Who is my family?

Posted on 22 May, 2013 by Emily

(Cathedral of St. Mary, St. Cloud, Minnesota)

All of my genes come from one county in central Minnesota. Spending time there as a girl with my father’s family, seeing my paternal family name on gravestones in churchyards, hearing my grandmother’s stories about where the first pioneer of our family settled on “that very hill!” My mother’s family, from the same area, was the quiet, present, forbidden topic. I don’t remember a time that my biological parents were together, and rarely visited the area with my mother, so my experience of this county is fragmented, though my relatives may very well have sat next to each other in church.

Last week, I went back there, to St. Cloud, for my great-grandmother’s funeral. I saw the county and its people through my mother’s eyes again–the dozens of people who came to the wake lived on the same roads I’d traversed numerous times with my father’s family, but hadn’t stopped to introduce myself or say hello.

I remember always being so curious about my mother’s family and her own time in St. Cloud where exactly she practiced throwing pots, where her grandparents had lived and worked, the places that meant something to her and to that ancestral half of me.

Running the St. Cloud State campus the morning of the funeral, I realized that my mother’s family was something like God’s family should be for each of us: my father’s family (while visiting the county) was present, obvious–they sat next to me at the dinner table and drove me around; my mother’s family was there too–in the grocery store, perhaps, or walking along the same street toward a movie–I just didn’t know they were next to me, too. God’s family is not always easy to identify–we don’t know who is part of our family in God–but we know as surely as they are part of our blood that they surround us and we belong to each other.

Harry Potter Life Lesson #2

Posted on 16 May, 2013 by Emily

The illusion of control.

**(no particular spoilers–if you’ve been not-living-under-a-rock the last decade, you’ll learn nothing new here to spoil the plot of the HP franchise)

As the series develops (now somewhere in the middle of book 5), the characters’ struggle to understand and submit to reality intensifies; it’s clear that Harry Potter’s Muggle (non-magical) relatives are willfully ignorant (or openly hostile) of any supernatural happenings in their lives. Most other Muggles, too, are accustomed to a particular way of interpreting reality which shields them from any confrontation with magical, supernatural realities. Put simply: there is nothing more to life than what meets the eye (and if there is, one promptly shuts one’s eyes). Understandably, to be challenged with inexplicable phenomena is distressing–one hardly knows whether “up” is still “up.” By the second half of the series, even magical humans are willfully blinding themselves to the growing reality of evil in their midst. The truth is too disruptive to life as we know it, and the possibility of ignoring that truth is still open to us (so we take it).

We could apply this principle to so many parts of our lives–the Isaiah Women’s Bible Study has done so this year–whence comes our food and clothing, how are our brothers and sisters without jobs or homes treated, what is happening to the earth because of our lifestyle choices? Today I want to consider a particular aspect of our social formation: our insistence that we’re in control of our lives and our destinies (and that our freedom to control ourselves is a good, desirable thing).

I’ve been noodling a movie I saw a few months ago, “Young Adult.” In it, Charlize Theron plays a moderately successful author of a teen (young adult) book series, who returns to her hometown for a short visit and tries to reignite a romantic relationship with her high school sweetheart, who has moved on, gotten married, and recently added a baby to his happy family. He’s bogged down with commitments–a steady job, a wife, a kid, a mortgage… She’s fancy-free–no domestic relationships, a job that only requires a laptop and internet connection, the single life in the big city (the Mini-Apple, that is)… Our society would have you believe that the one with all the constraints, all of life controlled for him, stuck in a stable, habitual sort of life, is the unhappy one, but as the film depicts (and as myriad surveys of physical and emotional health underline), it’s the “free” person who finds herself deeply unhappy. Part of the problem is that she hasn’t been able to move on from being a young adult herself (like the characters in her books), but part of the problem is also that she’s made sure not to make any decisions which would threaten her freedom, tie her down, or require a commitment of her. When we’re under the impression that everything is within our control, we are miserable, overwhelmed by freedom, and we become unhinged when out-of-control things happen in our lives.

