The fellowship of fear...

I made the pulled chicken tacos today.

Sometimes, when I eat tacos at home now, I get distracted by how bloody fantastic the flour tortillas are.  It still boggles my mind that I can make them.  As for these tacos, I think I might actually like them more without the bacon.  Seriously, how odd is that??  I am thinking chicken and bacon tacos should be with grilled chicken, as I have had them before.  Maybe.  I don't know.  Even with the crumbled applewood smoked bacon, I had absolutely no problem polishing these off in record time.

Next time, I might try the white cheddar cheese, the way I do with the pulled pork tacos.  I am wondering if the spiciness needs the white cheddar.  I have nine more two-taco jars of pulled chicken to decide.  I even already have enough bacon for another set, so I could keep the bacon, switch the cheese and then see how the flavors combine.  Maybe I should take the two remaining chicken breast in the freezer and grill them up so I could have a proper comparison on the bacon issue.

And, for kicks, I could use the spicy pulled chicken to make a burrito.  I have had rather rash thoughts about making a batch of tortillas and dividing the dough into larger sections for burritos and such.  What do you think ... reduce the sections from 16 to 12?  Or be bold and divide it only into 8?  

Before I went to sleep last night, I also made a dessert from my childhood.  It is one my step-father brought into our family.

Stan's Forgotten Cookies are so interesting to me. The outside is crispy, but once you bit into them, they sort of melt in your mouth in a bit of a chewy fashion.  Of course, he made them with nuts, which is just nuts.   Nuts don't belong in desserts!  However, in this cookie, nuts would be jarring to the texture and experience.  I wanted to double the recipe, since it only makes 24 cookies, but I was not all that confident they would turn out in an edible fashion and did not want to have a potentially large sacrifice of milk chocolate chips.

When I got up at 6:00 AM to take my erythromycin and feed Amos before heading back to sleep, I dutifully checked the cookies.  I checked them by taste-testing one cookie and then having a second just to be sure.  They are just fine.  One more went into my belly after I polished off the pulled chicken tacos at lunch and the rest went into the freezer.

They went into the freezer because it is very easy to eat a half dozen of these cookies without even noticing.  In fact, just now, I thought to myself, Myrtle, you should go test how the cookies are frozen since you do not actually remember them being good frozen.  Four cookies later, I have fully determined that it is indeed true:  Forgotten Cookies freeze well.

Two went over the fence to my neighbor and her son this afternoon.  Quick ... do the math.  How many more temptations are awaiting me in the freezer???

It occurred to me that the longing for the Forgotten Cookies fits with others longings I have had of late, such as Sonic.  Longings for things I used to have in my life.  If I cannot have the memories or the skill sets, what can I have??

Something else I've added to my bucket list is to once more feel the wind in my hair.  When I was younger, I was ... forced ... to go on bicycle tours.  I continued riding through college and a bit beyond.  In college, I would ride by bike over to the local cemetery and do laps through those quiet, dark roads.  Sometimes, folk would criticize my riding there, but it was [stinking hot] Waco, Texas and the cemetery was completely shaded by these rather magnificent old trees.  The cemetery had been re-paved relatively recently before I started college, so riding was like skimming across ice on skates.  There, I could ride faster than anywhere else without fear of hitting something and falling.  Too, I would take rests before some of the oldest graves and talk with the occupants ... well, wonder aloud about their lives.

Sometimes, I went on longer rides, out to West, Texas, home of the kolache.  I have a recipe for those, but am not quite ready to try anything that is bread.  I do love how many folk have written about the West, Texas kolache.  So many of them mention my favorite ones:  sausage.  Who needs fruit or sweet fillings when you can have a bread roll baked around sausage so that the juices from the meat flavor the inner layer of bread?  It is nice to be understood, even if by strangers who've never met you.

Out in West, Texas, the cemetery is bare, exposed.  But it has even older graves and markers that give you pause.  Like this one.

Thirty miles there.
Chow down and a number of kolaches that will remain secret.
Visit with echoes of the past.
Thirty miles home.

Later, I "rode" my roller blades more than my bike.  On them, too, I found that ... freedom ... of racing away from the rest of the world with the wind blowing back my hair.  Clearly, I should not attempt to use rollerblades, but I have wondered if I could ride a bike for a few minutes, a few minutes on a very, very, very flat road.  I gave away my Miyata bike when I was still in Alexandria.  I did not live in a place save enough to ride the local streets and I knew my time of traveling places to ride had ended.

Bike.
Shoes.
Helmet.
Gloves.
Portable pump.
Car rack.
Emergency repair kit.
Water bottles.
Speedometer.
Bag.

It was like giving away pieces of my secret self, the self that both hated to ride and loved the escape.

On the Texas Hill Country tours, when I was a youth, my parents would go off on their own and I would be left with a map and different tour options for the day (save for the year I convinced a girl from school to join me).  Following map directions is not my fortitude, nor is hooking up with fellow riders.  I was the lone biker, who practically walked up hills, missed more way stations (country stores where you could get lunch) than she found, pedaled in fear and frustration, and whose only peace came from zooming down hill, the wind blowing through her hair.

The same little girl who liked to push the merry-go-round as hard as she could so that she could leap on the spinning circle, and lean back, safe, because the wind was blowing in her hair and no one could catch her.

I don't know how I could manage a way to experience such a thing again, but I would like to do so.  Not a merry-go-round. Not rollerblades.  Maybe not even a bike.  But somehow...

In reading Michael Card's commentary on Mark, I start over at the beginning each time I sit down to read it.  In part, I do so in the hopes of remembering some of what I am reading.  In part, because I am still so mind-boggled by what I am reading.

Today, I spent a good deal of time thinking about chapters 8 and 9, which are seemingly linked (since there were no chapters in the original texts) and thinking about the themes Michael Card is highlighting and the bookends that keep cropping up.

Chapter 8 opens with the feeding of the 4,000, another miracle gone unnoticed, but one with a different outcome.  I think some might say that it is two sides of the coin of Jesus, but this idea of bookends, connecting everything from one end to the other, intrigues me.

As before (Mk 6:39), the crowd is interacted to sit. There is no mention of the green grass of Galilee. As before, the miracle is vitally undetectable in terms of Mark's language.  Jesus pronounces a blessing, breaks the loaves and passes them to the disciples.  He does the same with a few small fish.  There is no hint of amazement.  The thousands simply eat and are satisfied.  You begin to wonder if Mark's purpose is to underwhelm.  Are we left to be overwhelmed by the lack of spiritual perception on the part of the Twelve?

Again in parallel form to the earlier story, the leftover pieces are gathered.  All that is different is the Greek word for "basket."  Here, as in Matthew 15:37, the word used is spyris, a man-sized hamper or basket. It is the word used  of the basket in which Paul was lowered in Act 9:25.  There are seven extremely large baskets of leftovers when initially there were only seven small loaves of bread.  The miracle is clearly one of abundance.  These are the significant distinctions that need to be woven into our understanding of the flow of Jesus' ministry.  (emphasis mine)

The miracle is followed by another scene where bread is the issue.  The disciples have forgotten to take bread and have only a single loaf with them in the boat.  Jesus says to them, in verses 17-18, "Why are you discussing that you do no have any bread?  Do you not yet understand or comprehend?  Is your heart hardened?  Do you have eyes and not see, and do you have ears, and not hear?  And do you not remember?"

He warns them of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod, but He finishes by making them tell him how many baskets of bread were left over at each feeding.  And then He asks, "Don't you understand yet?"

What is it that the disciples don't understand?  They have witnessed Jesus' power to provide both perfect and abundant provision. It is pointless for them to argue about forgetting to bring bread along for the voyage.  But they still seem blind to Jesus' true identity and power.  They are either oblivious or afraid.

In a deeper sense, they are deaf to the urgency of the moment.  Jesus warns them of the danger of creeping stubbornness and disbelief, of the effect it can have, blinding and deafening them.  This seems to be a preparation for the ultimate revelation that he is the bread of perfect and abundant provision.  That costly realization, though it is closing in on them fast, seems a world away. (emphasis mine).

The verse that popped into my head from the recesses of my past life as the good little evangelical who had hoards of verses stored in her brain is:  "I have come so that you might have life and have it abundantly."  And something about Jesus saying that He is the bread of life.  I Googled the phrases.  Both verses are in John, which is a significance that cropped up in these two chapters.

You see, Michael Card points out the Pharisees tactics have shifted from trying to catch Jesus breaking the Sabbath to demanding signs.  Jesus sighs deeply at the request and states that this generation will see no signs.  Michael Card notes that in the Gospels Matthew, Mark, and Luke signs are demanded by those who refuse to believe.  But in the Gospel of John signs have a more positive connotation, being something given by God.

When I read that, I realized that might be why Lutherans have such an emphasis on the gifts of Christ.     I think that because Luther teaches in the Large Catechism when discussing the Lord's Prayer that we know we can forgive others because of the signs and seals given to us.  Signs and seals being the Sacraments.  The gifts of Christ.

But what struck me about the phrase the perfect and abundant provision of Jesus is that what one might perceive as abundance, such as wealth or even health, does not really have much to do with the abundant life Jesus came to bring.  By that I mean, is not the abundance bread (of Christ)? The abundance being the fullness of receiving the gift of a life in Christ, a life by and with and through and beneath the cross?

