Lessons of lemon bars

Suspending the menorah gently above the fire box in the wood furnace, the last remnants of the beeswax, which had provided light for eight nights, dripped into the fire below. A quick flame leaped up as each drop fell on the burning wood. Carefully handling the hot metal, I removed the last thin coating of wax with a paper towel. I ignored the timer signaling that the bottom layer of the lemon bars was ready to take from the oven, thinking that an extra couple of minutes would make no discernible difference.

Returning upstairs, I was surprised to find the crust much darker than what it is supposed to be. I understood what had happened when I saw that the oven temperature was set for 450, instead of the prerequisite 350 degrees. (The temperature gauge on my antique cookstove is on the side, and it is generally set for 350 degrees.) In hindsight, my misstep was not letting the bars go a few minutes longer, it was that I hadn’t checked the temperature setting. Having not changed it; I didn’t think to check whether it was set for what it always usually is.

After lowering the gauge, pouring the lemon custard layer on the over-browned crust, I turned my attention back to the menorah, still warm, but not hot, from the fire. I polished it carefully, sitting quietly on the couch in the living room with one of my grandmother’s kitchen towels. The red and white linen cloth, embroidered with initials and made ready for her wedding in the early 1920s, is in remarkable great shape given that it is nearly 90 years old. It had remained unused in her linen closet for nearly 75 of those years.

My grandmother gave me the towel sometime in the mid 1990s, as I helped her sort through a closet full of linens, complete with belted ties, which she had brought by boat from Berlin in 1938. She was getting ready to move from the apartment that had been her home for over 50 years to a retirement complex in California. She had left Germany, with her furniture, her linens and two young daughters after reading Adolph Hitler’s book. She came to New York to start a new life. She never talked much about being Jewish, and I, being raised Unitarian Universalist, and perhaps because she was not much of a cook, have no connection to Jewish cuisine or Jewish tradition.

Some years back, I was given a menorah. And while I have celebrated the Festival of Lights off and on, this year the tradition of lighting the candles and setting aside of few minutes to reflect has been an important part of this past week. It was precisely because the activity had been a chance to touch reverence in the midst of everyday life, that I had been prompted to figure out how to create closure.

Once polished with the last of the wax removed, I carefully wrapped the menorah in paper and placed it, all shiny and ready, into the bureau in the pantry for storage until next year.

I’m not much for holidays these days; the lemon bars being the first of the holiday baking. Caught in a strange place of wanting to avoid all connection to our consumer world, I am unsure how to reconnect with holiday spirit when it isn’t centered on energy consuming decorations and abundant gift giving, although the overly browned lemon bars might give me clue.

One, we can make no assumptions that the details of our life will be as they always have been and we do well to periodically check the temperature of our relationships with all those beings and non beings that we encounter in our lives. Two, we can be surprised and comforted by reviving or creating traditions and time in reflection. And three, we find meaning when we look for meaning.

May your day be filled with holiday spirit and meaning.

Incremental changes

I’m not sure if I like this new routine, but I have been starting my day reading emails with my morning cup of coffee. It used to be that I would ponder the day's realities by gazing out the bedroom window into the deep white pines across the side field. Now, my first thoughts are filled with national and local natural gas articles, the compilation handiwork of Upper Delaware Council Senior Resource Specialist Dave Soete.

These daily missives cover the gamut of natural gas drilling news throughout the country. I scroll through them, sometimes reading deeply, sometimes just getting a flavor. Lately, Dave’s begun to add reader comments to the news articles and I get a glimpse of the schism that exists between those who are in favor and those who are against. Most often there is little middle ground and I find myself reacting from my own bias.

The articles has gotten repetitious as more news sources are picking up the story and there’s an extra step in figuring out what’s new and what’s a rehash of old information. I’ve been amazed at how the overall story is changing, and feel rewarded for the time spent when I see something new and comprehend something differently.

This morning, while reading a piece on the Hewitt State Forest in Cortland County that has been leased, I realized that the state, hungry for dollars, is doubly invested in gas drilling moving forward. Not only will it get revenue, theoretically, in regulatory fees and taxes, the state itself, actually all of us, is a leaseholder. Of course, I already knew this, but what I didn’t understand was the amazing conflict of interest that is created by this dual role. This was further complexified by another story relating a lack of communication between the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the Town of Dryden over the issuance of an assessment that there would be no environmental consequences for a natural gas well within the town’s borders. The municipal officials wondered how the DEC could have come to that assessment, without talking to them.

