Please, Take Me Someplace Tropical

Over the past 10 days, the change in the jet stream has been quite dramatic. Instead of coming from the Pacific the flow is coming over the top of the world straight from Siberia. This is bringing extremely cold air southward into the United States. The cold weather pattern will persist into February and the worst is yet to come.

Thank you, Accuweather, for that oh so encouraging weather update. I'll let you know when I come out of hibernation.

Unhappy Meals

I just read a great article by Michael Pollan called "Unhappy meals". He talks about how modern nutritionists have done us all a disservice by telling us that everything we need from food can be reduced to a small number of nutrients and vitamins (this is called "nutritionism"). Untrue. There are necessary components of real food that have not yet been "discovered", but that our bodies need. We cannot get them from fortified, refined food products. They only come in the form of real food. Here's a great quote from the article:

No one likes to admit that his or her best efforts at understanding and solving a problem have actually made the problem worse, but that's exactly what has happened in the case of nutritionism. Scientists operating with the best of intentions, using the best tools at their disposal, have taught us to look at food in a way that has diminished our pleasure in eating it while doing little or nothing to improve our health. Perhaps what we need now is a broader, less reductive view of what food is, one that is at once more ecological and cultural. What would happen, for example, if we were to start thinking about food as less of a thing and more of a relationship?

Although it is long, I highly recommend this article, but disagree with the author on the following points:

• He recommends a mostly vegetarian diet. I believe that at least most people need some meat in their diets, and some people need a fair amount of meat in their diet.
• The role of evolution in humans' ability to digest certain foods is debatable. I wouldn't follow that line of thought too far. How can we know for sure if people originally had the proper enzymes to digest milk? How could we possibly "evolve" to benefit from high fructose corn syrup?

He includes some great tips for eating well, including eating food your ancestors would recognize, avoid foods with any sort of "health claim" (New! Fortified with Omega 3's!), and get out of the supermarket as often as possible (as in, go to the farmer's market or grow some of your own). His advice is all good, and this guy is a great writer. I put his book on hold at the library (The Omnivore's Dilemma) some time ago, but apparently I'm not the only one who wants to read it. The New York Times Book Review editors chose it as one of the top ten books of 2006.

A Break from the Lazy Blogger: Dresses

I came up with a great idea to break this "lazy blogger" streak I have going. I'm going to write about why I wear dresses. Actually, I do not wear wear dresses all the time. Not when I'm doing the chores or running on the treadmill. Nor when we go to amusement parks where I'm likely to ride some wild rides. It's good for us to articulate our reasoning behind things like this (good for the brain, and good to know why we do what we do), so I think I'll give it a shot. Obviously, this is a post geared towards Christian ladies.

First, I'll tell you what wearing dresses for me is not. It is not legalistic. I do not believe that wearing jeans is wrong. It is not a sin issue in any way. To me, this kind of thinking (legalism) is like always playing defense. We know that Satan attacks using "attractive immodesty". Therefore, we have to defend ourselves by not allowing certain types of clothing. My thoughts are that this just does not work. Anyway, we are free in Jesus, right?

At the same time, as Christians, we have to be thoughtful about what we wear. Immodesty is a stumbling block to many - the wearer and the viewer. Should we embrace legalism then? I don't think so. Do we offer ourselves up to the fashion industry and simply wear what we (they?) want without giving it any serious thought? What is needed in this case, is to consider playing offense, so to speak. Here are a few questions that might help us to dress well while on the offensive:

• How can I dress in a lovely, feminine way?
  
• How can I glorify God in my dress?
• What kind of clothing does my husband/father like me to wear in public?
• How can I dress in a way that will not cause my Christian brothers to stumble in their thought-life?
• How can I be a witness to others in the public arena without even saying a word?
• How can I teach my children that it is fun to glorify God in our dress, not restrictive?
  

You can probably see where I am going with this. I don't wear dresses because I feel that I must. I do it because it is a lovely way to glorify God with my life. It does not even take much effort! It is not the only lovely way to glorify God, but it is one way.

I have found that the only real drawback to wearing dresses is that sometimes I think others may assume I have fallen off the edge into legalism. Let me assure you that this is not the case. I am not one to overly care about what others think of me, but yet I would prefer for that not to be a stumbling block to others either.

We must also recognize that it is easy to find dresses that are not modest and will not glorify God. Simply "wearing a dress" is not all there is to it. You have to continue to think every time you shop. Giving your husband/father real veto power helps, too.

It has been three years now since I have started to mull all of these things over, and it has been an enjoyable three years. I wasn't sure I could do it at first. I didn't have very many dresses, and it just seemed like it would be a hassle to dress up every day. So I decided to try it for one week to see how it would work. I loved it! No hassles, no problems. Later, for variety, I found some nice-looking skirts, dresses, and jumpers at the Goodwill store for just a few dollars each. And the rest...is history.

