Since I had to fetch some prescriptions today, I also did the second half of my grocery shopping. I am not sure what it is about me that sort of panics when I think things are low, when they are actually not. So, I ended up adding in a package of chicken that is really for next month, not this one. And I bought the ingredients for Basil Burgers when I have absolutely no need for additional meals at this point. My monthly total is sill lower than the new-and-improved budget line, but ~$19 should have waited until next month's budget cycle. SIGH.
I did buy the blueberries for the other recipe I wanted to try, but I resisted adding more dried cherries to my cart. Surely, I can manage not to inhale the 26 cookies left in my freezer over the next 17 days?? In a fit of uncharacteristic generosity, I gave my neighbor and her son each a muffin and a cookie.
So, the muffins...
... Blueberry Lime Oatmeal Muffins! Yes, they are tasty! Not sweet in the least. Very oatmeal-y in flavor, but not grainy or chewy. I suppose that is because you soak the oats in sour cream before mixing all the ingredients together. Oh, my!!
I've never cooked with fresh blueberries before and it was interesting to see how they sort of melt into the muffins. My neighbor came home just as they were finishing and told me that I could freeze the rest of the blueberries. Yes, another freezer option! I was so glad that she mentioned this option to me because I have half a container left. I did not want to make a second batch of muffins right away only because the sour cream I have left must be for any pulled pork tacos I have until the 27th. Maybe I will even find a different use for the blueberries. Maybe.
I will say that concentrating on buying fruits and vegetables for the second half of my grocery purchase was a bit surprising and more costly than I had anticipated. For example, I was very confused about the price of grapes. The sign did not say "per pound," so I ended up with nearly $7 of grapes. I like grapes and these are smaller red grapes, but not $7 worth of liking. Not considering how limited my budget is. I did, however, get some teeny tiny asparagus that is going to be ever so tasty for less than $2. Mmmmmmm.
I bought two more rutabagas, because I have settled on three recipes. I had planned to make them this afternoon and evening, to have another throw down with myself, but I became so ill that all I could do was wish for the end of the world. Waves and waves and waves of violent nausea. Two doses of Zofran (the second one taken early) and some ginger ale later, I bolstered my despair by trying the new recipe. And eating a muffin.
I really didn't/don't care if I get ill again. I am not sure why I was so ill. I had to walk whilst shopping because there were no wheelchair carts available. And all I have been doing since leaving the basement outside entrance Tuesday has been a whole lot of languishing in the GREEN chair. Well, I did do the spec work, but I did it all whilst languishing. It was exhausting being out today and my feet are rather puffy. But that shouldn't have made me nauseous. I did, though, miss a dose of Erythromycin last night.
Missing the medication made me think of the other things I have been forgetting. From my last office, I had a small dry erase board and so I fetched it from the basement in the middle of the night. I took a large round holder and filled it with some of my dry erase markers and an eraser. Then, I got the stand that I used when I was unemployed the last time and was temping and doing contract work. Part of what I did was copious amounts of typing up notes for an executive, so she bought me a stand to use. All that is now set up on the coffee table (my antique trunk) to help me remember the things I want to do. Also to help me remember what I planned to eat since the dry erase board that is on the refrigerator is re-purposed as a medication dose tracker at the moment. It is something that I can tuck away at night as I am doing my 15-minute clean-up and get back out the next day.
Even though it was really late, I spent some time doing research for Becky's booklet. And I read some Bonhoeffer ... actually the whole book. Two bits stood out as I raced through the text, planning on savoring it a slower pace later:
"In many churches the Psalms are read or sung every Sunday, or even daily, in succession. These churches have preserved a priceless treasure, for only with daily use does one appropriate this divine prayerbook. When read only occasionally, these prayers are too overwhelming in design and power and tend to turn us back to more palatable fare. But whoever has begun to pray the Psalter seriously and regularly will soon give a vacation to other little devotional prayers and say: 'Ah, there is not the juice, not the strength, the passion, the fire which I find in the Psalter. It tastes too cold and too hard.' (Luther)." (25)
Gosh! That is exactly what I try to explain to folk who say reading/praying the Psalter is hard. It was hard for me when I started, but all the time I've spent in it makes reading and praying so very easy, so very natural. The words of my heart are before me in the Living Word! I chuckled when I realized the quote was Luther.