In this scenario of complexities, the two-time investor has now also become the regulator.

Incrementally, our landscape is changing as we become further and further immersed in our consumptive use of resources and information, both as a society and as individuals.

It used to be that I would ponder the realities of the day by gazing out the bedroom window into the deep white pines across the side field with my cup of coffee. Now, my early morning thoughts are filled with national and local natural gas drilling articles.

Onset of winter

I don’t know how it happened, but it has become winter.

Just a week ago, I was watching the sumac leaves turn from yellow to deep red and the golden leaf laddened Bradford pear trees on Bridge Street in Narrowsburg become less dense with each passing day. Now the ground is white, and more times than not when I look out the window, a small snowflake drifts downward.

I don’t mind the coldness, probably because I’m simply not dealing with it, ensconced in my warm house, bundled when I walk from the house to the car.

I’m isolated, caught up in my own world, my own individual journey. I imagine that you are too. Your world might not be one of final papers on the theology of consumption or considering what multi-generational ministry looks like. It might be one where you’re figuring out your relationship to the winter holiday season, or figuring out how you will pay for heating expenses with shrinking resources.

While we’re not functioning in a vacuum, we are revolving in our own separate worlds.

I ponder this highly individualist ethic and consider this post Enlightenment concept that has stripped us all of understanding the import of community values. At the same time, I sense a shift in people’s thinking and the beginning of thinking of the whole.

The shift seems to have manifested rather suddenly, much like the advent of winter this year,. Although I know, it’s all part of an ancient and organic cycle, or layers of cycles, that I can be in tune with, once I get outside my individual world.

Sweet confection

The bottom layer of my crème de menthe bars are puffy when I take them out of the oven. But, with no leavening agent, I know that they will flatten right out when cooling. And, with crème de menthe bars, this is a good thing because they are a three-layer confection, with a moist (flat) chocolate cake layer on the bottom, crème de menthe flavored icing (hence the name) in the middle, and a chocolate frosting as the final and decadent layer. Cut into neat tri-layered squares, they have become a staple in my winter holiday cooking.

And while I could tell a story about acquiring the recipe from an old Woman’s Day magazine, inherited from Lillian Hector in my early days in Narrowsburg, and how I lost the recipe when my house burned down in 1986 and recovered it again when the bars were on a holiday table some eight years later, today I want to talk about leavening, how we puff up with the heat of baking, or in the heat of passion, but how if we have no inner core, or leavening agent as it were, we will not stay puffed. We will not be leavened.

And, at this time where the news is confusing at best, the point that I want to make is that leavening, or some substance of faith, is necessary for our well being.

And in the spirit of not knowing any answers and, specifically, not knowing answers for you, I simply ask you to think about what it is in your life that, when mixed with heat, causes you to rise and to stay risen.

Of course, I can imagine that if you consider yourself to be like the bottom layer of the rich chocolate layer of crème de menthe bars, you might argue that you don’t have to be puffed, you don’t have to find an inner core that stands on its own. You function in harmony with green icing and sweet chocolate confection. And that might be true, too. We all have our part to play.

And with that in mind, I then pass on the wisdom of it's “good to know.” It fits in with the philosophy of the early Greeks and the late Dr. Howard Patton who always told me “know thyself.”

That and passing on this recipe of Christmas treats, lest I might lose it again, undoubtedly, will get us through our day.

Crème De Menthe Bars
Cake layer:
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
½ tsp. salt
½ cup butter
1 tsp vanilla
3 eggs
1 16 oz. can of Hersey’s syrup
Cream butter and add all ingredients except flour. Mix until well blended. Add flour, mix until smooth. Pour into greased 13 x 9 inch pan and bake for 30 minutes. Cool completely.

Mint Layer
Cream ½ cup butter. Sift 2 cups of powered sugar. Add to butter. Blend. Add 2 tablespoons of crème de menthe. Spread on the cooled cake.

Chocolate frosting
Melt 6 oz. of chocolate chips, (1 cup) with 6 oz. of butter. Cool for 10 to 20 minutes and spread on top of the mint layer.

Cut into small squares and enjoy.

Grateful

I have a distant memory of having to create a Thanksgiving service, perhaps it was last year, and feeling as if I wasn't sure that I had anything that I felt actively grateful for. Of course, it was an extremely privileged point of view because just the fact that there is no one shooting at me or dropping bombs on my house is cause for gratitude.

We forget, most of the time, that we are among the privileged.

Even as we face devastating news, we are among the lucky.

