Moving!

Hi, just letting you know, I moved over to wordpress! Check it out-- http://jasminis.wordpress.com

2007 reflections

In 2007...

I mourned the loss of innocence in the world and in myself.
But I rejoiced when it was born anew in so many ways.

I fell in love.

Community took on even more significance.
My sisters and brothers in Raleigh grew more precious.

I faced some fears.

Mortality reminded me of its grip on me and the lives of my loved ones.
The great cloud of witnesses surrounded, and witnessed (which freaked me out).

I gave birth.

I cried more than I wanted to.
But nothing made me happier than the laughter of my child.

I missed family.

I gained new friends in unexpected places.
And even met up with some old ones.

Sleep became elusive.

Read a few good books, saw some good movies.
But mostly, any down time was spent wanting to sleep.

I learned to appreciate my humanity even more.

And my spiritual life grew out of the mundane.
Out of the ordinary, every-day occurrences of life on this earth.

Changed many, many diapers.

I cooked, and it became a creative process and an outlet.
My body was made food for someone.

I thought a lot about hunger.

And Jesus kept me.
In the light, dark, and the murky in-between,
he kept me.

Goodbye old year, I am glad for the things you taught me.

all you need is love

So here's Jubie meeting her first pastor. "Pastor the Conquistador" that is. She loved that dog! Thanks goes to Jenny for introducing them. I think it was love at first lick.

I have never loved anyone else the way I love her. It amazes me, what God gives--this good, challenging, growing thing of love. When Jesus said that we must become like little children to enter the kingdom of heaven, I don't think he meant, "be more innocent or more pure..." Be more, be more, be more...this is what we are constantly telling ourselves and yet, I don't know that he ever asks us to be more anything when he is more for us in us.

I think he was asking us to simply let him love us. Let him love unreservedly and extravagantly, even when we don't deserve it, don't feel as though we measure up. It's a hard thing for adults to let themselves be loved and to admit to needing it, but children--they have no qualms about expressing their need for love whenever and wherever it suits them. Whether it's being held, changed, fed, or played with, Jubilee tells me in her own baby way what she needs, and my response is always the same: I am here for you.

God is just like that, overwhelming more so! We just don't always accept it. But--He Is. And just as Jubilee will get older and my expressions of love for her change in response to her growth and maturity, God takes me deeper into his love as I age in him. I suppose this is what relationship with him is all about.

I was feeling a bit down in the dumps before I started this post.
It's been one of those "I could tear my hair out weep a thousand tears eat a pint of ben-and-jerry's" days, if you know what I mean. And I won't say that magically everything is better now, but I definitely feel my spirit lifted a bit when I think about the riches of his graceful love. It's like digging your fingers into dark, loamy, soil to plant a seed. That seed may have fallen into its tomb of dirt, but it is there, surrounded by darkness, that it is given the nutrients it needs to break forth, sprout, and grow.

And because I love this song...because this is a feel good post...
All You Need is Love! Sing it with me now...

bragging rights

Not much time to write a decent post, but here are some pictures taken with me and Jubilee at our "play" group...




I love this last one with the three girls together--it's hilarious to try and get them to all look at the same thing. Not happening.

And here's one of just Jubes.


Okay, so I seriously think I have bragging rights. I mean, she's just the cutest baby ever, right?

Food

I've just come from the kitchen where I was slicing potatoes (that will eventually be mashed) for dinner. I've been mulling over recipe ideas and food all day, from everything to wondering if I can master bernaise and hollandaise sauce, to an autumn butternut squash dish, to giant caramel and chocolate chip cookies I want to bake and send my little sister who's now in college. The thought finally hit me today--I really enjoy cooking. I like to get my fingers gooey from mashing ripe bananas for banana bread, I like it when I find a streak of flour across my cheek, and I almost immediately begin drooling from the aroma of garlic and onion being sauteed in olive oil. I'm no gourmet chef, but there is such pleasure and beauty to be found in the simple act of creating sustenance that can be delighted in from raw materials, which in some form or fashion have come from the earth. There is something truly spiritual about it.

Being home most of the day with the kiddo and husband (who works from home) means that I spend a lot of time in the kitchen. So I'm very grateful for the opportunity to participate in something like prayer as I "slave all day" over the stove! I doubt Jesus spent much time in the kitchen during his time on earth. But perhaps he felt the same way when he bent over wood, to cut and sand and shape it into a thing of beauty.


Now, he's declared himself to be food and drink--taste and see that he is good. What a wonderful image. What a frightening image. Take me in, he says. Ingest me. Digest me. Let me become a part of you, fuel you, keep you alive.

Hunger for me, and I will satisfy. I am the hunger. I am the food. I am all. I am.

I can't pretend to fully understand this, but I know that it is truth. So I suppose I am grateful for hunger as well since it leads us to him. Gives us a picture of the state of our spirits.


But then I think about hunger in the natural realm, and should I be grateful for that? Sure, I can say that I am grateful for hunger when I know that I have a way to satisfy that hunger right behind my refrigerator door, or across the street at the grocery store, or down the way at Chick-fil-A. But what about those who are truly hungry, with no foreseeable way to fulfill their need?

Feed my sheep, he says. It's easy to feed my family. It's also easy to feed my friends. It's a joy to sit around the dinner table with a good glass of wine, maybe some herb-roasted chicken and asparagus, and fresh bread, and be surrounded in the comfort of those I know and love. There is great good in that. But there is also good to be found in having the stranger, the "other" (i.e. a truly hungry person) sitting across from me at the table. I'd like to take steps to being able to do that. Whether that means eventually opening a food pantry alongside Mike like Sara Miles does (which she talks about in her book Take This Bread) or just getting up the guts to invite someone I'm less than comfortable with in for a meal, I know that I want to share this joy I have for cooking with whomever I can.

Ha. I almost wrote "the joy of cooking." (No, I do not own that cookbook.)

And on that note, I think I should get to bed. I have a little one who will probably be expressing her hunger at a less than optimal hour of night. Now I'll have that Checkers commercial ringing through me head...

You gotta eat!