Cabbage rolls

Bern makes cabbage rolls every month or so.

Her mother--Emma Baccho Pisano--was Hungarian, so Bern comes by it honestly. Emma's cabbage rolls won me over back when I was much younger and Bern and I were dating.

First you have to blanch the cabbage, so the leaves are supple. Then you line them with sausage and ground beef--and I think Bern also does ground turkey (being health conscious and all--though I've never asked--and rice. Then she cooks them with tomatoes from a can for half-a-day or so.

And they are amazing! So good, though I have to add salt, given Bern's heart healthy ways.

But amazing.

If we hadn't already been married 45 years, her cabbage rolls would make me want to marry her. That and her beauty and wonder and sensibility and great good humor. And the little dances she does.

She has a cabbage roll dance that I love.

Just as I love her cabbage rolls....And her....

There are some frozen for Mimi when she comes on Monday for Christmas with us before flying to for Christmas with Tim's parents. Mimi and Josh love the cabbage rolls as well....

OK, I'm trying to be calmer...

OK, let me start again. I just typed three lines, which took me a while because every time I click, like to start writing, I get a box with lots of options, none of which is 'close' and I have to try to get around it because I can't start typing while it's there.

I explained all that and then wrote that there is an HP Warranty Status box open on the right side of my screen which has (guess what?) no 'close option telling me my warranty expires a year from now. I misspelled 'warranty' the first time I typed this and when I tried to correct it everything on the screen where I'm typing now went away--just like last night when I wrote a lovely piece about still grilling in mid-December and lost it and ended up using *** to cover inappropriate language about this ***** computer.

Well, I did just figure out how to close the Warranty Status box--though I mis-typed warranty and was afraid I'd lose all this.

My problems with this new computer rival my dog's problems with rain.

Bela hates the rain. Luckily for us, he has super dog powers to hold back his poop and pee. Bern said the other day, "Bela would die before he went to the bathroom inside". Which may be true. Unlike Luke, our cat, who often poops on the floor even though his litter box is clean. He's 14 or so and I give him a break. Luke had a hard time recently and we thought he was dying. But he didn't. Bern said, "I liked him better when he was dying". That was honest but harsh.

Anyway, our dog hates the rain. He likes snow but hates rain.

And here's the thing--he's a Hungarian sheepdog...a Puli--who, if he was doing what he should be doing he'd be out in all weather taking care of the sheep in Hungary.

I told him that tonight when I went out on the porch to smoke and he had to come but leaned against the door the whole time.

Here's what I said (so, I talk to my dog, what of it?) "if you were back home in Hungary, you'd be out in the rain with the sheep. You'd be a wimp of the first degree to all the other Puli's."

As Bela is to rain am I to this computer. I just don't get it. I can't figure it out. I'd rather be dry and inside than fooling with it.

It's making me a tad crazy.

Maybe, Mimi, when she comes, or John Anderson can help me. But who knows?

It's rained all day and all day I've struggled with what I don't know.

So be it. Move on.

It's December 16 and I just grilled fish

So, I just wrote a long blog about the weather and how I grilled outside on December 16 with recipes and all.

And something happened on this f***ing new computer and it went away.

I spent half an hour trying to restore it and couldn't. And I don't feel, after that half-an-hour, like trying to reconstruct it.

I hate this computer that cost me a hand and a foot.

If I gave you all the reasons why, it would be the longest blog of almost 1600.

I really liked what I wrote and lost. Maybe tomorrow I'll feel like trying to reconstruct it. But not tonight. Tonight I'm just P***ed at this computer.

Be well and stay well.

Two trees

So, we have, as we've hd for quite a few years now, two Christmas Trees. Usually we have a spruce and a white pine (I love long needle trees) but when Bern went to get them (she always picks them out) the white pines were pitiful so she got a spruce and a balsam fir. The spruce is too sticky and we'll never get one again.

Plus, she forgot somehow to have the holes bored in them--we have tree stands that need a whole bored--and we spent hours with a drill to get them in a shape to go in the stands.

One of the trees is the 'bird tree' because we have lots and lots of bird ornaments. But it's also the tree for things with wings so lots of angels too. The other tree has everything else.

When you've had 45 Christmas's together, you have more ornaments that one tree can hold, which is why we started having two trees.