Next comes the healing of the blind man, only it is a healing in two parts.  First, Jesus spits in the man's eyes, and they are still out of focus.  Then, Jesus places His hands on the man's eyes and the healing is complete.

There are two points made about this that I like:  the spiritual focus Christ brings and the bookend device Mark oft employs.

Mark, as he will continue to du to the very end of his Gospel, leaves us hanging.  As with Jesus' parables, we are left with the story, in sovereign freedom to engage or not.  The "aha" moment is waiting for those who will listen and hear and look and see.  For the moment, maybe we see the spiritual world out of focus.  Jesus promises us the hope of clear spiritual perception.

This is a variation of Mark's bookend device.  The bookends are the two unique healings:  one of a deaf man, the other of someone who is blind.  Between the bookends is an extended exposé of the failure of the disciples to hear or see.  Until this moment, they have seen Jesus as shapeless and out of focus.  That is all about to radically change. (emphasis mine)

The verse that popped into my mind from those murky recesses is something about Paul, I believe, saying that now we see in a mirror dimly, but later we will see clearly.  Perhaps I am reading the commentary wrong, but I took the end of the first paragraph to mean that even those who have Christ in their lives can experience confusion, can struggle to see and to hear clearly.  But, one day, all will be revealed.

By unique healings, Michael Card means that these are ones that did not come about solely by the spoken word.  In both instances, Jesus made physical contact with the broken, the wounded.  To me, this only emphasizes the importance of the Lord's Supper.  By this I mean, in the Lord's Supper, Christians are physically connected to Jesus, taking in His very body and very blood.  There is a healing in the Lord's Supper that is different from other healings, specifically than the healing that can come from hearing the Living Word.  And so, for those with deep and great wounds, the gift of the physical presence of Jesus is paramount for survival, if not healing on this side of the vale of tears, i.e., the need for the Lord's Supper is more profound.

At the end of chapter 8, Michael Card card sees both an end and a beginning.  He sees the end point of the first part of Mark driving toward who Jesus is.  He sees the beginning as the point when the disciples begin to hear and to see more clearly.

The fateful word "Messiah" has been spoken for the first time in Mark's Gospel.  Admist a swirl of misunderstandings concerning the "anointed one," Jesus sets out to undeceive the Twelve.  At the time, "Messiah" represented a wide range of hopes and dreams in Israel.  To some he would be a glorious king who, with Jerusalem as his throne, would reestablish the theocratic nation of Israel.  to many he would be a militaristic Messiah who would come and kill the Roman oppressor.  What these differing dreams all held in common was the notion of glory, victory and divine power.  Above all, the Messiah would  never submit, surrender or suffer.

But in Mark 8:31, Jesus begins the painful process of redefining and undeceiving the disciples.  The Son of Man, Jesus tells them, will suffer, be rejected and finally be killed.  With the emotional shock of those words, the disciples all stop listening.  It is too much for them to process.  As often as he will repeat himself concerning his suffering and death, they do not really hear the words "and rise after three days" (Mk 8:31).

The private details for the disciples were greater than that Jesus then taught the ever-present crowds.  This was the first of three times Jesus will talk about what it means to follow Him.

His cross will lead to their crosses.  The loss of his life will lead to their lives being offered up for him and the gospel.  He is going to turn the world upside down in ways we still struggle to understand.  We will save our lives by losing them.  The surpassing value of a single soul Jesus places above the worth of the whole world.

Michael Card stresses that the transfiguration came after Peter's confession of faith.  It was not proof of who Jesus was, but the first steps in the opening of the eyes and ears of His disciples.  Truth, Michael Card emphasizes, can only be grasped by faith.    

[Holy cow!  Did I just read that?]

Michael Card shows the connection between the end of chapter 8 and the beginning of chapter 9 with the Greek word uses to begin chapter 9 being kai, which is translated "and" or "but."  A joining word.  But more than the Greek word is how Jesus' ministry continues to unfold across the two chapters.

See, that is at the heart of my caddywhompus.  The whole commentary thus far has been about Jesus' ministry and what He was setting out to teach his disciples so that that ministry might continue.  The Gospel is not about how I'm supposed to live my life!  Jesus was not telling me how to be "godly" or "holy."

The interesting bit I learned about the transfiguration pales, for me, in comparison to the fellowship I realized I share with the disciples:  Fear.  I mean, I didn't know that Moses and Elijah's appearance represent the Law and the Prophets, represent all those who have suffered because of their obedience to the Father, and represented the two categories of citizens of the kingdom of God: those who die and those who will be taken up before they die.  That ... that is really interesting to me in that it makes their appearance at that time and in that place make sense.  But I find myself thinking more about the disciples response:  Fear.

I never noticed just how many times Jesus lamented their lack of understanding, meaning not just lamenting the lack of understanding amongst the crowds and the scribes and Pharisees but also amongst the disciples themselves. I never noticed just how many times Jesus talks about seeing and hearing, about eyes and ears.  How fitting that is, to me, since my beloved Psalter is chock full of verses about how we need to have the Word in our ears and in our mouths, on our lips and on our tongues.

I also never noticed just how fearful the disciples were.

Seriously, I chuckled when I read that Peter asked, "Rabbi, is it good for us to be here?"  They are so afraid that as the glory of Christ is being revealed to them they are questioning if Jesus should be doing that.  Oh, my!  I would have been rather worried about lightning strikes at that very moment ... very certainly would have taken a giant step away from Peter.

So very often, at least in the first nine chapters of the Gospel of Mark, the authority and power and magnitude of who Jesus is overwhelms the disciples.  They are afraid of what they see and hear.  It is difficult for them to take in and, to a certain extent, disbelief is easier than belief.

In Mark chapter 9 is one of the two verses I had been ending my blog posts with, the cry of the father to Jesus, "Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!"  I stopped doing that because I don't know if I believe.  I truly don't.  And I don't want to write a lie, to pray a lie.  But the second half ... oh, yes!  Jesus help my unbelief!

But before I type what I found in the commentary on that verse, I want to add Michael Card's observation that after the confession by faith and the revelation of Jesus on the mountain, the disciples begin to ask better questions of Jesus, ones that are more fitting to folk about to take up the mantle of Jesus' ministry.  It is not that their fear has suddenly fallen away, but faith is at work in them.  Some questions they ask.  Others are left unspoken because of fear.  But they are learning and growing in faith.

Selah.

As to Mark 9:24, Michael Card writes:

As contradictory as these words might seem, the pressure of the life-and-death situation brings into focus deep truths.  In the tangle of the human heart we sometimes do believe and disbelieve in the same moment.  That is, until something or someone appears to help us with our unbelief.   (emphasis mine)

The external Word, for me, is what helps with my unbelief.

I know it.
I long for it.
And I fear asking for it.

Perhaps the most caddywhompus moment of both chapters is the whole bit on it being better to hack off limbs and pluck out eyes than to sin with those body parts.  I mean, if I start lopping off my sinful parts, my body would be gone ... and lifeless.  Those verses, the idea of them, frighten me.  I read them as Law that I must somehow follow.  Follow or else.  And my repeated, utter failure at controlling my body, at staving off sin, terrifies me.

But Michael Card looks at the whole of what Jesus is saying, not the parts.  [Pun intended.]  He uses the word "hyperbolic" to describe Jesus' language here.  Language that is over the top.

They are unforgettable images:  cutting off the hand or foot, gouging out the eye.  The painful alternative?  Being thrown into hell.  It would seem a reasonable thing to do to keep yourself from sin.  No price is too great to pay to avoid that unimaginable place where "their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched."

This is an image from the final verse of the book of Isaiah.  In some manuscripts, Jesus repeats the phrase three times (Mk 9:44, 46, 48).  His tone is dark, filled with passion.  He alternates his gaze between the child in his arms and the "little ones" who are his disciples.  There is no language to express the colossal cost of sin.  He will perfectly pay that price in a matter of weeks.  It is a seed that must be planted in their hearts while there is still time.  (emphasis mine)

From this I thought ... Uhm, Myrtle, Jesus has already done the hacking off and the gouging out.  He's done this in His own body!  That hyperbolic language was not an instruction so that I can avoid eternal death, but an attempt at expressing the ineffable:  the cost of sin.

Michael Card ends the chapter pointing out that only the Gospel of Mark contains the words "salted with fire."  He reminds the reader to think again about Mark's audience, those who are still haunted by the great fire that tore through Roman.  Those, too, who were about to face great persecution.

To be salted with fire is sacrificial language.  Every follower of Jesus is to be a sacrifice for God.  Though it might seem otherwise, this assault, this testing is good.  We cannot afford to lose it.  The fire defines who we are in the world.

Baptized with fire.
Tested with fire.
Refined by fire.

So many interesting and intriguing and overwhelming thoughts, yet I remain captured by the idea that  I share something with Jesus' disciples: fear.  Really, fear and confusion.

I have deeply savored the connectedness of the Gospel of Mark as presented in this commentary.  The emphasis, thus far, is on Jesus—Jesus now soon to be Christ Crucified.  I am presented with Jesus' ministry, His compassion and dedication, His struggles and perseverance.  I am presented with the reality that the good we oft cling to, such as healings and rescues, is not the best of Jesus.  I see folk walking, eating, and sleeping beside Jesus still confused and often fearful ... even after they have gone out and taught and wrought miracles in their first foray into Jesus' ministry.  And I am gobsmacked by what I am not seeing, by the utter dearth of life application for today's believer.