Lazy Blogger

Back with another one of Carla's memes. I guess I've been a lazy blogger lately. I suppose that's what these meme things are for. Just give you something to write about. It's actually Thursday, but I'm going to do the "Wednesday Whim" anyway. OK, here it is:

What is something 'new' you have planned for the coming year? A vacation? A new craft? A new crop you are experimenting with? Are you moving? Write a post about your hopes or fears about it. Be sure to leave a comment telling us your answer has been posted over on your blog so we can come read too!

I would like to do more dehydrating this year. Last year I bought some celery at the farmer's market and used some to cook with, but then also had some left over. I dried it in our toaster oven, and it turned out really good to use in my homemade stocks. I'd never done that before, and I only did a little bit last year. This year I'd like to dry more celery, as well as some spices and herbs for cooking and for my medicinal tinctures. If I can grow my own, that would be great. If not, I'll stock up at the farmer's market or from a local CSA we're thinking about joining this year. There are also a few wild-growing plants I'd like to collect and dry: raspberry leaves and plantain are two. I'm sure there are more, but I need to research them.

I'd also like to figure out the "mystery" of a particular health problem I have been having. This is going to sound crazy, but even though health problems are (literally) a big pain, figuring out the cause is a lot of fun. I know. I'm a dork. You can't really go by what the doctors say only, because they just diagnose (which is helpful, yes) and give you a prescription that will mask the symptoms. It does nothing to find the actual cause. So that's why I'm self-treating.

Mellow Monday

It's still raining here, too, so I thought I'd answer Carla's question of the day today:

What do you like to do on a rainy weekend?

What I enjoyed doing most this rainy weekend was dreaming about what I'd like to have in my garden this year. I have the catalogs from Seed Saver's and Baker Creek Heirlooms out along with the graph paper, making plans that will hopefully come out through my husband's hands (and mine too, of course ;-) Unfortunately, I'm a huge gardening underachiever. I have big dreams, but they've never come to fruition...yet. We've had some good zucchini and tomatoes here before, but not much else. What I REALLY want (among other things), is asparagus!

What's What

What I'm reading:

• Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology, by Eric Brende
• The Classic Tales of Brer Rabbit, from stories collected by Joel Chandler Harris
• These High Green Hills, by Jan Karon

What I'm listening to: Worship & Faith, Randy Travis

What I'm watching: The Future of Food, by Deborah Koons Garcia - this is an excellent film I would encourage anyone to see

What I'm cooking: granola (baking, actually)

What I'm buying: Cuisinart food processor, herbs for teas and tinctures

Where we're at in our history reading for school: Henry II

"Mommy" Thoughts on Worship

Our pastor gave an illustration on Sunday. It’s a pretty familiar one. You have a jar in which you place a few largish rocks. Is it full? No. You can still add some smaller rocks that will settle in between the cracks of the bigger rocks. After that you can still add some pebbles, then some sand, and finally some water. Then it’s full. The point of the illustration is that we need to fit the most important (biggest) things into our lives first. The biggest “rock” in our lives should be worship. We need to fit that rock in first.

As I was thinking about that illustration this week, it started to somewhat break down in my mind. It’s a good illustration, don’t get me wrong. It’s certainly correct - we need to keep our priorities straight. But I thought of an even better and sillier illustration. I thought of this because I am a mother of young children. Our pastor would probably not have the occasion to think about things quite this way.

Worship is like play-dough in a can. It is flexible, and you can always add more to it. At least you can add more until your can is full. It doesn’t matter what color it is, you can add it to the rest. You only have so much room in your can, but the goal is to have your can (life) filled completely with play-dough only. You don’t want dirt, little Legos, sticks, or dried chunks of play-dough in there. Trust me on that one.

What is worship? It is offering up our lives for the glory of God. Anything that has the purpose of glorifying God is worship. So let’s say for example washing dishes. Is it worship or is it household drudgery? Well, I wash dishes for a number of reasons. Eating on dirty dishes would be a health hazard. It’s too expensive to buy paper plates and cups for every meal, not to mention too much trash. Letting dirty dishes pile up too high makes the home an unpleasant place to be. So I wash dishes to serve my family. This brings glory to God. Ergo, doing dishes is worship.

Serving, encouraging, chores of all sorts, are all different chunks of play-dough. We all have different combinations of colors of play-dough combined into our own little play-dough glob, hopefully coming closer each day to filling up our can completely. Sometimes we find things in our play-dough that do not belong. Sometimes our worship goes awry. Doing dishes gets to be a laborious chore and all we can think about is how no one else is pitching in to help. That is a dried up piece of play-dough that doesn’t belong with the rest anymore. You have to throw it out. It’s selfishness. The goal is to get rid of everything in your life that isn’t play-dough (worship).

Here are a few things that don’t belong: sin (obviously), unnecessary complexity (too many possessions, for example), purposelessness (is that a word?). No one reaches the goal in this lifetime. Jesus did, but the rest of us humans still have a long way to go. My New Year’s Resolution is to accumulate more play-dough and dig through what I have and throw out the sticks and other debris.