16.7.12

The Painful Implications of Gratefulness

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I have no recipe today for you... but I do have a few thoughts. I have been learning a lot recently, and the thoughts bouncing around in my head demanded an outlet. Lucky you, you get to hear them as my outlet.

My relationship with God is a long story of struggle.
Sometimes I think that Jacob got off easy with just one night of fighting with God... I sometimes feel like I never stop fighting with God.
I am an independent person.
No-one tells me what I should do, how I should feel, who I should be.
I need my life to make sense, to be under control.
I need to be in control.
And God does not fit nicely into that need.

And so we fight.
I struggle.
I give in a little.
I take it back.

And then I blame God because there is no joy in my life.
Why no joy? I yell at Him.
You are supposed to give me joy.
 I have none. 
You are failing.

How arrogant I am.

I have been reading a book recently called One Thousand Gifts. It has continued me on a path that I have been on for some time, that of gratefulness. Oddly, it would seem that gratefulness is the key to a lot of things. A lot more than I thought at first.
The author of this book challenges me to begin giving thanks for everything, to begin acknowledging the gifts of God every day, in every situation. To literally practice being grateful for everything.

When I began this practice, only a week ago, I began it for me.
I wanted, I needed joy in my life.
My controlling tendencies drive me to stress and depression far too often, and I needed to get out of the cycle once again.
This seemed like a good way.

It seemed like a tame, easy way to access joy for my life.  
Thank you for the sunshine. 
Thank you for warm bread. 
Stop, be thankful, feel joyful, move on.

Being grateful seemed like such a simple, easy thing to do. It is fun, stopping to acknowledge and thank God for the warmth of the sunshine stretching golden through my kitchen window.

And yet, I found, that gratefulness, when put into practice for a while, even a week, begins to pull and pick at surprising places. The act of seeing each thing as a gift from God for right now to be thankful for has far-reaching consequences.

If this thing before me is an extravagant gift from God for this moment, then... I have no inherent right to it. Nothing I did means that I deserve this thing. Nothing I can do will ensure that I will never lose it.

To give thanks for a thing is to face the fact that I did not earn it, and it may go away. It may be gone tomorrow. And that, when it is gone, I have no right to throw a fit, to be angry,  because it was not mine to begin with. 
If I give thanks for this gift from God, I am acknowledging that it is God's. Not mine.
I have no rights. 

For a control freak like me, and perhaps like every human on the planet, it is painful for me to face that idea over and over every day.
It is more painful than I expected to acknowledge each thing for what it is: a fleeting, temporary, extravagant gift that God is allowing me to enjoy today. 
And yet... it is freeing. Painful, yes. But freeing, too.
For, if it is not mine, if I have no right to it, then I do not have to grasp it, to hold on to it, to attempt to control it.
My emotions can go toward enjoying it and being thankful for it, rather than toward worrying about losing it, and trying to hold on to it.

And my demands and requests of God, my worries and stresses begin to be turned on their heads.

Please give me security. 
Thank you for a roof over my head today. 

Keep my husband safe. 
Thank you for the privilege of living life with my husband today. 

Make my baby whole and perfect. 
Thank you for making my baby exactly the way You need him to be. Thank you for choosing me to be his mother. 

Why would you take away this house, make us find another? 
Thank you for Your perfect plan.  

Give me joy.
Thank you for today. 

How simple.
How hard.
I have no claim on tomorrow.
Thank you for today.

     


12.7.12

Herb Bread from yeast starter

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I've never been much of a gardener. When we were growing up, my brother used to forbid me to even look at his tomato plants, because he believed that if I looked at them they would die. It probably was not an entirely unfounded belief.

I think that my stunning lack of success as a gardener is closely tied to my scatterbrained personality. I just... forget that I have plants to take care of. I water them and weed them and help them tenderly along and then the next time I remember they exist it has been two weeks and they are dried, shriveled little shrubs of themselves, overtaken by the more hardy weed-plants that don't need my care or protection.

I do have a solution to this problem. I learn to like the weeds. I pretend that the four-o-clocks that have taken over my front flower bed are gorgeous, and what I wanted there all along. Stickers? Builds character.

But I haven't entirely given up on the idea of my own garden filled with real plants that I actually planned to be there. I keep trying. And I'm getting better. For example, my herb garden this year was not entirely a bust. Granted, the basil is kind of... sad. And the rosemary insists that life in my garden is just not worth living. But the parsley is doing GREAT. ... uh, what do you do with parsley? Lots and lots of parsley?

Anyway, it came to my attention the other day that I actually had quite a few herbs in my garden, and I decided that the time had come to put them to work in my kitchen. Why else grow herbs? Exactly. So I made this delightful herb bread, and I thought I'd share.

If you've been reading my blog for long, you know that I grow yeast starter. I like the flavor better, and it's cheaper than store bought yeast. So this bread is made from starter, and I explain how to make said starter here: http://lifebydanielle.blogspot.com/2011/09/pet-yeast.html


I keep my starter in the fridge so I don't have to use it every day, so before I made this bread I pulled the starter out of my fridge and let it warm up for a while until it was all bubbly again, then poured about 2 cups of starter into my mixing bowl.




Herbs from my garden. This is all that I used in the bread, and I made a lot of bread. Fresh herbs are quite strong.


Chop chop chop. And crack some pepper too.


Pile flour on the starter.


Add some herbs. And salt. And warm water. Not much water, just enough to make a shaggy but rather stiff dough.


Knead, knead, knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic.


Olive oil all over the dough and let it rise to double. Then shape the bread how you want it and let it rise to double again before baking it.
Now, I have no pictures of my first batch of bread, because, true to form, I forgot all about the bread in my oven and it became large croutons. But the rest of my dough became nommy, lovely calzones with cheese and ham and onions in the middle of it. And I do have pictures of those.




Herb Bread

2 c starter
some fresh herbs and cracked pepper and garlic
salt (about 1 to 2 tsp)
3 c flour
about 1/2 cup warm water

Chop up the herbs. Mix the starter, flour, herbs, and salt. Add enough water to make a stiff, shaggy dough. Knead until smooth and elastic, about ten minutes. Coat liberally with olive oil and let rise to double. Punch down and shape into bread loaves, calzones, etc. Allow to rise to double again.
Bake at 400 degrees F for about 20 minutes, or until slightly golden. Eat happily.