[I think he would have welcomed me in his church, not thought me a burden or a freak.]
Luther's right. If you rarely visit the Psalter, it can seem strange or hard or even confusing. But if you live with it on a daily basis, you will begin to see that the Psalter is filled with Jesus Christ and His gifts. And you will see that the Creator very much understands His creation. Human nature, in all its exuberance and despair, its strengths and frailties, is not unknown to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
"It is reported that after David's secret anointing as a king, he was called to play the harp for King Saul, who was abandoned by God and plagued by an evil spirit. 'And whenever the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, David took the lyre and played it with his hand; so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him' (I Samuel 16:23). That may have been the beginning of the writing of the Psalms by David. In the power of the spirit of God, which has come upon him at the time of his anointing, he drove away the evil spirit through his song. No Psalm has been transmitted to us from the time prior to the anointing. The songs which later were accepted into the canon of the Holy Scriptures were prayers by the one called to be the messianic king, from whom the promised king Jesus Christ was to descend." (16-17)
There, tucked in amongst the "chapter" about who prays the Psalms is the answer to my question about the verse Mary sent me ... the same verse is included! So, the evil spirit came after Saul lost his faith. The language, though, is troubling: "who was abandoned by God."
Diverting my own worries about being abandoned by God, I read over and over again the following:
"According to the witness of the Bible, David is, as the anointed king of the chosen people of God, a prototype of Jesus Christ. What happens to him, happens to him for the sake of the one who is in him and who is said to proceed from him, namely Jesus Christ. And he is not unaware of this, but 'being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants upon his throne, he foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ' (Acts 2:30 f.). David was a witness to Christ in his office, in his life, and in his words. The New Testament says even more. In the Psalms of David the promised Christ himself already speaks (Hebrews 2:12; 10:5) or, as may also be indicated, the Holy Spirit (Hebrews 3:7). These same words which David spoke, therefore, the future Messiah spoke through him. The prayers of David were prayed also by Christ. Or better, Christ himself prayed them through his forerunner David.
"This short comment on the New Testament sheds significant light on the entire Psalter. It relates the Psalter to Christ. How that is to be understood in detail we still have to consider. But it is important to note that even David did not pray out of the personal exuberance of his heart, but out of the Christ who dwelled in him. To be sure, the one who prays his Psalms remains himself. But in him and through him it is Christ who prays. The last words of old David express the same thing in a hidden way: 'The oracle of David, the son of Jesse, the oracle of the man who was raised on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, the sweet psalmist of Israel: 'The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me, his word is upon my tongue'; and then follows a final prophesy about the coming king of righteousness, Jesus Christ (II Samuel 23:1 f).
"Therefore we are once again led to the realization which we affirmed earlier. Certainly not all the Psalms are by David, and there is no word of the New Testament which places the entire Psalter in the mouth of Christ. Nevertheless, the intimations already alluded to must be sufficiently important to us to point to the entire Psalter, which is decisively bound up with the name of David. And Jesus himself says about the Psalms in general that they announced his death and his resurrection and the preaching of the Gospel. (Luke 24:44 f).
"How is it possible for a man and Jesus Christ to pray the Psalter together? It is the incarnate Son of God, who has borne every human weakness in his own flesh, who here pours out the heart of all humanity before God and who stands in our place and prays for us. He has known torment and pain, guilt and death more deeply than we. Therefore it is the prayer of the human nature assumed by him which comes here before God. It is really our prayer, but since he knows us better than we know ourselves and since he himself was true man for our sakes, it is also really his prayer, and it can become our prayer only because it was his prayer." (17-20)
After pausing there, I raced through the rest of the book.
But that lingered with me.
Lingers still.
It is the incarnate Son of God,
who has borne
every human weakness
in his own flesh,
who here
pours out the heart of all humanity
before God
and who stands in our place
and prays for us.
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