Even though I have to keep re-reading what I have already covered to remember those connections, to keep hold of the larger picture, the story I longed to learn is all here.  Laid out in Myrtle Speak.

Myrtle Speak which includes the same ... stuff ... that I see in the Book of Concord.  Christians struggle with doubt and confusion.  The anguished or anxious soul is not the outlier.  It is to be expected.  It is what the Gospel is for ... comfort and consolation.  Verbs, not nouns.  Performative words, not adjectival or even metaphorical language.

The anguished or anxious soul is to be expected ... and welcomed.

Not shunned.
Not condemned.
Not showered with law.

The Gospel is for the weak and wounded, the weary and terrified ... and those who find within themselves a war between belief and unbelief.

The magical GREEN pot...

My beloved GREEN dutch oven came through for me again!  In my opinion, even for those on a limited budget, the Le Cruet enamel cast iron dutch oven is worth the purchase price (but keep it in your Amazon shopping cart and buy it during a price dip like I did and buy a GREEN one since mine is surely magical).

Since I am near addicted to the Spicy Dr Pepper Pulled Pork tacos I've been eating, I have longed for a chicken option ... mostly because I wanted to have bacon on my tacos.  I mean, who doesn't want to have chicken bacon tacos???  I wanted to make a pulled chicken, so I could freeze it and make the tacos as easily as I do the pulled pork ones.

My problem is that the rest of the world believes that using a slow cooker will not result in culinary disaster when making pulled chicken.  That just boggles my mind!  And seemingly everyone else also believes that you should use thighs for pulled chicken. I am a white meat kind of gal.  So, I had to work out a recipe for myself.  I also had to try and figure out the cooking time, since I figured chicken breasts would cook far sooner than a pork sirloin roast.   The process has been long and slow and full of great fear and trepidation.  Tonight, I girded my loins and set out to tackle my culinary dream.

Voilà!  Here is my Spicy Pulled Chicken (I know... a boring recipe title).

Look at those lovely jars!

Here are my rejected onions.  Too bad I don't know someone who would eat these.

So, the recipe.  I used 24 ounces of liquid because the pulled pork recipe did.  I think it would be interesting to try it with straight orange juice, but I have enjoyed cooking with beer.   I used honey since something sweet seems to need to go in there when you use those chipotle peppers.  I used cumin because that also seemed the right thing to do given that I wanted to make tacos.  The end result was pulled chicken with a kick.  Of course, that means I just have to add sour cream and cheese with my tacos!

It does sort of puzzle me how I can throw lots of garlic into my recipes and they not end up tasting garlicky in the least.  I was also surprised that the chicken did not end up tasting citrusy.  It was just spicy and very, very, very moist.

My neighbor was introduced to a new liquor last weekend and bought some today.  She came over to have me try it, since I shared the Creamy Lemon Crumb Squares with her.

You keep the liquor in your freezer.  We had two glasses, just to be sure that we had a proper tasting.

The funny thing is that the other day Bettina mentioned grilled cheese sandwiches.  I couldn't get the idea of such tastiness out of my mind, so I made one for dinner.  My neighbor came over in time for the NASCAR race, around 7:30.  I was, however, in the middle of trying to figure out how to make my pulled chicken and was in a bit of a state.

She knew I was cooking, but was willing to set aside her thoughts and feeling about cooking and come anyway.  I very much appreciated that.  I very, very, very much appreciated having someone there with me in my culinary fear and trepidation.  Once I got the chicken in the oven, I mentioned the grilled cheese when making excuses for all the dirty dishes in the kitchen and my neighbor swooned.  To revive her, I made her one.

Butter.
Buttermilk bread.
Sharp white cheddar cheese.
Extra sharp yellow cheddar cheese.
More butter when you flip the sandwich.

My living room was filled with lots of groans of pleasure as my neighbor ate her sandwich.  She even texted a photo to her new beaux.  He wanted one, but lives in Kentucky.  He drooled from a distance.  Clearly, I believe in making wicked grilled cheese sandwiches.

My neighbor left before the chicken was done, but she commented many times that the aroma wafting from the oven was enough to set her to swooning again.  I found it helpful to have someone examine the meat with me.  I checked it after an hour.  Then again in a second hour.  It still didn't look quite what I thought it should be, after pulling apart a section of one breast, so I cooked it for 30 more minutes.  That half hour was just the right amount of time, if you ask me.

My, how relieved I was pulling the chicken!  Pulling ... taking a bite ... pulling some more.  Amos was jealous.  I cannot believe that I managed to pull off the dish.  [Pun intended.]  I tried to call Becky, but she was at a baseball came.  So, I did not have anyone with whom to dance the victory.  I very much prefer cooking with others than by myself.

The other humorous note to the impromptu evening was my neighbor's very, very, very casual question about how much of an inroad I had made on the beer cheese soup.  You see, she had taken home two servings, one for her son and for herself.  Thinking about its rather high level of tastiness, my neighbor let her son eat his beloved frozen dinner and ate both servings herself.  In fact, she took one to work and set her colleagues off in a fit of envy.  They asked if they could buy the soup.

My neighbor has never asked me for any food and oft declines any offer I make.  So, I chuckled over her too casual question.  Then, I asked if she would like for me to fetch a jar from the basement for her to take to work on Monday.  Frankly, she cannot believe that I am willing to share it with her.  Normally, my stingy, selfish person would not be willing in the least, but I did end up with 18 servings in that first batch.  At the moment, I still have plenty to share.

Wednesday is the first day of my new budget cycle.  I still have sausages and two chicken breasts left, as well as the meat for the stew and the second batch of pulled pork I never got around to making.  Plus, there are the three different types of steak that I have been too chicken to try the recipes for which I bought them sitting in the basement freezer. Thus, even though I plan on buying that liquor for myself and have some larder items that need refilling, I am hoping this will be my most economical grocery spending month yet.  Much to my surprise, I even have plenty of sour cream in my refrigerator still.

However ....

This was my milk shelf two weeks ago.

This is my milk shelf today.  Lonely, eh??

I do still have the $15 and change left on the Wal-Mart gift card, but since I have made it this far, I'd like to save that for next month's groceries.  Thus, I shall be milk rationing from tonight until Wednesday morning.

My shopping list thus far:

• McCormack Peppercorn Medley
• Orzo 
• Black beans
• Sweet & Condensed Milk (for more lemon crumb squares)
• Parsnips
• Carrots
• Broccoli
• Asparagus
• Vidalia onions
• Garlic
• Lemons
• Limes
• Cucumbers
• Grapes
• Blueberries
• Granny Smith apples
• Summer Squash
• Lettuce
• Milk
• Butter
• White Chedder Cheese
• Cheddar cheese
• Chicken
• Rinse Aid
• Comet
• Lemon liquor
• Ginger ale  (depending on how many bouts of nausea I have)
• Saltines (depending on how many bouts of nausea I have)
• Malted Milk Powder (if I can find the recipe that needed this)
• Wax paper (possible need by month's end)
• Affresh (possible need by month's end)

Clearly, I have some sort of deep, unspoken need to maintain a very full freezer.  SIGH.  I think I have enough meals for all of September and October.  Not that I mind.  So, my goal is to see if I can have a month where I spend no more than $100 on groceries and household products combined.  My original budget line was $225 for groceries and $85 for household (that includes all of Amos' needs).  I've gotten that combined amount down to ~$200.  So, if I eat further into the freezer than I have ever managed to do without cooking up more batches of tastiness, I should be able to have a super lean budgetary month.  

Theoretically.

I will finish by noting that I have done well on my last three monthly grocery shopping trips because I have allowed myself one contraband item ... something not on the list and totally unnecessary.  A couple of months ago, I bought a bag of potato chips, which I had not done in a long, long, long while.  Last month, I bought Snapple's Raspberry Tea, which I found in a 12-pack on sale for just $2 more than a 6-pack.  I've trained myself to drink only half a bottle at a time.  [I could shoot whoever introduced me to that addictive stuff.]  I forgot I bought it, so I actually still have 10 bottles.  This month, I bought Hickory Farms Summer Smoked Sausage, which I forgot about until just this week, when I polished it off in four consecutive days of evening snacking.  Anyway, having that one wicked item in my cart has helped me to stick more with my list and with the ingredients for the recipes I'd like to make.

Instead of bemoaning the lack of milk in my life over the next three and a half days, maybe I can think of a contraband item for this month that is extra wicked.

A whole lot of nothing...

I have been doing a whole lot of nothing the past two days, because I am so incredibly tired.  Being un-productive is hard for me.  Mary was kind enough to send me some editing work to distract me for a bit.  [Thanks, Mary!]

I finally remembered to take a photo of the Roasted Rutabaga and Parsnips Beer Cheese soup before I started chowing down on it.  So, I added it to the recipe page.  I do find it a bit remarkable just how well this soup freezes (and tastes after thawing).

