Hanging by a Thread

"Magic" (a dogwood petal hangs by a thin strand).

“Quiching!”

The perfect hot, bubbly, cracking crust of a quiche.

The grocery store had an amazing special on eggs last week: a full 18 pack with no broken eggs for $1.88 that I couldn't pass up. Would you? Could any halfway decent chef with half a brain walk away from a bargain like that, right in the middle of a really harsh winter? No, and  "%uck no!" So, I did what any respectable artist would do, by brainstorming meal ideas, first at my mom's house with her old feminist cookbook about hating cooking, which she urged on me along with her old taped-together-as-a-binding green cookbook with horribly outdated ideas. Of course, I already knew exactly what newspaper clipping I was looking for in her recipe box, because I remembered it as the essence of simplicity in a recipe, and here it is:

A humble, simply perfect quiche recipe.

Since my days currently revolve around simple as a life concept, I knew right away that this recipe was the basic standby I recalled from my childhood, because it seems like something my grandfather would make. Norman people are not typically fussy, overblown drama queens, nor are our shared recipes.

I gilded the lily (just like you would with any basic template) by adding mushrooms, onions, and good cheddar cheese, poured into an also-simple, easy pie crust from a box that just needed water added to it, with as few ingredients as you can make a pre-made, powdered concoction to be.

The perfectly flaky pie crust that crumbles into layers....from a box!

The result was perfection, and it occurred to me as I sat, stood, bent over, and alternately stooped achingly over a stainless steel bowl of egg whites, that I had just made my quiche into a sport, so athletic are cooking exertions without the messy clutter of stupid gadgets that don't ever work as well as one healthy, talented human being. 
Behold, human! I have made "Quiching" into a sport, and it is good.

I ate three pieces of quiche after it came out of the oven.

Into Great Silence

A beacon of light in the early morning.

I knew before I saw this documentary that it would blow me away, and it did. I've always been deeply envious of the monastic life that my Catholic brothers and sisters live in Christ, because I know I am capable of such discipline, as it is evidenced in almost facet of my daily life: the ability to hone in on difficult concepts and easily grasp them (in any language I find them in), my superior (and manifold) modes of communication, and my vastly rich interior spiritual life (that exists beneath the surface of the human eye, mostly); such is my innate understanding of complex material. I just get it. And so, my mission has not been to a beautiful mountain retreat, but rather to master the arts of walking among humankind without being unduly hurt by them, which I have so far succeeded in doing, clad as I am in a sort of natural protection that is also heightened by the martial arts of self defense I have learned along the way thus far.

But that doesn't mean I don't still long for it, especially after particularly challenging days as a lay person out among so many troubled, average people. Get me off this planet! G-d hears me, and knows that my task is to talk with you, sometimes at you, in the hopes that even through your incomprehension, you gain something through the repetition, just like any master teacher would do in any field of study.

And so I watched the DVD walking step by step with them but also apart from my brothers, and felt much frustration from the distance, even as we have an intimacy through our worship that is so acute, you may not ever feel it, though I am forever grateful for this expression of our shared faith. They are some of my best friends that I have never met in person, separated as we are by time and space, close as that gap is dissolved through our One True and Only Begotten Son, our Savior Jesus Christ. Through Him, we have become One, a manifestation of the divine that is as unique as an individual, and also as close together as The Holy Trinity exists in perfect union, permeable as these states of being are spiritually.

As I watched them in the dark early morning hours, so the film opened with early morning vespers, our common calls to prayer bathed in the same fragile, dawning blue light, and even as I was sometimes moved by tears of joy about this shared connection and experience, while also feeling frustration and some anger at our physical distance, I know am never alone. Tucked away in a remote corner of this good green earth are a group of devoutly beautiful humans who know exactly how I feel, without me laboring to speak it to them, nor sign it to them, nor repeat it over and over like some brute form of water torture, like I am speaking to a dumb, mute beast stricken with ignorance. 

That is the perfection of our shared understanding and knowledge. Come see it for yourself, and find that you will never have a more beautiful art experience than this in a movie, for it is done. You will not top this, as so many of you are incapable of achieving this glory that is G-d in the Highest, even as my life as a prayer will ever be devoted to igniting that flame of passion within the heart of each and every one of you, in fellowship and kindness.

Live, my friends. Live it, and then maybe you will be some form of it some day, but most importantly....just live. Live and love life, a precious gift. See it, and know it, and be still. Live.

Moss and Wall

A moss-covered stone wall becomes a lesson about 

man and nature living together in perfect harmony.

Summer Sunsets

Life happens. Enjoy it.