If your brother is hungry, give him bread to eat...

It started out as a promisingly lovely day... one of those gloomy, dark days that entices you to do something.

It was morning and the house was rather empty; it was just me and Laina and Liam. Snow lay littered on the ground and the wind howled around the eaves of the house, and I thought to myself... 'This is it. The perfect day to make something...dear Mom's gone, it's Saturday, and there's a bunch of white flour and sugar stashed in the pantry from the holiday baking-- why not be industrious and make something from it all?'

So I did.

Or rather... proceeded to. I decided to make Cardamom Bread; which I adore. I never got around to making it before Christmas, and actually hadn't made it in about two years. We have a splendid recipe for it.... but the only problem was... I couldn't find it. So, after searching through hundreds of recipes online, and forums and blogs and cultural sites, I finally came up with one that was reminiscent of my old recipe. And then I decided, that since I am such a loving person and just love baking, why not just make a whole bunch? I'm such a sweetheart, I'll make them for family and friends, like, "After-Christmas-Bread"... I'll make just ... tons! You know, like a bakery-- flour everywhere, fresh and delicious smells dancing through the house, and a table decorated with a mountain of soft and fragrant Cardamom wreaths, with icing dripping from them and anxious darling kids chorusing like little angels, "Holly, you're the best cooker ever!"

That mountain I envisioned must have been a volcano. Because my day erupted into a nightmare.

I made many, many, many batches of bread....each being doubled or more, and every single one has turned out to be a 20 pound frisbee, as hard as a rock and as unedible as a... 20 pound frisbee.

I am no novice at bread making. I've made bread since the days when I would romp around outside, in a green fringed tunic playing Robin Hood. I hope I can find an excuse. Maybe later we'll discover that the yeast was, you know, a hundred years old or something. Or perhaps that the sugar was packaged wrong when it was processed; maybe it was salt. You never know.

But, I do know that now I have a mountain range of dishes and pans and cookie sheets and bowls to wash...and no bread... and now it's 9pm.

I don't think I ever want to smell cardamom ever, ever, ever again.

For Christmas my grandmother gave me the book, Early Moon, a compilation of poems by Carl Sandburg. Inside, written on a yellowed page, I found this quaint inscription in faded ink:

Dear Ray,

"We give all we have to give
That the name may live longer than the man.

We live only for glory
To gild our lives for a moment's span.

Yet we who forget so soon
The loveliness of a scarlet leaf,
Find it strange that trees should wait
So long, for glory that is so brief."

S. Bateman

May the poems in this book give you joy - - - as much pleasures as they can.
For you have given me much Joy in our friendship.

Here's luck,

G. Lenor Arnold
"Kansas"
1931

For unto us...

...a child is born.

"because of the tender mercy of our God,
whereby the sunrise shall visit us
from on high
to give light to those who sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace."
Luke 1:78, 79


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQWXfHzOKUU

This is perhaps my favorite rendition of this song. While I am not a swooning Josh Groban fan, I do appreciate his lovely voice. I especially love how he sings O Holy Night so passionately, just as it deserves.

Have a Merry Christmas, and drink spiced cider or hot chocolate while watching It's a Wonderful Life, and take a deep breath and thank the God of this universe for such a life as yours. I am blessed to know you all, and I thank my God upon every remembrance of each one of you. Each of your lives have touched somebody else's, and you will never know how Christ has used your words or smile to encourage or change another person's life.

Merry Christmas.

sdfg

Darling,
sdf
God bless you dear, as you love and
worship him evermore this new year.
May you find contentment, purpose and peace.
sdfg
Happy Birthday!
aeg
Loving you,
Dad and Mom, Amber, Lindsey,
Emma, Ethan, Liam, Laina and Jonathan

asdgasdg

ennui

I am currently reading Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, of which I've never before read. I am enjoying it very much; however, reading it every evening before bed does make for some very strange dreams. One of my favorite quotes so far is found towards the beginning of the book.

"They've wept over it and grown used to it.
Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel!"

Which, is so undeniably true in this modern world. Even while we protest against it- how apt we are to grow accustomed to the wide mediocrity, corruptness and injustice found in our every day lives, the media, politics, and the church! We are ever in serious danger of becoming lax and desensitized. This world is indeed fallen, and we are fallen within it-- but not without hope! We have been given the sacred ability that enables us to transform the merest of treachery into sincere fidelity. That is, if we choose to. How many times have we heard that? And yet, we are sometimes so reluctant to do anything about it.

I had just cleaned up the living room today...for the 13th time. I put away Legos and half-built Star Wars inspired flying trucks and trailers, put the dozen markers away that were squeezed between the couch cushions and dusted and straightened and then finally lit a carmel scented candle. *sigh* I went to the office. I logged on to Gmail and checked my email.

Three minutes later I walked back into the living room. It had to of been only 3 minutes! The pillows and cushions were off the couches, books were off the shelves and blankets were strategically spread out on the floor. On top of those blankets two little faces peered at me wrapped in sheets. Laina and Jonathan!

“We are playing that this room is a river,” said Laina cheerfully.
“Yeah,” said Jonathan with a silly grin, “and this is our waft."
“Guys,” I said, “I just got done cleaning this room! Why do you even have the pillows off the couches?!"
“They’re the wocks,” Jonathan said; as if to say, hello, this is a river, what else would pillows be?

I looked at them. Their bright little eyes blinked back.

Fortunately, if it hadn’t been for their adorable happy faces, I probably would have become very difficult.

“So, what’s in this river?” I asked, not really caring. “Are there water snakes?”
Jonathan looked perturbed, as he lay there in his blankets, floating on his make-believe raft. “Wator snakes? Awre dey weal?”
“Yep.” I said.
“Well,” he said emphatically, “our rivor doesn’t have dem."
“Well, what does it have?”
Laina piped up, “It has these adorable little Nemo fish!”

And that’s when I decided I wanted my own river.

These little kids had created their own safe little world full of orange clown fish-- and I wanted one too! I want a world where everything is made from chocolate, and everything is free and where clocks are the thing of the past, where tears that slide off your face transform into silver roses-- where I can travel the earth in a big balloon and write poetry with the stars.

You know you want one too.

As the first post of this blog, I wanted to share with you something that I read, that I hope will inspire you to put down your laptop, get out of the house and ignite your heart to be passionate for Christ.

"For three years Noel and I lived a few miles from Dachau, the concentration camp outside Munich, Germany. Today it is open to the public.

There are pictures.

It is only because there are pictures that we believe it happened. Without the photographic record there would be no belief...

...Therefore I am frustrated that I only have one life to live for the glory of Christ. What shall I do?

The only solution I know of is you!

Which horror in the world makes you ache the most? Where will you pour yourself out in the few years you have before you give an account to the righteous Judge of all the earth?"

-John Piper, A Godward Life