I've spent a lot of time watching Amos battle his fear.  This is typical of him.  Once he dares step onto the dreaded tall, wet grass, my puppy dog become almost paralyzed and does not move any part of his body save for his head.  He looks around at his predicament and then will send pitiful gazes back my way.  I am impressed, a bit, at just how long he can remain stock still.  Of course, to give him credit, you cannot even see the bottom of his legs once he steps out into the yard.

I have utterly failed at finding anyone who would like to have some of my fresh herbs.  You can see that I've only harvested from one of the ginormous basil bushes.  Despite eating lots and lots and lots of sages dishes, I've barely made a dent in those.  Neither have I made much inroads on the thyme.  And, much to my surprise, having harvested half of each of the rosemary bushes, they have grown more.  That is a bit of a victory.

I want to try drying the herbs, but I am ... nervous about that.  I haven't read anything online that gives me confidence.  Primarily, I've noted that it is recommended to dry them in warm air.  Very, very, very little air in my house is warm.  The two options I've thought of are either the solarium or the attic.  I thought I would try to tie bundles to the wooden clothes drying rack I have.  I am just not sure how long it will take indoors.  I could, of course, try the garage, but I thought the house would be a better/cleaner place.  With the unusual amounts of rain, I am reluctant to try until everything has dried out a bit.

[Yes, I am procrastinating.]

Anyway, if I am successful in drying the herbs, then I thought I could mail some off to friends and family.  The nerdy part of me would like to take the position that if I can successfully dry the herbs, then I ought to have a mortar and pestle to crush them.  I wonder if mortar and pestle sets come in GREEN.

The other way I've occupied my mind whilst my body languishes (other than reading the commentary on the Gospel of Mark) has been to Google for pulled chicken recipes.  I very much want to try pulled chicken tacos, but I have run across two obstacles in trying to find a recipe: 1) I want to use chicken breasts, not thighs and 2) I want to use my dutch oven (since I don't have a slow cooker).

I did just do some shopping in the basement freezer for meals.  I admit that I still enjoy grabbing the basket and heading down to fill it up.  I chose:  black bean soup, chipotle chicken chili, pulled pork (for tacos), Vietnamese chicken curry, lemon chicken gyros, black eyed peas, butternut and goat milk cheese pasta, and the beer cheese soup.

Will you not listen...

When I crawled into bed last night, I was rather exhausted.  However, Amos couldn't sleep.  Amos couldn't sleep because he couldn't find his beloved Flower Baby.  Now, whenever Flower Baby makes her way downstairs, I am always careful to take her back up with me.  Amos really cannot sleep without her.  And when Amos cannot sleep neither can I.

I looked high and low for Flower Baby and grew quite frustrated.  I mean, how does one lose a stuffed animal in a bedroom?  Finally.  Finally, I thought to look beneath Amos' pillow.  [Yes, Amos has his own pillow.]

In fact, Amos has his own side of the bed. And, if you haven't noticed, he now prefers to be tucked beneath the covers as he sleeps.

Once he was reunited with his beloved Flower Baby, I tried to sleep myself.  But I got sicker and sicker and sicker.  My head was aching and the nausea was coming in waves.  I couldn't think what was wrong, but then my heart felt like it was exploding in my chest and I broke out in a cold sweat.  Ah!  Low blood sugar.  Somehow I had let the bottle of glucose pills beside my bed become empty.  I stumbled and fumbled my way downstairs and shoved food hand over fist into my mouth and then lay trembling on the floor until I recovered.  Around seven this morning, I finally fell asleep.

It rained yesterday.  The night before, I actually sang a bit of a rain song (I don't dance) because I saw that the dog days of summer were finally coming to Fort Wayne.  Greedy Myrtle wants to keep her GREEN grass, but is trying to hold to her resolve to not water.  Sure enough, we had two brief, but hard showers.

Yes, I tried very hard to think, today, that the sudden downpour yesterday was not God commenting on the inappropriateness of my pastor praying for this very confused (hopefully still) sheep, but rather the blessing of much needed water to brace the soil and grass and other growing things for an extended spate of heat. Amos and I watched the rain together.

And I admired the hanging baskets I have been creating from the footings.  Finally, the one on the left is looking respectable.  In posting this, it just occurred to me that the one on the left might be grow better if I switch them.   Man, in so many ways I've become a creature of habit. I have turned them every other day, but I have never switched them.  Maybe it is not just that the one on the right had better footings.  Maybe it gets a wee bit more sun???

[I just popped out to the front porch and switched them.]

Anyway, whilst waiting on Amos today, sitting on the back steps, I noticed that the places where I managed to replenish the mulch were still nice and damp.  I really need to get those other bags out.  However, I also need to keep remembering that I simply cannot be doing such work anymore.  If I am awake when Firewood Man comes to mow this week, I thought I would ask if he would move four bags this week, then another four next week, and finish up the third week.  That would be easy peasy for him and I would just be spreading mulch for a few minutes each time.

Tim is always amazed when I don't hear him mow or edge or blow, but if I am sleeping with my sleep mate on, World War Three could happen outside and I wouldn't hear it.  Even if you pound away on the front door.  I have yet to know if someone has rung to doorbell whilst I am sleeping to see if that would wake me.  I cannot figure out if this is a good thing or not.

My poor sister discovered that the uniform pants order (plus some odd school supplies) that she placed with Wal-Mart last week did not actually come to fruition.  By this I mean that she placed the order and received a confirmation email, but Wal-Mart.com did not execute the order and the order number she was given was actually recycled to someone else.

She left work early and went on the prowl because my nephew starts at his private school for youth on the Autism spectrum tomorrow.  So far, he had but one shirt and the shoes.  His other shirts were monogrammed ones, so they were coming later.  But additional white polos and the pants were supposed to have arrived.  We texted for a long while ... my sister asking me to Google things or check the school lists for what was required.  I am proud of how she handled another obstacle during a very distressing time for her.

The boys both needed luggage tags for their backpack, so I found Texas Ranger ones.  Those were a hit.  All in all, I placed five orders online, my sister two (one that didn't work), and my sister went to six stores.  I got the idea of putting a Back-to-School shopping reminder for her in my calendar for next July 15th, so as to do all of this in a more relaxed manner.  It is hard ... very, very, very hard ... to be a single parent of a special needs child.  My nephews' father does little more than visitation.  So, my sister has been juggling switching one son to a new school, setting up alternative arrangements for after school care for both sons (I helped with that), putting together a school uniform wardrobe, and trying to keep straight and track down school supplies for a 5th and 7th grader.

It feels ... a bit self-centered of me ... but I very much savored being helpful in the flurry of activity between last Friday and today.  Although, I admit that is is hard for me to face how much she's struggling.  I want to help her and there is little that I can do.

It's been a wretched innards evening, and I am beginning to think that my working theory on the matter might not be so crack-brained.  You see, the erythromycin, once mixed, is only potent for 14 days (and must be kept refrigerated).  That hasn't mattered with the smaller bottles, because they have only 10 days of doses.  However, it seems that around Day Eight of taking the medication, its efficacy begins to wane.  I've hypothesized that, since the bottles are so very old and so close to expiration (November), the medication is less potent and cannot last the full 14 days once mixed.

Tonight, I have been in considerable pain and am swollen the entire length of my abdomen.  Awash in nausea, my Taco Bell reward for fetching my prescription has been followed by ginger ale and saltines and Zofran.  My blood pressure has also had such wild swings, since getting vertical means the pulse pressure widens immensely as my systolic pressure rises with my tachycardic response to the orthostatic hypertension that is taking place.  In a nutshell, I've also fainted four times.

Part of me wants to switch to the pill version of erythromycin this very second.  But the practical bit of Myrtle believes paying $72.21 for the next 30 days is far better than paying $436.  Because I will be 7 days shy of my next budget cycle and did not want to have that cost in the same cycle as paying for the three bottles, I asked the pharmacist to try ordering the bottles one more time.  She tried all sizes, even the 5 day bottle.  Nothing.  I could very well be consuming the last of the solution in America.  But, realistically, I'm sure there are bottles sitting on shelves of small pharmacies somewhere.

The other up side of making the switch is that I will no longer have the ever present bad taste in my mouth from the solution.  Man, some of the food I eat might even be tastier!  Imagine that!!

I will note that as I lay writhing in pain tonight, I was comforted by having read the Living with Bob blog.  By this I mean, the author describes much of what I face so ... bluntly ... and one of the best parts was a bit I read about the pain of having a sheet touch her stomach.  It is ever so comforting to know that there is another person on the planet who understands that pain, who wouldn't blink at a wailing over the weight of a sheet or t-shirt.

I have also been thinking further about two thoughts from yesterday.

One was this quote:

The miracle of the feeding of the five thousand is perfect provision. The leftovers are meager, but they perfectly provide twelve lunch-sized baskets for the twelve disciples. It is a fulfillment of Jesus' own prayer to "give us our daily bread" (Mt 6:11). It is an unmiraculous miracle, the same sort of miracle we often fail to recognize today when we receive our "daily bread." We celebrate abundant provision, but rarely are we equally amazed at the God who so intimately knows our needs that he provides perfectly—no more, no less than we need. When we take into account this intimacy, the miracle of perfect provision might well be the greater of the two.  (emphasis mine)

Have I not written again and again and again that the Psalter shows us how intimately we are known by God?  In a way, the Psalter has been the perfect provision for me.  It is clearly written in Myrtle Speak.  The thoughts and feelings and experiences I battle are all in there.  And in being in there I am comforted that ... somehow ... God understands those thoughts and feelings and experiences ... and is neither appalled nor offended by them.  I suppose I would also go so far as to say that the Psalter itself is the unrecognized miracle of the Word of God, the perfect provision of daily bread so often overlooked.

