of the Psalmist, Give thanks to the Lord and call upon his name! We were never meant to face this world without God... So let us pray.

Amen.

Sermon from 9 January 2007

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Readings: Hebrews 2:14-18, Psalm 105:1-15, Mark 1:29-39


The beginning of Mark's Gospel is filled with stories of healing, stories of Jesus' teaching in the synagogues, and stories of people being astounded. By today's story, in the middle of the first chapter of Mark's Gospel, Jesus has already called four of his twelve disciples, who simply walk out on their previous lives as fishermen to follow him, earlier in the day of today's story he had just taught and astounded listeners in the synagogue, and been recognized as the Holy One of God by a demon whom he cast out, as soon as they left the synagogue, they went to Simon's house where he healed Simon's Mother-in-law, then that evening the whole town came out with their sick and suffering and brought them to Jesus for healing. Jesus was instantly famous, and his disciples were thrilled.

While his earliest and closest disciples reveled in Jesus' fame and success, Jesus got up before dawn to seek out a deserted place where he could pray. Upon hunting for him and finally finding him, Simon and the other three confronted him saying "everyone is searching for you" – as if to say, what are you doing here praying? Don't you know you're famous! Come celebrate with us!

Jesus answer is redirective, and foreshadows his struggle to teach his disciples his true purpose over the whole course of the next three years – "Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do."

For the rest of Jesus' ministry, he seems to constantly be seeking those dark deserted places where he can steal away for a few precious moments of personal prayer. As his fame spreads, however, it seems that he can go nowhere without being followed, anticipated, or headed off by the needy throngs of people hungry for his healing and his teachings. At this earliest sign of the years to come, we see already a gap between Jesus' understanding of his purpose and ministry and the disciple's understanding. Here the path that Jesus and the disciples will walk together is established, but there is a crack in the middle of this path that will eventually open into an ever widening chasm with the disciples on one side and Jesus on the other. What will separate them, and what has and continues to separate us from God is prayer.

The highpoint of the disciples' walk with Jesus comes not too long after today's story, when they are sent out and given the authority to cast out demons and to heal in Jesus' name. The low point comes not too long again after the high point when the disciples find themselves unable to cast out a demon, which Jesus later tells them could only be cast out through prayer. Where had they lost sight of their reliance on God for the authority granted them? When had they fallen into that all too human trap of believing that somehow they as humans had what was necessary to heal and cast out demons?

The rocky start to the disciples' ministry with Jesus, described in the tension of today's Gospel between prayerful and humble acceptance of God's grace working through us, and our own human desire for power, glory, and the self- sufficiency to claim authority over the challenges that face us are a good place to start.

I take my own life as an example. There are days when I just simply feel stressed out. I've been working tirelessly to manage family, home, job, future planning, social life, finances, and still have enough time left to eat, sleep, and spend some good quality time with Fuego and the pets. "What's happened to me," I wonder to myself as I feel the soreness in my neck and feel my shoulders pressing against my ears, "this isn't who I am, this isn't who I want to be... where did the easygoing and mellow person that I usually am go?" And so I wonder to myself, "okay, what is it that's stressing me out?" Well, there's the two-hundred pages of homework that I really didn't want to read last night at the end of a long day… but I really don't think that's it." Unable to find an answer on my own, I finally turn to God and realize that even though I work every day in ministry, just as the disciples did with Jesus, it has been nearly a month since I've had the time to just sit in contemplative prayer. And so I sit. In the midst of preparing for my sermon, running out of time to get it all written down, I simply stop. I sit in silence, and I pray.

The beauty of the disciples is that they are us. They are the human reaction and living misunderstanding of God's purpose amongst is in Christ. Jesus, as he redirects and strives throughout his ministry to teach them, similarly strives throughout our lives to remind and to teach us that we aren't meant to take on life from our own authority. There is quite simply too much for us to do and see and get accomplished in this life for us to try to do it without God's help. We were created to be in relationship with God, and it is sometimes only through the constant reminder of our stress and failure to accomplish everything we need to accomplish with any sense of peace that we come to be reminded that even when we are working to God's will in the world, it can never be enough if we forget from where our strength, our authority, and our peace comes.

The author of Hebrews reminds us today that Christ shared with us the same things that we go through in our existence of flesh and blood. He is our help, he is our example, he is our reminder that a life lived for God can only be done cooperatively with God through prayer.

In the words of the Psalmist, Give thanks to the Lord and call upon his name! We were never meant to face this world without God... So let us pray.

Amen.

Short post... tired.

We lit 10,000 luminaria in central park tonight. If you've never seen the magnitude of ten thousand candles all lit in an area smaller than a football field, it is breath-taking, moving, and unforgettable.

Having preached this morning, helped set up the bags, filled with composting dirt and a candle, all afternoon, spoken at the event earlier tonight, and then hosted a NYE party for about a dozen friends, I would have to say that this has been a long, exciting, and very successful day.

Happy New Year! (and good night!).