The bird tree (or winged tree--several butterflies as well as angels) has multicolored lights. Like my parents' tree did. The other tree has only white lights--like most people today like.

They are both beautiful and if you stand in the doorway between our large dining room and our small living room (since we don't live there much--more in the extended kitchen or the upstairs TV room) you can see them both at the same time.

Pretty cool. But it's hard to think of a New England Christmas when, 10 days before, it was 60 degrees.

The Voice vs. the voices

Tonight is the endless final of the Voice, one of my favorite--if not my favorite--TV shows.

Tonight is also the time of the 9 top GOP candidates debating.

Decision to be made? No, easy.

Singing is better than posturing and lying and trying to be more ridiculous than is possible.

I'll be watching the Voice.

Let the 'voices' of anger and discontent go unheard.

That's where I'll be tonight--listening to lovely singing rather than rangor and defeatism.

(Oh, did you hear, the Dictionary word of the year isn't a word at all--it's a suffix: '-ism'. How great is that?)

Traveling even lighter

So, what if this whole Christian enterprise isn't about 'belief' at all?

What if being a Christian is exactly that--who we 'be' in the world, how we live, not what we 'believe'--whatever that means in the end?

I've come to the conclusion that 'believing stuff' is part of the problem. Isis really, really, really "believes" stuff and what they 'believe' leads them to kill people, most of whom are Muslims like them. If that's what 'believing stuff' leads to, I want no part of it.

Instead of 'being Christian' because of what we 'believe', why don't we 'be Christians' by how we 'BE' in the world?

Compassion, welcome, love, hope, generosity, openness, engagement, trust, healing, feeding, comforting--those are the way to 'be' in the world that would qualify as 'being a Christian'.

So, let's 'be' those things and forget about the 'belief' part.

I'm not at all sure what Jesus 'believed'--but I know how he 'be' in the world. Don't make me type those words again up two paragraphs. Why don't we agree to not worry about 'believing', since that just divides and separates people anyway, and just 'be' Christians.

I will type them again, just to make them real: Compassion, welcome, love, hope, generosity, openness, engagement, trust, healing, feeding, comforting.

I'd be glad to accept additions to that list of how to 'be' in the world--I'm sure there are more--but those are a good start to define 'being a Christian' in this darkling world.

Try it out.

Traveling light...

I just came across this. I wrote it in 2012 for some reason--probably had it emailed to the Folks of the Cluster during Lent. I know it's Advent...believe me, "I Know"...but I liked the pondering in this piece, so I thought I'd share it.

              THE DESERT OF LENT

          There is good news and bad news. And both are the same—we are living in the “post-Christian era”.  American culture used to be synonymous with a culturally agreed upon “Christian culture.” That is no longer true. In fact, the Christian church is marginalized in 2012. We live in a “multi-cultural” society. Christianity is no longer the norm. In fact, the Church is now and will be for some extended time, perhaps forever, a remnant in our society. Once again, as in the first and second centuries of the first millennium, we are a “pilgrim people”, the Church lives in the desert—on the edges of society, as a counter-culture.

          That is the bad news and the good news.

          It is “bad news” because it requires us, as the Church, to give up our arrogance and control of the culture. It is “good news” because it requires us, as the Church, to give up our arrogance and control of the culture.

          The GOOD NEWS and BAD NEWS are exactly the same.

                                                *

          The “desert church” motif is one I appreciate and embrace. The first rule of living in the desert is this: never carry anything you don’t need to survive.  So, here in the desert, the Church has the opportunity to lay down and cast aside much of the flotsam and jetsam that holds us back and pins us down. We have to be a “pilgrim people” who travel light.

          At a clergy conference years ago, one of the speakers talked about “the desert church”—the church of the new millennium and this post-Christian era. It is almost like being back in the days before the Council of Nicaea in 325 C. E. (If you had any doubt that we’re in the “post Christian era” notice how the politically correct—like me!—use “C. E.”, meaning “the Common Era”, for dates rather than the good-old “A. D.”,  anno Domini, meaning, “the year of our Lord.”) After 17 centuries of dominating and forming western culture, the church is back in the market place, competing with other faiths, other philosophies, other spiritual systems. It is an exciting and challenging time for the church. I honestly can’t think of a better time to be a Christian. We must live with urgency and passion. We must “travel light”.

We have a job to do.

Shalom, jim