The other was my pondering if it could be said that the purpose of light (also) to reveal that which has been hidden by darkness.  For darkness not only obscures the truth, it can completely hide it.  Depression, despair, suicidal ideation, anxiety, terror ... those aspects of darkness can make one insensible and unable to see the truth.  Therefore, in such times and for those wrestling with the darkness, great help (and mercy) can be given in simply pouring the Living Word into that person's ears.

I had the offer of having the Gospel of John read aloud to me from beginning to end withdrawn before I could take advantage of such a gift.  Tonight, I have been wondering just how great a loss that is.  I think I would put that on my bucket list save for the fact that having someone read to me the Gospel of John is not the same as something I would like to do before doing is no longer under my control.

Again, if I am to have a near miraculous puppy dog as a companion, why couldn't he be a bit more miraculous and be able to read the Living Word to me?

Mark Chapter 7 makes me think of an older Michael Card song that actually comes from his trilogy on the Old Testament, specifically The Word, written about the prophets:  "Will You Not Listen?"  Funny, eons ago, when I heard this song, I had absolutely no idea of the importance of hearing the Word of God.  Funny, too, that here is a song of Jesus pulled from the Old Testament.




Is not He who formed the ear
Worth the time it takes to hear?
Should He who formed our lips for speaking
Be not heeded when He speaks?

Will you not listen?
Why won't you listen?
God has spoken love to us
Why will you not listen?

Listen to the sacred silence
Listen to the Holy Word
Listen as He speaks through living
Parables that must be heard

Will you not listen?
Why won't you listen?
God has spoken peace to us
Why will you not listen?

He spoke a word of flesh and blood
Flesh and blood that bled and died
Bled and died just to be heard
How could you not hear this Word?

Why will you not hear this Word?
Will you not listen?
Why won't you listen?
God has spoken hope to us

How could you not listen?
Why will you not listen?
How could you not listen?


Michael Card's commentary on chapter seven has quite a bit of historical background to it.  Far more that I would even attempt to record.  The most fascinating bit, though, has to do with the oral law (the tradition).  I did not know that the Pharisees believed that God gave Moses the oral law when he received the tablets and that Moses came down from the mountain and passed the oral law on to Joshua and the elders.  Jesus, clearly, does not recognize the oral law.  Michael Card points this out by noting that Jesus refutes the accusation against Him with Scripture.

[Hah!  Imagine that!  Jesus does not argue His position from His own convictions or experience but from the very Word of God!!]

This was the third instance where Jesus was confronted with the fact that His disciples had broken the law (first with fasting, then not keeping Sabbath).

In the midst of his historical explanation is this confusing bit about what "corban" is, so that you can better follow Jesus' response.  I've read it a half dozen times and still do not understand.  However, I am focusing on the fact that I did learn the distinction between the Law and the oral law and that the Pharisees called themselves the disciples of Moses (Jn 9:28).  That makes the whole Jesus-as-the-new (and improved)-Moses stance all the more damning.

Anyway, in the passage being explored (Mark 7:1-23) is the single most painful and most comforting verse to me in the entire Bible:  "Nothing that goes into a person from outside can defile him, but the things that com out of a  person are what defile him." (verse 15).

Why?  What that verse?  Well, the most frank answer is that even before I encountered Christians who taught me that I was no longer pure since, by virtue of sexual abuse, I was no longer a virgin, I felt defiled.  Or, more truthfully, the defiled one was my identity.  The sexual abuse of a young child is dirty and messy; the child literally becomes filthy with the bodily fluids of the abuser.  It is a lightning fast leap from literal to figurative.  On all fronts, I struggled with being and feeling filthy, being and feeling defiled.  And, frankly, the church has done very, very, very little to dissuade that notion of mine and of other survivors of sexual abuse.  There seems to be no ... exceptions ... to the resulting condemnation of a lack of virginity.

When I tried dating in college, when the truth of my past came out, primarily two responses followed: 1) because I was not pure, I was not marriage material and so there was no point of dating and 2) because I was not pure, it was okay to pressure me to engage in sexual behaviors ... even abuse me when I resisted.

Because I was not pure.  SIGH.

Again, bluntly, sexual abuse, for the survivor, is something that happens from the outside, not from within.  So, this single verse in Mark ... it is both the deepest desire of my heart and the most terrifying Word of the Bible.  Is is true?  Is it true for me?

In Mark 7:14 Jesus turns to the crown at large.  His appeal is that they "listen" and "understand."  (These words should be underlined.  They will be lived out later in the chapter describing a prophetic healing.)  Jesus is about to redefine the people's fundamental concepts of clean and unclean.  Uncleanness, he says, comes from within, not from the outside.  Rinsing your hands ceremonially has no effect whatsoever.  He does not explain the statement to the crowd but leaves them to arrive at the "aha" moment on their own.

And later in the explanation:

Jesus continues, "From within, out of people's hearts, come evil thoughts" (Mk 7:21).  He might have said that uncleanness reside in the imagination.  Every one of the sins in Jesus' list begins in the imagination.  Evil renders one unclean, not eating with unrinsed hands or touching a corpse or being overshadowed by a leper.  Nonconformity to an oral tradition is no longer sin.  This is a world turned upside.

Caddywhompus.

The teaching is begun and ended with the admonition to listen.  In Mark, this is common in Jesus' approach to teaching.  In a way, that bookend of instruction connects to the third story in chapter seven, which had another historical lesson to it, about hearing.

But, first, my wondering about the verse remains unclear.  There is all this good bit about sin coming not from the outside, but then there is that one sentence:  Evil renders one unclean, not eating with unrinsed hands or touching a corpse or being overshadowed by a leper.  What does this mean?  Sexual abuse is evil. So, am I unclean???

And, second, before the connection to listening comes the story of the woman and crumbs and dogs.  This was the story from Matthew that my pastor taught.  He ... he taught different things.  The only thing I would note is that Michael Card's commentary points out that the word Jesus' used for dog was not the word for stray dogs, but the diminutive term for "little dogs" or perhaps "pet dogs."  He notes that this was not a Jewish scene, but a Gentile one, and in the woman's world it was common to keep small pet dogs.  Therefore, the image of children throwing scraps to the dogs is more one of affection and care rather than an offense.  If He was calling her a dog, then He was calling her favored and cared for.  I find all that ... confusing.

The most confusing line, though was Michael Card's endnote:

But once again, the long-distance healing of the little girl is not the point of the story.  There is always a miracle behind the miracle.  In this exchange it is the persistent faith of the Gentile woman that is miraculous.  Without realizing it she has asked for something she does not deserve.  She has asked for mercy. (emphasis mine)

What do those last two sentences mean?  SIGH.

So, to the connection to listening.  In writing about how Jesus healed the deaf man who had a speech difficulty, Michael Card notes:

Even though Jesus is in an area dominated by paganism, this crowd appears to be Jewish.  His command to keep the matter secret (Mk 7:36) is one indication.  That chafe has only been issued to Jews in Mark's Gospel.  The second reason to assume they might be Jewish is the method of Jesus' healing.  The opening of this man's ears is told only by Mark.  The way Jesus goes about the healing is "prophetic activity"—it becomes a parable for the opening of the spiritual ears of Jesus' followers (see Mk 7:14, 18). (We will witness another healing with the same prophetic character in Mk 8:22-26.  These miracles only occur in the Gospel of Mark.)

Jesus places his fingers in the man's ears, reminiscent of Isaiah 35:5.  He spits and touches the man's tongue, echoing Isaiah 35:6.  Mark's term for Jesus' "deep sigh" or "groan" is related to the same word Paul uses for the Spirit's groaning on our behalf in Romans 8:26.  This is the emotional Jesus.  From the depths of that deep sigh comes the Aramaic word Ephphatha.  We are privileged to hear Jesus' voice in his own tongue. (emphasis mine)

Despite Jesus' command that everyone keep it secret, word of the miracle spreads.  As a result, in Mark 8:1, Jesus will face another crowd of thousands of hungry people.  The nameless man who can now hear and speak plainly represents a living parable for Mark. His healing has been prophetic.  Jesus' groaning words, "Be opened," represent the deepest hope of the gospel:  that you and I might truly ear and eventually clearly speak the good news.

Listen.
Attend.
Open your ears.
Let him who has ears hear.

Why is it that hearing is so difficult for me???

Caddywhompus...

It is no secret that, in reading the Christian Book of Concord, I felt as if my whole world turned upside down.  At times, the enormity of the lack of true doctrine in all the years I attended church is too much to absorb, too much to bear.  Even now.  The differences in the meaning of the words of faith are oft as vast as the grand canyon, salvation being chief amongst them.

Add to that problem is the inability to read the New Testament in any way that is not Jesus as the new (and improved) Moses, come to provide a better prescription for living the Christian life.  All the readings from the New Testament, even the Gospels, just had to have life application for the Christian.  What should I take away from this passage?  How can I apply it to my life?