How ever dimly, Harry Potter and other characters realize that the world is not under their control and seek to commit themselves to those people and causes and principles (and stories) which provide the sort of foundation needed to understanding the world in which they find themselves. Harry’s friendships with Ron and Hermione define who he is to those at Hogwarts, his school (just as his relationship to his mother, father, godfather, and teachers also shape what it means to be Harry Potter). Harry’s actions, fighting evil and falling into an excess of dangerous situations, form the contours of how he is recognized and understood by others. It is the choices that we make to give up our freedom that make us who we are–Harry is committed to his friends; they continue to eat together and study together when they are in a tiff. Often due to circumstances beyond his control, Harry is thrust into situations where he confronts evil head-on; ruled by the story he’s been given about his early years (having survived a murder attempt as a tot), he chooses to continue to fight the evil forces of the wizarding world.

One wonders–was he really “free” to choose to fight in the first place? “Freedom,” as exemplified by Charlize Theron’s character in “Young Adult” is the path which is easiest–the path that requires the least of you, leaves your as unfettered and unaccountable as possible.

Harry’s life has been completely shaped by events beyond his control, events which suggested a course for his life long before he was capable of choosing anything. He did choose to continue on the path that was set out for him by these early, formative events, but what propelled him on this path, what made the path “obvious” was the same thing each of us should seek in discerning our life paths–the one which leads to more life–the path toward the good, the true, and the beautiful.

Granola Bars

Posted on 14 May, 2013 by Emily

Originally inspired by smittenkitchen in the summer of 2010, these are perhaps the ultimate flexible recipe. Not only does it use up the little ends of things you’ve been stashing around your cupboards to use up God-knows-when, but it also produces the perfect we’ve-packed-EVERYTHING-and-have-nothing-to-eat food!

3 1/2 cups oats

2/3 cup flour (oat flour, all-purpose, whole-wheat, almond… you could even use ground flax)

4-6 cups of filling (dried fruit, chocolate chips, nuts, seeds, coconut, etc)

1 teaspoon of salt

1/2-1 teaspoon cinnamon

3/4 cup oil or butter or smart balance (whatever’s lying around) – melted if in a solid state

2/3 cup peanutbutter (or not! this time, i used a few tablespoons of nutella, for fun)

3/4 cup liquid sweetener (agave, honey, corn syrup–or a combination of these, can also substitute some–but not all! (you need the liquid)–for granulated sugar)

I usually combine the dry ingredients, and then pour the wet ingredients over the top and combine. Spread the mixture in a well-greased (and preferably, parchment-lined) 9×13″ pan. Wet your hands, and then press the mixture so that it’s very compacted–it will bake together better this way. Bake at 350 degrees (F) for about 40 minutes (till a bit brown around the edges). Let cool before lifting out of the pan and cutting.

These recipes have been somewhat a departure for the blog–what do you think? Is there room on the internet for more recipes?

Pumpkin (or Banana, or Sweet Potato…) Bread

Posted on 13 May, 2013 by Emily

Continuing the Clean-It-Out recipe march, today is a super-flexible quickbread recipe (see PB Bonbons and tomorrow, granola bars!). Based on a recipe from my dear Classics professor in college (the type who called tests “Opportunities” …for his students to show him their abilities–his recipe prowess was much more appreciated than his sense of humor).

3 1/2 cups flour (any mix of whole wheat, oat, almond, or all-purpose flour that you need to use up…)

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg (plus some allspice, and/or cloves–whatever you need to use up, or whatever strikes you for the fruit flesh you’re using)

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 cup butter, melted (or oil, or margarine, or smart balance…)

2 cups canned pumpkin (or a whole can, or one-to-two large roasted sweet potato(es), or three-to-four large bananas)

1 teaspoon vanilla

4 eggs, beaten

2/3 cup water

3 cups sugar

Combine wet ingredients + sugar in one bowl, and dry ingredients in another bowl (this particular loaf used 3 eggs and 1/4 cup ground flax, because I had a lot of that to use up,too). Gently fold the wet ingredients into the dry, then pour into either 1 bundt pan, or two loaf pans (or two round cake pans, maybe?). As you can see, this batch *also* had a good helping of walnuts; you could add coconut (i wasn’t bold enough–i didn’t know if the flavors would work out), or chocolate chips, or raisins or dried cranberries…

bake at 350 degrees (F) for 75 minutes.

