Monthly Archives: December 2009

Merton on Materialism, or, Merry Christmas to All

Now that you’re probably basking in the post-Christmas pile of, well, stuff, (as we are) here’s a little Merton to make you feel good about it all.  Or not.  If you don’t want to possibly feel guilty or depressed, don’t read on.

Christmas Cards!

Here are the first photos from the Great Christmas Card Photo Round-up.  Thanks, Veronica, Tom, and Clark!  If you want to send a cool family picture with your home-made card by Lucy (or if you have not received your card and want to remind me to hurry up!) send me an email.

Greenwells and Christmas card

And here’s the card with their lovely description:

Greenwell's Christmas card

“I think it looks like Winnie the poo walking towards the right while holding a stick with a beehive on it, and bees following him.”

We are one Body

We went to a “young adult” gathering in the Baton Rouge diocese last night, and it got me thinking.  So I’m really just thinking out loud (as it were) here, most of this isn’t clearly formed yet, but it has been bothering me for a while.  The meeting itself was fine, they had a change of plan since the speaker had to cancel, so we had dinner, discussed what we would like to see from the young adult ministry (they’re really just getting started) and then had a brief prayer service.  But it was the assumptions underlying the conversation that interested me most.

Christmas Cards

So I was thinking…we didn’t take any pictures of the Christmas cards that Lucy is making before we sent them out. But it would be really cool if she got to see who they went to, so…if/when you get yours (there are still a lot to go in the mail and if you think I forgot you or don’t have your address, just email me) if you could send a picture of you and your family with the card, I could post them on the blog (if you don’t mind, of course) and that would be really, really cool. Maybe we could put up a map too, and make this a regular geography thing. Anyway, I would enjoy seeing your beautiful faces with Lucy’s beautiful artwork. : )

Black beans and sweet potatoes?

Last week was black bean and sweet potato week here at the Baker house.  I know that probably sounds strange to you, because it did to me a couple of weeks ago.  But we (and by “we” I mean Craig) had purchased many, many pounds of sweet potatoes about a month ago, and they needed to be eaten.  And black beans are cheap (as were sweet potatoes, hence our abundance).  And I generally trust Moosewood cookbooks, so I thought I’d give the “black bean and sweet potato hash” a try.  Now, I’m not one to make hashes, as a general rule, so this involved a little bravery to start with.  Here’s the recipe, so you can see for yourself what I was getting into.

Merton on Suffering

Merton is speaking of seeing his father in a hospital bed, unable to speak and disfigured by a brain tumor.  He is 14 or 15 years old, and has no faith or relationship with God to speak of.

The house is mine!

[evil laugh]  Craig and the girls are out, so I am free to eat ice cream before dinner, sew, and write on my blog!  Sweet freedom!

But ice cream aside, (or inside, as the case may be), I now have the problem of which of the hundred things I’ve thought about writing about in the last few weeks will actually make it on the page.  Well, enough stalling.