No Budget

I'm often greeted with amazement about my prodigious prowess, along with fear, awe, hatred, ignorance, and trepidation. "Is it magic?!"
Sure, let me wave my friggin' fairy wand. The truth is: it is, and it isn't. It's in my nature, and when great people do great things through their good works, together we can move mountains. I work with a zero budget to produce this service free of charge to you, and I pledge to you today that it is my strong desire to continue to keep this an open resource for all, with no prejudices against you, because I believe in the power to change more than any other force.

The other simple truth is that I am far from alone, although at times it may seem that way to someone who does not live independently like a healthy, mature adult does, but the other reality is this: I see other strong people of faith working their "miracles" almost daily, far from the sight of the afflicted among us. Case in point: Master Educator, Healer, and Builder Michael Konstalid, who collects old materials to create special needs furniture for our beautiful children of New York on NO BUDGET. That's rights, folks: zero money down.
 
 

Michael Konstalid: educator, healer, builder, thinker, and doer.

Today is about you, Michael. I thank you for your great service, without the media's cameras, or an industry's gold statue, or even a nod of the head kindly in your direction on some days (far from it, truth be told), as so often happens for those of us who love more than we despise, because we are an actively living faith.  I see you.

http://nyti.ms/1b1xFU6

Like Water for Chocolate

http://barkthins.com/

I had a really weird day this week. During the morning, I saw the most beautiful movie I've ever seen (http://vimeo.com/38263988), and then I went food shopping in an insanely large grocery store. It was like a lesson in opposites from "Up High": this great, perfect beauty followed by lots of bad sh#t in triplicate lining every friggin' grocery shelf. 

I sought some comfort because I felt lonely away from my Brothers in Christ shown in the movie, and I'm also forever in mourning for my grandparents, people who shared a deep abiding faith in The Lord, and all the earthly delights as they happen everyday in nature (life philosophies and a real happiness that is rare). And so I went looking for them in the guise of my grandmother's recipe: a basic dessert (or so I thought) made of chocolate cake, whipped cream, and a jar of peaches preserved in a simple syrup, something we've enjoyed during wintertime when foods run scarce for many a year throughout the ages.

It was so hard, I thought I was going to cry. I couldn't find chocolate cake without reading an ingredients list that read like something written out by a mad scientist for some crazy project that never gets off the ground, and then I couldn't find real heavy cream without cancer-causing ingredients in them like Carrageenan and High Fructose Horseshit. I found a brand of preserved fruits in glass a few months back, so I put those peaches and pears in syrup in my basket, which made me feel slightly better (pear juice is a natural throat soother that elicits helpful, productive coughing: thanks to Dr. S in  Park Slope ;) But, I was starting to feel nauseous from the store's overheating with too many layers of clothes on, and lots of morbidly obese sick people with their bad energy and overloaded carts...it was too much.

What could I have for dessert? My time window was running out. Aha! How about chocolate? How bad can someone fuck that up? But...someone had. Package after package that I turned over to read listed high fructose this, and corn syrup that. No "cocoa" or "sugar" or "milk" or "cream". I felt like a monk, or my grandparents transported into the future, when everything is rotten and sick, like a "Soylent Green" fantasy gone wrong, until there it was; BarkThins. I turned it over, and there it was, too: the language that we speak to each other, in words easily understood, like childhood lessons we learned about good over evil, on a simple foodstuff package; words like "non-GMO" and "Free Trade Certified". The ingredients were the same type of words, too: real cocoa, and actual sugar cane. Yes! Score!! 

Later on, when I got home, munching on chocolate so good that it tasted like food I hadn't eaten in years; good, wholesome, rich, delicious chocolate, I looked at the package at little bit closer. 
And there it was, in black text on a light background, the name and address of the chocolatier in a town five minutes from the place my grandparents lived for many years, just a mere ten minute drive from the home in New City I grew up in Rockland County, New York. Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa. It was just what needed, exactly when I needed it, and that's just the type of love they always gave me: the really good stuff, of the kind that sustains you by lasting and being there whenever you need it, wherever you go.

Amen to you, on this winter day in 2015, from your beloved granddaughter who will always cherish, adore, and miss you. 
I honor you daily by not squandering the gifts you so lovingly gave 
to me, the first of which is this great lesson that so very many 
people miss: knowing the good from the bad. Amen.

Goodness, right here at home.