I know, now, that is not how to read the New Testament, especially the Gospels, but I don't know how to read them any other way.  I have tried and tried and tried to say that.  Tried and tried to say that there is so much that I do not know, do not understand.  Words are not the same.  And all of that has become a terrifying chaotic and dark maelstrom in my mind.

What is faith?  Believing and trusting.  What is belief?  I mean, it is not merely knowledge of the historical Jesus, so what does it mean to believe?  To trust?  Well, what is that?  And what do you do if you do not know how to trust?  If trusting is something that was robbed from you as a little child, a skill set impossible to learn?  Well then hope.  What is hope?  To dare to believe?  What is belief?

Michael Card's commentary on Mark is simply not fitting into the mold of Jesus, the new (and improved) Moses.  At all.  Eight chapters of Mark read, and it is still all about Jesus, Jesus' ministry, and what He came to do for us ... not just heal and cast out demons and such ... not those good  things ... but the best of giving Himself for us.  Christ crucified.

Frankly, I am stunned, ever so off kilter.  I don't know what to think. I don't trust my own discernment.  I want so much of what I am reading to be true.  I am caddywhompus ... "crooked, uneven, broken, ass-backwards and sideways."

Take Mark chapter 4.  The way Michael Card presents it ... or the way I read his presentation ... is that Jesus is teaching and training his disciples.  Yes, I am seriously typing that Mark 4 is in no way a charge for Christians to take a personal inventory of their soil and make whatever adjustments they need to ensure they are receptive to the seed being planted in their lives.   The chapter is about the disciples and Jesus preparing them for the ministry they were about to face.

In this chapter, Jesus quotes Isaiah (a rare occurrence of something that takes place in all four gospels), a remembrance that Isaiah's ministry to Israel was a ministry to a stiff-necked people.  All those types of soil?  Well, there are always going to be some who listen, some who get excited only to fall away, and some who refuse to listen.  Just as Isaiah faced when he taught the Word of God—just as the disciples could see that Jesus was facing—some will listen, some will cheer, some will mock and jeer, some will walk away.  Such it is with dealing with the ministry in a fallen world.  However.  However, the good news is that no matter the soil, no matter the one conducting the ministry, the Word of God is powerful and performative and will effect its work.

Jesus does not tell demanding parables so that people will be cut off from forgiveness.  If he is perfect, his words are perfect, the perfect means to communicate the truth of the Gospel.  Jesus wants the ones he will send out to understand that as they speak the Word, like Isaiah they will encounter those who refuse to listen.  It is an object of prophecy.  And it fits perfectly into the flow of ministry.

Wow!  Just ... wow!  You mean, I don't have to figure out what kind of soil I have in my heart at the moment??????

There was no public explanation for the parable of the seed.  Later, Jesus taught his disciples about the parable in private.  It is then that He also talks about the lamp, whether it is meant to be put under something or placed on a lamp stand.  So, as I mentioned the other day, the staggering part about this is I am not supposed to start shining my lamp around, my witness of what God is doing in my life, because that is not what the light is.  The light is the Word of God.  It is meant to shine.  It will shine.

Lights are meant to illuminate, to be set up on stands.  Then they reveal what is otherwise hidden in the darkness.  The purpose of the parables is the same  They are perfect vehicles for illumination.  By their very nature, they will shine.  But there will always be those who shove them under beds or cover them up with bowls.

"Pay attention to what you hear," Jesus says in Mark 4:24, repeating his theme.  It is alway about listening and seeing, understanding and perceiving.  The parables speak, they shine; the Word has power of its own and grows.  Our response, the measure of attention we use, means everything.  If we genuinely give ear, more will be measured out to us. If we stubbornly refuse to engage, even what we have will be taken away.  That is not a statement on the character of Jesus, who longs for everyone to come to salvation.  It is a statement about the nature of truth and the consequences of refusing to listen.

Then more seed parables.

Jesus speaks of the seed having power of its own.  After it has been sown in the ground, it will grow no matter what you do.  He wants his disciples to have confidence in the self-contained power of the seed.  As it is the nature of light to shine, even so it is the nature of the seed to grow and 
produce a crop.  The disciples must learn to trust the power of the message they are spreading.  Otherwise they might be tempted to explain away the parable and rob it of its power.  Though they will meet with difficulties on the road, stubborn disbelief and refusal to listen, they should have faith that some of the seed is falling on fertile ground. The Word has power all its own and will yield results in time.

With the third parable, the mustard seed, Michael Card points out the Word's growth is not limited to the  proportion of is size.  I thought it interesting here that there was a nod to parents in the commentary, encouraging them that they never know how God will use the seeds of the Word they sowed in the lives of their children.

Basically, as I said, the chapter is about preparing the disciples for their ministry and teaching them that the Word of God will be the doer of the ministry, not the disciples.

It ends with the most intriguing note, one that Michael Card has observed before.  When the disciples are confronted with the authority and power of Jesus, they are amazed and afraid.  Jesus calms the storm.  They are amazed and afraid.

Whenever Jesus reveals himself in new ways, the result in the disciples is fear.

In this, I wonder.  I wonder if really that is what fear of the Lord or awe of God really is.  The moment when you get the merest glimpse of God's might, the scope of His authority.

Another of the "Mark-only" notes is that only Mark speaks of persecution because of the Word of God (4:17).  Michael Card observes that, again, given the Mark's audience were believers who were facing persecution under Nero, this is a timely and germane instruction.

Michael Card did in Mark 5 the same as in Mark 2.  By that I mean he wove together the three stories in such a way that makes sense to me.  He beings:  Each individual described in Mark 5 is being held captive:  one by demons, one by disease, and one by death.  In each situation, we see the absolute authority we've seen in Mark.  At the end of the chapter he summarizes:  Three people fall at his feet. A frantic, demon-possessed man, a dying woman and fearful father.  All find exactly what they need at Jesus' feet.  

I had never seen or heard that connection.  And that, really, is one of the points of Michael Card's commentary on Mark.  It's all connected and it's all connected to Jesus.

For those who saw Jesus' authority over the demons possessing the man, they, too were afraid at what he accomplished and begged him to leave.  For those who knew that Jairus' had died in the interim between his setting out for help and arriving back home with Jesus, they also told Jesus to leave, but because they thought his authority was only over life, not death.  In each instance, Jesus' authority and the power of His word was not limited by human understanding or perception.

Of the three stories, the one that provided the greatest caddywhompus was that of the woman who sought healing from Jesus by touching the hem of his garment.  A little kernel of a story within the larger story of Jairus and his daughter.

This story I remembered.  This one I knew.  In fact, I will admit, that in the past year or so, before I became so lost, I often wondered if I was the tiniest bit like her. I mean, she believed that merely touching Jesus' garment would heal her, heal her when nothing else worked.  I believe ... still ... if I could hear the Word, a word for the wounds in my body, mind, and spirit, I will be healed ... even as my body and mind, at least, continue to fail.

Read the Living Word to me, especially the Psalter, and it physically calms me, soothes my body, mind, spirit ... even when I am an unwilling or a reluctant listener.  The power and efficacy of the performative Word has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with me ... with my strength or my mind or my heart.

But I did not understand the whole of the reason why the woman was so afraid to come forward, to admit that it was she who touched Jesus' garment.  Michael Card pointed out that this was the second case where the direction of cleanness was reversed.  This woman was unclean.  I don't think I have ever thought of that or heard that before.  I had not taken in that she had been unclean, and therefore cut off from her community and her synagogue for twelve years.  Under the Law, the fact that she reached out and touched Jesus made him unclean.

[I wonder if she dared because she heard about the leper.]

In any case, what courage it must have taken to admit that it was she.  To admit that she, the unclean one, had touched Jesus.

Knowing she cannot get away, the woman comes to Jesus and falls at his feet.  She is pale, trembling and afraid she will receive punishment for rendering him unclean.  She begins to blurt out the sad details of her story only to hear Jesus' gentle response: "Daughter" (Mk 5:34).  It is an affectionate family term, and this is the only time we here Jesus use it.  He deflects attention away from himself, say that it her own faith that has healed her.  But of course we know it was her faith in him.

Micheal Card emphasizes that the reason Jesus asked who touched him was not because he was angry, but because He came to give Himself to this world.  She did not merely receive physical healing, but spiritual healing as well.  She was restored to her community and to her synagogue.

As for death, I found this interesting:

When Jesus refers to death as sleep, no one ever understand (see Jn 11:11).  it is not a euphemism, it is a redefinition.  In him death has become merely a sleep from which we will someday be awakened by the sound of his voice.

I think reading this commentary is radically changing the way I viewed not only the book of Mark (at least the first half that I have read), but also Jesus.  By this I mean, Michael Card, as any good teacher would do, lays out his themes and then reminds the readers of them again and again:

• Jesus came to give Himself to us (Jesus the Messiah; Jesus the Son of Man)
• The perfection of Jesus
• Jesus' ministry (and characteristics thereof, such as using rabbinic form in responding to critics)
• The Word of God is powerful and efficacious  
• The authority Jesus assumes and uses
• Jesus teaching and training His disciples
• Understanding Jesus' world
• The importance of hearing/listening
• The importance of the wilderness
• The needs of a broken world

The emphasis on ministry is not an emphasis on healing and helping folk, but on spreading the good news that would bring them salvation from eternal death.  I have heard so much about Jesus the Teacher, but Mark emphasizes Jesus the Trainer.