Even as we try to juggle home, school, work and more work, we have choice. We are not starving; we are not being physically accosted in the moment -- in the moment. In the moment, we are relatively safe, even if we are not happy.

But, this year, I am feeling happy. And grateful. I am feeling amazingly blessed that I have the opportunity to explore that which I want to give to the world. I feel blessed that there are things that I uniquely can see and do and feel that are uniquely mine to see, do and feel.

It might almost be silly. But as I see my limitations and live the realities of my life, I see possibilities that are mine to take, mine to utilize, mine to explore as I make my way being uniquely me.

Uniquely me, who doesn't quite fit with the ways of the world. Uniquely me, who has never quite fit in with the ways of the world. Uniquely me, who seeks to take the ways of the world and infuse them with transformational love.

In this moment, I am grateful for all those who cherish my unique being in the world.

Thank you.

Readying for Ottawa

I'm off tomorrow for the Unitarian Universalist Ministers' Association Convocation in Ottawa. The five-day event will be chock full of UU ministers, candidates and aspirants for the ministry. With a bevy of workshops, the time spent will give me a good indication of whether I feel comfortable in the company of working ministers.

As I aspire at this point in time to be among their numbers, I'm interested in how it will go, how it will feel. Up to this particular point in time, I have always felt a bit out of place among the ministers of the world, assessing them to be more concerned with the career aspects as opposed to the community service aspects of the role.

Still, I am excited by the opportunity to study in the moment, and look forward to seeing my Starr King School of the Ministry colleagues. I am rooming with a highly accomplished musician and I have packed all of my musical instruments and musical recording equipment with the idea that we will have moments to collaborate, record and orchestrate together.

With studded snow tires newly installed today, my car is ready to go, the check-engine light finally put to sleep with a new sensor. I pack cold sesame noodles, four-grain salad, cheese, salami, bread, bananas to get me ease the pressure of eating out all of the time.

It is a truly privileged life that I lead. And I am thankful for all who support me on this journey.

Rainy day morning thoughts

There is something highly attractive in this morning’s cool rainy weather. The diffused light enhances the golden color of the maple tree outside my window. The sounds of water falling to earth, dripping off the roof, light and deep, form a symphony. From the patter to the drips to a rhythmic thumping of drops collecting and then falling, there is a peace and a diverse natural order. Somewhere in the side yard, a bird calls out.

I sit, propped up in bed, my laptop invisibly connected to the World Wide Web and read the variety of articles and email alerts that come into my inbox. Sandwiched underneath the relentless headlines is a pervasive theology of consumption and privilege that is contrasted by the free-falling rain. I have become sensitive to these null messages where concern for the other and for the earth is discounted in the face of the economic realities that we face.

I interpret the political maneuvers in Congress about health care reform and big oil company Chesapeake’s announcement in today’s Times that they will not drill in the New York City watershed as strategic moves of a selfish body that are designed to further one’s position and opportunity for corporate gain.

I do research for a paper, “Theology of Consumption,” that I will write as a final requirement for an online class on Unitarian Universalist theology. In it, I will use the exploration and extraction of natural gas from the Marcellus Shale, the huge formation of shale that runs from West Virginia, much of Pennsylvania and into the Southern Tier of New York, as a case in point and explore how it relates to the UU principle that affirms the importance of the interdependent web of existence.

I gather resources including Sallie McFague’s “Searching for a New Framework” in which she espouses that our current environmental crisis creates a need for a paradigm shift from an anthropocentric view of God and our place in the world to a cosmological interpretation and way of being in the world that supports the flourishing of all life. She concludes that changing this emphasis, actually embodying our theology of respect for all life in all that we do, is a form of activism.

My to-do list, which includes a one-page summary of said aforementioned paper, will prevent my attendance at the first public session where the New York State Department of Conservation (DEC) is presenting its proposed supplemental guidelines for the extraction of natural gas to the public. I had wanted to attend so that I could experience first hand the context in which the DEC places this activity and to have the opportunity to hear the various positions, pros and cons and in betweens, held by members of the community.

In a perfect world, I would been prepared with a compelling statement about process theology where we become transformed by the process of our exploration of the issues and how deep listening and not creative positioning yields best management practices and environmentally and socially responsible behavior. Like listening to the rain and simply noting the different sounds that make up the symphony, holding the realities of those whose differ from our point of view, articulating our common interest to not harm the earth or our communities, gives us the opportunity to underpin this potentially life-threatening activity and exploitation to something that is life affirming.

I am hopeful that that dialogue and process begins tonight.