A striving after wind

You really should read Ecclesiastes all the way through and soon. That "to everything turn turn" part will settle down into its proper place.

Here's a prophet who is viewing the world and its relationship to its Creator coming from the Jewish understanding that there is no afterlife to speak of. As my Jewish friend described his understanding, they will go to "the bosom of Abraham" and they have no special knowledge of what awaits them there.

So "the Preacher" as he calls himself is trying to puzzle out the reasons and results of living. The result is what I think is the most "sophisticated" book of the Bible - he's world-weary, wise and has it all figured out.

This statement originally caught my eye

Every man also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and find enjoyment in his toil -- this is the gift of God. For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart. (Eccl 5:19-20)

I took it out of context first, seeing the second line as a nice motto for a rich interior life, but I think instead that it means the contentment that comes with the "wealth and possessions and power to enjoy" will make his life smooth. We all live awfully smooth lives, when you think about it.

Read it in its KJV language or in the Revised Standard Version.

More food-related revelation

Never underestimate the kitchen as a chapel....

I was fixing up a little lunch for an old friend who was coming to spend the afternoon and listening to a wonderful CD, Taken By Love, by the musicians of Christ The King parish, a charismatic Catholic parish in Ann Arbor (my pilgrimage destination - who needs Assisi or Compostela?). The title song contains these lyrics:

Eye has not seen, no ear has heard,
No heart conceived the hope prepared for us.
Now we see dimly, but one day clearly.
Face to face we shall behold our God....

And in that city there is no temple;
There is no grieving and there is no night.
But there is Jesus before the Father.
And by the Spirit we will wake to light.

Jesus before the Father..... I don't know the CD well enough to sing along except at the la-la-single-word-la-la stage, which was good, because I had to listen intently instead of giving forth with my own suburban song stylings. And I was rewarded in my unknowingly prayerful listening: I suddenly saw it. I saw Jesus before the Father as the only light needed for that city, and all of us joined with Him as His Body, until only He was visible, distinct but also part of the inexpressible light coming forth from the Father of light.

So now I'm teary-eyed, smiling and praying, hunched over a pot of Sloppy Joes, in my dirty housecleaning shorts and T-shirt.

There's very little point to this, except to kind of ease back into blogging and to thank the Lord for His revelation even to grubby crabby me. Why is God so good to us and why did I ever wonder if He was accessible?

The severe normalcy of the rest of the afternoon made me question a little what I experienced. I suppose that's important, though; it means that you're not in control, God is.

Sloppy Joes, homemade applesauce, shoestring potatoes, brownies, lemonade, the Lamb standing as though slain, the Holy Spirit: what a good life!

Careless soup

I am so sorry that I have been gone so long. I saw Roz and Henry get married, went on vacation (Graceland was GREAT even in 107 degree weather) and came back to busy season at work. A few weeks of not blogging got to be a few more weeks and so on...and I have so much to say and ask you all about my surprising new role as office evangelist!

But here's the tiny idea that inspired me to come back:

I was on the phone all this evening, arranging weekend happenings and catching up with friends who have complicated lives. I crouched the phone on my shoulder and got around finally to making soup with the fridge full of veggies that have been peering out reproachfully at me every time I looked in there.

I talked and chopped and laughed and sauteed and interrupted and didn't measure anything and threw all sorts of things in there. Tossed in some herbs, don't know which ones, I was listening to someone just then.

The soup is phenomenal, among the best I've ever made. And I didn't make my usual 400 gallons because I don't know when to stop fussing with it; it made about a half-potful, three portions to freeze, one to eat for dinner.

Perfection with about one-fourth of my mind on the effort. Why is this? Is this a good model, or just dumb luck?

I like men

I do. I admit it. I've been married to two wonderful men who know how to be good friends as well as good and provident husbands and fathers. In a mixed gathering, I often find myself in a corner with guys talking about business, sports or current events. (A husband of a good friend once told me, "You're the only one who remembers who spoiled Milt Wilcox's almost-perfect game* and will also ask me how things are really going." This snippet is included as a reassurance that I'm not secretly a guy myself.) I just like them.

So my eye was drawn to a paragraph in the May 2006 issue of First Things in which Richard Neuhaus reports that Marian Saltzman, coiner of the descriptive tag for cosmopolitan men "Metrosexual" (which is so last year), has come up with a term for this year's man: "Ubersexual". Hold your horses -- repellent as the associations with that term might be, the definition is pretty attractive:

Ubersexuals are “men who embrace the positive aspects of their masculinity, such as confidence, leadership, passion, and compassion.” But they do so “without giving in to negative neanderthal stereotypes.” “The ubersexual has a passion for principles. The metrosexual has a passion for fashion,” and so forth. The ubersexual does not “turn up his nose at any cultural pursuit that doesn’t involve sports, beer, or burgers.”

Well, I had no interest at all in Last Year's Man with his "passion for fashion" -- actually, I had little notion that he was Last Year's Man -- but I very much like and respect men with "confidence, leadership, passion and compassion."

If this definition helps men like this be identified and distinguished from the herd, all the better. I have some wonderful daughters and delightful single friends who would like to meet you.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

P.S. Therése once identified another characteristic of admirable men, in a backward sort of way. "Men who go to daily Mass are studly." Eloquently put.

* Jerry Hairston, Chicago White Sox, 4/15/83

"You there, come to the big kids' table", said Enbrethiliel

Hey, a tag! I wish it had been for something that wouldn't spotlight my lowbrow tendencies quite so much, but I accept with thanks.

THE BOOK MEME

1. One book that changed your life
   
   Who Moved the Stone by Frank Morison
   This is the book that tipped me over from unbeliever to believer when I was a freshman at the University of Michigan. I needed a fact-based defense of the actual invasion of the natural by the supernatural, and God sent it in this book.
   
2. One book you've read more than once
   
   Oh, so many. Let's choose Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.
   
3. One book you'd want on a desert island
   
   Desert Survival Skills by David Alloway
   I am nothing if not practical.
   
4. One book that made you laugh
   
   Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior by Judith Martin
   This is also the book that taught me how to avoid unwanted committee assignments without being ungracious or feeling guilty.
   
5. One book that made you cry
   
   Again, so many.
   The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
   
6. One book you wish had been written
   
   I've thought a lot about this.
   Blessed by Adversity: How Being Overthrown in a Coup Changed My Life
   by the Rt. Rev. A. Hitler
   
7. One book you wish had never been written
   
   The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx, et al.
   
8. One book you're currently reading
   
   Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
   (Don't be too impressed, fellow lowbrows. My husband's good influence is being felt, but we're still newlyweds. The jury is still out on whether my taste can be rehabilitated.)
   
9. One book you've been meaning to read
   
   Deep Conversion / Deep Prayer by Fr. Thomas Dubay
   It's on its way from Amazon. Fr. Dubay is leading our parish women's retreat, and this is the pre-reading.
   
10. Bloggers who I'm tagging
    
    Therese, are you there? Do you have time for this?
    Henry, whose answers will be particularly interesting
    TSO, I don't know if you "do" memes, but Tag, You're It.