To put it another way, Jesus' ministry did not begin with him, but with John the Baptist.  And He knew it would not end with Him.  It's funny.  All the "equipping the saints" bible studies I heard on discipling had to do with the epistles, not the gospels.  Yet, really, one can get such a solid understanding of ministry by looking at how Jesus prepared men to continue His ministry.

Beginning with Mark 3:13-15, Jesus has been actively, even aggressively discipling his disciples.  He has taken them on a series of hands-on ministry experiences.  They have seen Jesus in conflict with his own family and with religious leaders.  They have seen Jesus heal.  They have heard Jesus preach the Word.  They have witnessed his power over demons.  Now the time has come for the Twelve to be sent out on their own missions.

In Mark 6, the caddywhompus was born in the feeding of the 5,000, as opposed to the feeding of the 4,000 later.  Michael Card notes the importance of the size of the baskets in each feeding, the Greek word for the first instance (5,000) meaning small baskets and the latter (4,000) meaning large baskets, as in lower-a-man-over-a-wall size basket.  It is the size of the basket that points to the miracle behind the miracle, a greater one we miss.

The disciples have returned from their mission and are eager to report to Jesus about their (really His) teaching of the Word and about their (really His) miracles, but there are the crowds that follow (or gather) everywhere.  Crowds of people upon whom Jesus has compassion and so speaks/teaches the Word of God.  Crowds of people with needs.  Crowds of people who do not always fit in to the agendas of the disciples.  After the teaching of the crowds is out of the way, the disciples tell Jesus to send them away to eat.  Instead, He instructs the disciples to give them something to eat.  They then ask him about buying food, given where they were.

Their statement echoes Moses' frustration when he cried out in the wilderness, "Where can I get meat to give all these people?" (Num 11:13).  For Jesus, the wilderness is where extraordinary things occur.  Though he earlier refused to make bread appear to feed himself in the wilderness (Mt 4:3-4), as an expression of the compassion he feels for his flock, the Shepherd exercises his authority and feeds them—in the wilderness. (emphasis mine)

A little later in telling the story of the feeding, Michael Card notes:

Jesus always calls upon his disciples to do the impossible:  to forgive without limit, to love their enemies.  His impossible commands force us to learn to depend totally on him.  His call is always precisely to the level of our inadequacy.

Selah.

Good stuff there.  But back to the feeding.  Only, well, the feeding itself is not the important miracle.  Huh???

For one, no one really notices that a miracle has occurred.  Huh???  Not the people at least.  They are just going about the business of having a meal.  However, when all is said and done, Jesus has the disciples scour the green grass (another Mark-only detail, reminiscent of the 23rd Psalm) for the left overs.  There is enough to fill twelve of those small baskets.  Twelve individual meal-sized baskets.  Twelve disciples.  Wow, I never noticed that!

It is a remarkable, though apparently unrecognized miracle. But there is often a miracle behind the miracle. That is what verse 43 is all about.  In John 6:12, Jesus gives a very rabbinic command to pick up the pieces "so that nothing is wasted."  In Judiasm, food is sacred; it is the gift of God.  Similarly, eating is sacred because it preserves life.  It is an insult to God to waste the crumbs of food.  So Jesus instructs the Twelve to canvass the vast area, probably several acres, and look among the blades of grass for the leftovers.  From the enormous field the Twelve recover only twelve small baskets of pieces.  This is a miracle not of abundance, but of perfect provision. (emphasis mine)

Okay.  Honesty time.  I read this and thought: Man, I no longer need to feel guilty because I still, at 47, lick the syrup off my plate and have been doing the same with every single crumb from those lemon bars.  But I also thought about how much I have enjoyed and been buoyed by Mary's encouragement to me to enjoy food.  In my opinion, there is entirely too much law-making and guilt-laying over food these days.  The joy of eating and the wonder of a tastiness on the tongue seems lost.  I liked the idea of eating being sacred because it preserves life.  And then I thought of how, in the Old Testament, there is a verse (Deuteronomy 8:10) about giving thanks after one eats and is satisfied.  I wish, when I eat with others, we did that.  That I could give thanks with others, celebrate the tastiness provided.

Anyway, Michael Card continues with his thought about the miracle behind the miracle:

The miracle of the feeding of the five thousand is perfect provision.  The leftovers are meager, but they perfectly provide twelve lunch-sized baskets for the twelve disciples.  It is a fulfillment of Jesus' own prayer to "give us our daily bread" (Mt 6:11).  It is an unmiraculous miracle, the same sort of miracle we often fail to recognize today when we receive our "daily bread."  We celebrate abundant provision, but rarely are we equally amazed at the God who so intimately knows our needs that he provides perfectly—no more, no less than we need.  When we take into account this intimacy, the miracle of perfect provision might well be the greater of the two.

Again ... Selah.

Michael Card later finishes:

Mark concludes the story [of Jesus walking on the water] with the key—the key to understanding just why the disciples do not recognize Jesus as the one walking on the water.  Why?  Because "they had not understood about the loaves" (Mk 6:52).  But why hadn't they understood?  Was the feeding so unmiraculous that they failed to recognize that providing bread (manna) in the wilderness was a characteristic of God?  Just as walking on the water was something only God can do (Job 9:8)?

Mark's answer:  their "hearts were hardened" (Mk 6:52). That is why they miss the miracles.  That is why they fail to recognize the one who walks on the water.  It is a characteristic they share with the Pharisees:  stubborn disbelief.  Even though they've received private instruction.  Even though they've been out on their first successful mission. How could they have been so blind?  How can we be so blind?

Why am I so blind?

You know, the feast in the wilderness was told in the same chapter as the feast in the king's court.  How odd.  And yet not.  This is our fallen world.  The sins of greed and gluttony alongside the compassion and mercy of Christ.  If you think about it—especially given the historical background given of Herod's twisted family—that opulent banquet room was as much a wilderness as a vast field.

I am just blown away by the idea of the miracle behind the miracle, the perfect provision of Christ, the literal daily bread.  I do not believe I have ever heard that pointed out ... or the hardened hearts of the disciples.  The story always seems to be about the greatness of a miracle as if the miracle itself is the point, when it is not actually noted in the text itself as being a miracle anyone in that crowd of 5,000 recognized.  There was no fear at Christ's authority to create a meal for so many.  There were no exclamations at His work.  There was no charge to keep quiet about what took place.  There was not racing off to proclaim the wonder of the meal.

Twelve baskets.
Daily bread.
Perfect provision.

I wonder, in the darkness of John's prison cell, in the moments just before the axe fell, what John's perfect provision was.  If ever there was a tale of the suffering saint to tell, John's was it.  But there is no tale.  No tale of singing praises to God as he was led to his death.  No tale of forgiving the one who was about to murder him.  No tale of giving thanks for the joy of the fellowship of suffering.  However, I am certain that, despite the lack of tales, John the Baptist was given his perfect provision for that moment.

Is that belief or knowledge based on empirical evidence?  SIGH

I admit that I have peeked ahead.  There is an interactive index and I peeked.  I peeked because, aside from the most glorious first five verses of the book of John, the book of Mark has almost all of the comforting-to-Myrtle verses across all of the Gospels.  I did not consciously think of that when I chose it.  But having thought of some of those verses, I wanted to see what Michael Card would say about them.  Would they remain comforting???

In peeking, in skimming about, I repeatedly see Michael Card stressing how Jesus was turning the world upside down for everyone, from the religious leaders to the disciples, from the rich to the poor. Jesus' ministry was caddywhompus.

[Waiting for lightning to strike.]

So, shouldn't that be a comfort to me given how disconcerting I find reading this commentary?  Uhm, no.  It is not.  Not at all.  I am afraid to read and I find it hard to stop reading.  I hunger so much and I doubt even the comfort I have found in the absolute dearth of commentary in which the gospel is about Christian living.

My pastor came by today.  I cannot speak of my confusion and lostness much anymore.  Mostly, because in trying to speak I end up defending what I know inside to be true.  Mary so totally doesn't agree with me about being Saul, but at least she believes that I am terrified about salvation.

In the time leading up to his visit, I fainted several times, threw up, and lay across the vent on the kitchen floor.  Was it God's perfect provision that Amos chose the GREEN Froggy Long Legs as his offering of a baby for comfort?  I couldn't help but burst with laughter, even as I lay trembling and weak at the thought of the clock striking 3:00 PM, watching Amos drag his beloved over toward me, legs hanging past his own, tripping him up a bit, determined to bring a baby to me.  What an utterly ridiculous puppy dog I have.

As afraid as I have been to go to church ever since I sat before the altar and found no response within me, because I did not want to be struck by lightning for lying to God with my presence there, I have been equally afraid that having my pastor come would bring on the smite.

[Yes, I do remember that Becky pointed out that God did not smite by lightning. However, if you look up the ways God did smite folk (consumption, fever, fiery heat, sword, blight, mildew, tumors, scabs, itch, madness, blindness, and bewilderment of heart), then lightning becomes the easier thought.]

