Bread, and Always Christmas if Not Now Winter

We have a bread machine that works like Rumplestiltskin, turning basic ingredients into warm, golden bread with no more human involvement than is required to put things in and take things out.  We have a KitchenAid mixer that works nearly the same way, with a hook that kneads dough twice as effectively in half the time it takes me.  But today when I make bread, I want to make bread.

I take down the thick cookbook we never use.  I gather the huge white bowl, the wooden spoon, and the measuring cups.  I mix two tablespoons of yeast and half a cup of lukewarm water and while they are growing foamy, I heat three tablespoons of butter and a cup and a half of buttermilk in a pan until the butter dissolves.  The double-butter milk cools to lukewarm, and the house is quiet.  My family is gone, running errands, and I am the only one home, baking bread after a scholarship essay is polished and submitted.  Silence warmly invites me to sing, and to my surprise, the song that bubbles from my lips is not one that reflects the nearly-100-degree weather outside the window.  Instead...

Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel

And ransom captive Israel

That mourns in lonely exile here

Until the Son of God appear

Rejoice!  Rejoice! 

Emmanuel shall come to thee, oh Israel.

I mix flour and liquid with my hands, dough coating my arms almost to my elbows, and think on the words that came from me and came from nowhere.  One of my two favorite Christmas songs, yes...but in June?  The rhythmic kneading of the dough beneath my hands beats the tempo of the song, and I sing the lyrics again. 

Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel...

"Emmanuel," meaning "God who is with us." 

I grease the bowl - cheating this time, with a can of Pam oil spray - and the kneaded dough lands splot in the bottom, where it grows for an hour and ten minutes.  And I sing carols that are relevant year-round. 

Christmas marked the beginning of God's dwelling with us, and that time has not ended. 

And the Presence that arrived announced by angels and stars and shepherds and a scandalized couple gloriously invades my kitchen and my heart and my neighbors probably think I'm crazy for Rejoice!  Rejoice!  nearly shouted in the middle of June.

Sometimes I wish my name was Barnabas

Barnabas was one cool guy.  He hung out mostly in Antioch, was mistaken for Zeus, and had sweet hobbies like getting beat up and thrown in prison.  He vouched for Saul/Paul when the other apostles were too afraid to accept him, sang songs that literally rocked, and argued with Paul over whether or not to give John Mark a second chance.  But what I like most about Barnabas is that his name isn't really Barnabas.  Acts 4:36 calls him, "Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means 'son of encouragement')." 

The encouragement of Barnabas was so much his defining characteristic that the apostles gave it to him as a name.  Barnabas's identity was wrapped around his gift to build up those around him, filling them with courage and strength.  He had an ability to call out the gold from within people, even when nobody else (or even the individuals themselves) couldn't see anything shining. 

I want to be like that. 

I want to build up the people around me rather than tear them down, to see the best in them and call it out, to comfort and counsel and summon courage inside them - not so much to create something, but rather to point out what was always there. 

I want to be a daughter of encouragement.

Awe like Lightning

I like feeling small.

And last night I stood wind-whipped, with the porch planks as amphitheater seats, and heard a colossal concert that dwarfed the assumed largeness of myself.  Crickets hummed like violins, strong wind blew flute song through my ponytailed hair, and the percussive thunder punctuating the symphony matched the pounding of my awestruck heart.

I thought I may as well be struck by lightning because the excitement pulsed through every synapse and left me glowing and electrified.


What if we stood up and took notice when we say “wow”? Awe is an integral Christian “disposition of the soul,” [Herbert] Anderson* contends. It leads us into and disposes us toward faith. Luther himself said, “Wonder brings faith.” Such a disposition is what actually connects belief and practice. Without an outlook titled toward awe, belief becomes a hallow platitude and practice turns into empty habit. Builidng on Luther, Anderson emphasizes, “We will be more disposed toward moments of extraordinary awe if we have been attending all along to wonder and awe in the ordinary.”
-In the Midst of Chaos, Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore

Desperation and Cold Water

As of today, I've read Ecclesiastes 3 times.  The first time was when I read the Bible straight through because reading the Bible straight through is like a rite of passage for all good Christians, just having dc Talk's "Jesus Freak" on your iPod or being a rabid Tim Tebow fan.  It's just what we do.  I didn't get much out of Ecclesiastes that time, most likely because I was 11 years old and the Bible is a very long book and, to an 11-year-old, Ecclesiastes is pretty forgettable.

The second time was last fall on a whim.  I realized that I didn't remember a thing Ecclesiastes said and figured I should probably read it again because, being the Word of God and all, it might have some important things to say.  I read the 12 chapters in a day (which is the only way that book can be read...suicide is likely if you stop before the end) and decided it was one of the best things I've ever read.  We blitzed through the book again this morning in Awesome (if you're not a FEFC-goer, Awesome is what we call Sunday School, because seriously, who wants to go to school on Sunday?!  And Awesome is a pretty good description of everyone and everything there, so it didn't take long for us to pick that name instead.), and I was reminded why I like this book so much.
See, I spend a lot of time around desperate people.  The majority of my friends aren't content with the mediocre existence offered by society, many come from difficult family situations, and quite a few struggle with depression of one form or another.  So they, we, look for something to quench our soul-thirst, to satisfy the yearning we have, to give us a sense of purpose.

That's pretty much what Solomon covers in the first 11 chapters of Ecclesiastes.  I envision him as a knight on a quest, hunting for anything that will give meaning to his life.  Through eleven chapters he searches, looking first to wisdom, then to pleasures, to work, to advancements, to wealth, to everything he can think of that might possibly offer him a reason to live.  Each experiment ends the same way, though: "This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind."  Solomon echoes the bumper sticker maxim, "He who dies with the most toys still dies."  He goes so far as to say that it's better to never even be born than to see the oppression and wickedness in the world.  For eleven chapters, it seems that the end of his quest is the conclusion that the best anyone can hope to do is to work hard and enjoy the life they have while it lasts.  YOLO?
But
(There's always a but when things look hopeless)
But then chapter 12 happens and Solomon remembers God. 
"Remember your Creator in the days of your youth...Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man."
"The whole duty of man."
Our entire purpose.
Seems almost like a letdown.  That's it?

But to desperately thirsty souls on a quest for Abundant Life, it's like a long drink of cold water. 

And the commandment to keep commandments?  It's not a heavy, burdensome demand.  Really, there are only two commandments: to love God and love people.  These aren't rules; they're relationships. 

In the end, Solomon discovered what Jesus would sum up thousands of years later...

"Anyone who drinks from this well will be thirsty again, (we run to wells we know won't satisfy), but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.  Indeed, the water I give them will become a spring of water welling up to eternal life."