PB Bonbons

Posted on 10 May, 2013 by Emily

This recipe and the next two are inspired by my effort to clear out the cupboards as we prepare to move back East this month. These recipes are super flexible; you can use whatever is in your cupboard that you don’t really want to pack up in yet another box…

Three ingredients, a blank canvas for creativity, and it only requires a microwave!

a block of cream cheese (non-negotiable)

about 8oz of chocolate (bars, chips, white, dark, almond bark–anything)

a whole package of sandwich cookies (nutterbutters, oreos, vanilla sandwich cookies… or graham crackers with some nutella thrown in, or shortbread cookies)

Melt the chocolate over a double boiler or in the microwave–this will be the candy coating; if you’ve got any kind of baking bar, or many kinds of chips, just about anything will work. If you’ve got some vegetable oil or butter to use up, add a tablespoon or two–it’s not necessary, but it does make the coating a little softer on the candy.

Use a food processor or a plastic bag and rolling pin to crush the cookies–totally pulverize them. Mix the powder into the cream cheese (if using a food processor, you can just add it to the bowl–in chunks will probably work best to completely combine the cheese & cookie powder). Shape the dough into small balls–about a tablespoon in volume–and put them on a cookie sheet in the fridge to firm up a bit before dipping them in the chocolate coating.

If you want to add toppings–the end of a bag of crushed nuts, or a bit of coconut, or, in my case, some colored sugar, all the better!

Which combination would YOU want to make?

Clean-It-Out Recipes

Posted on 9 May, 2013 by Emily

Last year, when we moved from North Carolina to St. Louis, I didn’t make any particular effort to pare down my kitchen staples before we moved. I figured that we packed it all up on a Monday, and by Thursday, it was in our new kitchen, we weren’t down any of our “usual” ingredients, and in the scheme of things, who cared if there were two more boxes?

Well, our move turned into a three-storage-unit (in two different locations!), six-week, several-thousand-dollar debacle, and I have decided to take the cupboard clean-out more seriously this time.

So, I have three recipes with flexible, short ingredient lists that I’ve made this week to provide some normalcy to the time of packing and purging, as well as to use up the ends and dregs of various kitchen supplies. Enjoy!

Music & Worship

Posted on 3 May, 2013 by Emily

“‘Ah, music,’ [Dumbledore] said, wiping his eyes. ‘A magic far beyond all we do here!’”

- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

The Harry Potter binge continues; I’m now on book 4, but #1 still has my heart. How can you not give a hearty “Amen!” to this sort of one-line-gem? There’s much to be said about the power of music, studies to cite of the effect of melodious sound on heart rate and personal stories about how hearing a particular song immediately shifts one’s mood or triggers a memory; Emile Durkheim could even chime in, noting music’s power in creating the all-explaining “collective effervescence.”

Having held Dumbledore’s quotation with me this week, turning it over in my mind with special reference to worship, an embodiment of what I’d been trying to understand and articulate was plopped into my lap this morning:

A recent prayer practice in the Hylden household has included the book, Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals. In Anglican Daily Office-like format, this book provides a liturgy for Morning Prayer every day of the year, often building its service around modern saints (today was Septima Poinsette Clark). In every service, a song is included to be sung about where the Invitatory psalm would be said (or chanted) in the morning office. Though I’ve chanted Morning Prayer before, this book’s services include a variety of 50-some familiar melodies (from the first verses of favorite hymns, like, “Amazing Grace,” “All Creatures of Our God and King,” and “Be Thou My Vision,” to songs like “Solid Rock,” “Servant Song,”), which are more forgiving to froggy morning throats and, at least for me and my family, tap into a bit of that personal-story-memory. Adding just a bit of music to the morning–joining voices together to sing and worship, nonetheless–has transformed the prayers.

hope of things not seen

enchantment