My pastor said that he wasn't going to wait on me to ask for help any longer, but was just going to keep coming for a visit each month.  He said he would come to read psalms, teach something from the New Testament, sing a hymn, and pray for me.  He also said that he'd like to read to me from Gerhard's consolations book and that the way to look at that was that I would be doing him a favor by giving him an opportunity to read it since he has so much else to read and do.

When I was eleven, and heard the Word of God and believed, was that the reception of faith or a desperate, terrified girl longing for something better than the life she lived?  When I first read the Book of Concord four years ago, was my wholesale acceptance of the pure doctrine the reception of faith or a desperate, terrified woman longing for something better than the life she lived?  I was in the darkest place of my life, the walls I had built to survive the past crumbling despite my best efforts to keep them erect.

I don't know.
I don't want to live any more lies.
I don't want to pretend that things are different than they actually are.
And I don't really know what it means to believe.

Fainting, vomiting, trembling at the thought of my pastor coming.  That's me.  I didn't want/don't want him to get burned in the crossfire.  After listening to my terrified talk of chaos and confusion, he repeated his plan and asked if there are any psalms I wanted to hear.  Seriously, there are simply no bad psalms.  However, before I could open my mouth, he mentioned Psalm 77, of course.  I added  Psalm 27.  He chose Psalm 138.  My tears dried up.  My fear abated.  I wonder..............

The hymn he sang was perfect for me, except for the last verse.  But before the fear of it could ensnare me, my pastor pointed out that that last verse was a bit too much for me and we were just going to wipe it from the moment.  Gone.

When my pastor went to pray for me, as I started to interrupt him, he said that he understand that I have stopped praying for myself or others ... trying really hard to wish for God's ... perfect provision, I guess ... instead of dare pray and that that was why he was there so that I could have prayer for me.

It did not help that when he went to actually pray for me, something again I questioned the wisdom of, thunder rattled the house and the skies opened up.  Literally, a storm was breaking over our heads.  Was he as worried as I at that moment?

My pastor read to me from Matthew, not Mark.  A story I did not remember.  He made it a Word for Myrtle and I kept thinking about Michael Card's adjective for the Word of God:  luminous.  And that the purpose of the light is to "reveal what is otherwise hidden in the darkness."

Could you ... could you also say that that the purpose of light is to reveal what is otherwise hidden by the darkness?  That sort of makes saying Jesus as the Light of the World ... greater ... broader ... deeper ... mightier.

Yes, when the Word was upon my ears, I had more peace than I have had in months.  It wasn't there because I chose it, but because an undershepherd of Jesus Christ decided that it should be there.  No guilt. No worry.  No fear.  No ducking.

Being caddywhompus or being nauseous.  Which is worse? you ask.  I simply do not know.  Both are wretched.

Why?
Why do I keep reading this commentary???

What's in a name...

Over the past few years, I have found several blogs by folk with Dysautonomia.  One thing I notice is that they all end.  I know why.  It's too hard to face day in and day out and writing about it can be so bleak.

Today, I found one ... rather earthy ... from a woman down under who's been living with the diagnosis for eight years.  She calls her illness Bob.  I mean, no one knows what you mean when you say are living with Dysautonomia, so why not another name?

Like I said, it is earthy and raw and filled with words, at times, society does not find polite.  It is terrifying to me how closely recorded are the things of my life and horrifying to read about a future that most likely will be mine ... minus the husband and children.  It only gets worse.

I like her first two entries, one about Dysautonomia and one about living with Bob.  But this more recent one about casseroles struck so many chords I feel like an organ at the moment ... that instrument with way too many keyboards.

By the way, I am still weary of nausea.
And pain.
And fainting/near fainting.
And wonky vision.
And weakness.
And chills.
And blue feet.
And innards misery.
And breaking things.
And grief.
And loss.
And confusion.
And spiritual terror.

And being alone with it all... too difficult to talk with/be around ... a burden ... too much _______.

Tuesday, 29 July 2014

No casseroles for you.

I could go a good casserole right about now. I know the family could too. I've been stuck in bed and pretty much non-functional for a couple of weeks. But the casseroles are nonexistent. You get sick and people bring casseroles. Or at least that's what TV has taught me. But we continue to be a casserole-free zone. Mr Grumpy and my youngest have taken over kitchen duties on top of the cleaning and the laundry. With little grumbling, I should add, as they know how ill I've been. It's been a hell of year and I swear I must be due for my free coffee on the next soul-sapping ER admit. But in reality my small nuclear family and my online family are the only ones who've noticed. 

Long term chronic illness is not the disease/disorder/syndrome/illness that spurs people to pop over with a casserole to help out. Actually it's not even long term chronic illness. If I think back over the last 8 years there are two people who have brought food to my house to help out, when I was struggling to make my way to the toilet let alone to the kitchen.

Two people. 

That's it. 

I read an article a while back where the author wrote:

Mental illness is not a casserole illness; don't expect people

 to be stopping around with food.

In reality, you could swap mental illness for a whole host of chronic conditions, like say, Dysautonomia.

When I read stories about people becoming ill and then being inundated with food and help it jars. That has not been my experience, or the experience of many patients with chronic conditions. There may be an initial burst of help if an illness begins with a crisis situation. People understand acute need. They respond reflexively. There is a need to do something to help. But if you are stupid enough to do a slow and steady spiral of decline rather than a flashy sudden arse-up, do not wait for the lines of casserole bearing friends and family. Because unless you're one of the lucky few, they will not eventuate. Even should you have repeated hospitalisations or emergency room visits, after the first few times or years, the novelty wears off. 

Even worse than that initial decline is when you persist in being unwell for a substantial length of time with no foreseeable end in sight. Illness is seen in two modes, recovery or death. 

If you do neither it seems the wider community doesn't know what to do with you. You haven't met the cultural norms and that challenges a lot of people. This is where blame and disdain sets in. You must want to be ill or you're not trying hard enough. Repeated or sustained caring becomes burdensome.

You're still sick?

And all it's variations are a common theme for those of us with chronic illness. 

Sorry about that. I know it must be hard for you to put up with me still being ill. That five minutes once a year you grace me with your presence must be so onerous. I only deal with it every hour of every day for the past 8 years or as I like to now think of it, 2920 days of being ill or really ill. 

Admittedly it's hard to participate in relationship building and maintenance when you can rarely leave your house because you are riding the porcelain bus every day. The casual spontaneous meet ups, at the front desk at work, or at the local cafe, yoga class etc that form the interconnecting fibres of shared experience are missing. On the odd occasions that you can get out you miss the conversational shorthand. No I hadn't heard the girl from pharmacy was pregnant. No I don't recall that creepy guy at the pub. I have no opinion on the hotness of the new consultant on the ward as I haven't been there for a two years. And those bonds start to fray.

People are busy. I hear that a lot. 

They do care, but they are so busy. 

She'll still be sick tomorrow. And tomorrow becomes the next day, the next week, the next month or the next year or never.

There's no obvious brave battle to fight or win, as every day is a series of tiny battles unknown to others, but very salient to those on the frontlines. 

No life to be celebrated after the end, as it is slow lingering decline of the it wont kill you, but it'll make you feel like death variety. End simply doesn't have a place in chronic illness.

There are no awareness days for long lingering unclear illness. House taught us that a diagnosis can be found for every set of symptoms. Sure your treating team may nearly kill you five times in the hour long episode, the consultant is an arse, but in the end you'll have an answer. Unless you live in reality and know that life and illness are rarely so neatly packaged. Those who have internalised the idea of illness resolution are left confused. 

All the usual markers of understandable and societally normalised illness are missing.

Visits stop. Phone calls stop. Texts and emails stop.

And no casseroles appear miraculously on the doorstep.

And yet I am sicker now than I was at the beginning. And my family has taken over a host of duties that I can no longer perform. Whilst also caring for me when I am at my worst.

This is the story of many with chronic illness and disability. Hidden stories because there is no one left to view and no one left to talk to about it all except for others online in the same position. Chronic illness and disability are isolating. A lack of physical visibility, becomes a lack of thought visibility. We exist on the periphery, in no woman's land. Where if you are lucky you are blessed with one or two people outside your nuclear family who persevere. 

Last night Mr Grumpy had to carry me to and from the toilet. My youngest cooked dinner and did the dishes, and one of them put on a load of washing. My last attempt to leave the house ended after 30 minutes thanks to overwhelming nausea and pain that landed me back in bed. Because that's where we are at right now. But this is eight years in. Whitenoise to those around us. It took a week for a single family member to call after my last ER admission. I'm always ill and always in the ER these days, and they are busy. As I said whitenoise.

Screw casseroles. I like a roast chicken better anyway.

Michelle.

Weary...

I am truly grateful the erythromycin, when taken on time and all doses per day, helps so significantly with the writhing, the agony, the swelling.  But even on my best innards days, I have a spate of nausea.  Those spates are lasting longer and increasing in violence.  Sometimes, it is all I can do to imagine surviving the current minute.

I am weary of nausea, of the need for Zofran and ginger ale and saltines.
I am weary of the waves that take over and drive all sensibility from my mind.
I am weary of this body of mine.

I am truly grateful that Amos has finally learned not to be so hurt when I shove him off my midsection, learned to allow me to curl myself about his body instead of draping his atop my person, learned to tuck his head in the crook of my arm, upon my shoulder, beneath my chin.

I cannot fathom surviving the spates of nausea without my fluffy white puppy dog.