I see in the glass darkly.

When I married my husband, I married into his family. If that family were a building made of earthly stones, the large rock that for so long stood at the corner of the foundation, the one that bore the most weight, has been taken out of his place. He passed from this life last week at the age of 96. My husband's father was a Christian man and there was nothing fancy about him; still, many people said rightly that he was "a prince of a man."

The house is being restructured. We know that God's everlasting arms are under us in any case, but I feel the shifting, and the huge change. And I could not think of a thing to say here until today when I read these words from a hymn of the Greek Orthodox Rite for the Burial of Priests. This man who was so significant in my life was not a priest, or even Orthodox, but the hymn helps me to pray and to hold the mysteries in faith.

God intended the soul and body to be a unity, but at death they have to be torn apart. The words wonder about that and about other things regarding our death of which we understand so little. I like the musical setting by John Tavener; you can read the words below the link while you listen to the hymn.

And let us do as exhorted at the end, to enter into Christ, and His Light. Amen.

 

Why these bitter words of the dying, O brethren,
which they utter as they go hence?
I am parted from my brethren.
All my friends do I abandon, and go hence.
But whither I go, that understand I not,
neither what shall become of me yonder;
only God who hath summoned me knoweth.
But make commemoration of me with the song:
Alleluia.

But whither now go the souls?
How dwell they now together there?
This mystery have I desired to learn,
but none can impart aright.
Do they call to mind their own people, as we do them?
Or have they forgotten all those who mourn them
and make the song:
Alleluia.

We go forth on the path eternal,
and as condemned, with downcast faces,
present ourselves before the only God eternal.
Where then is comeliness? Where then is wealth?
Where then is the glory of this world?
There shall none of these things aid us,
but only to say oft the psalm:
Alleluia.

If thou hast shown mercy unto man, O man,
that same mercy shall be shown thee there;
and if on an orphan thou hast shown compassion,
the same shall there deliver thee from want,
If in this life the naked thou hast clothed,
the same shall give thee shelter there,
and sing the psalm:
Alleluia.

Youth and the beauty of the body
fade at the hour of death,
and the tongue then burneth fiercely,
and the parched throat is inflamed.
The beauty of the eyes is quenched then,
the comeliness of the face all altered,
the shapeliness of the neck destroyed;
and the other parts have become numb,
nor often say:
Alleluia.

With ecstasy are we inflamed if we but hear
that there is light eternal yonder;
that there is Paradise,
wherein every soul of Righteous Ones rejoiceth.
Let us all, also, Enter into Christ,
that all we may cry aloud thus unto God:
Alleluia. 

He is the Resurrection and the Life

I'm jumping in with joy.

At Little Lehigh Creek in Emmaus PA

It's the Feast of Theophany! How can I not post something on this day when there is blessing abounding to the degree that people want to jump into icy waters over it? I am caught between the impulse to spread the riches around, and the awareness of the extreme limitations of my mind when the meaning of Christ's baptism is set before me. There is a lot to take in and try to absorb at Theophany, regarding the Baptism of Our Lord.

I know what I'll do -- I'll post a link to Father Stephen Freeman's recent blog on the subject. An excerpt:

St. John himself does not seem to understand the purpose of Christ’s Baptism. He is told that “whomever you see the Holy Spirit rest upon and remain” is the Messiah – but he is given little information beyond that. Witnessing Christ’s Baptism and the Spirit resting upon Him, he hears the voice, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew, Mark and Luke all bear witness to the voice).  The Church later celebrates this manifestation of the Trinity (Christ in the water, the Spirit descending, the Voice of the Father – hence the title “Theophany”).

But with the text alone, on its literal level, we are left with a mystery, without context or meaning. The Tradition of the Church, however, sees the Baptism of Christ in the context of Pascha (Easter) as it sees everything in the context of Christ’s Pascha. Christ’s Baptism is a foreshadowing (and on more than a literary level) of His crucifixion and descent into Hades (just as our own Baptism is seen by St. Paul as a Baptism into Christ’s “death and resurrection”).

When he goes on to explain that in the workings of God in the world, the literal is not all there is, he quotes Fr. Andrew Louth:

Allegory is a way of entering the 'margin of silence' that surrounds the articulate message of the Scriptures, it is a way of glimpsing the living depths of tradition from the perspective of the letter of the Scriptures.

There is so much to think about, even if you aren't part of the Orthodox Tradition in which we will be participating on the praxis level by blessing urns of water, creeks and lakes and oceans of water. In parishes everywhere priests will be blessing houses as my rector described in our newsletter, so as to bring "the joy of the feast of the manifestation of the Holy Trinity to each and every dwelling. Think of the house blessing as a renewal of God's grace in your home."

How could we not be welcoming of that? I won't be jumping into any frozen streams, I hope ever, but I will certainly have the joy of the feast.

O Christ our God,

 Who hast revealed Thyself,

And enlightened the world,

Glory to Thee.

We Gladly remember the Hobbit-Holes.

Happy Birthday, J.R.R.! 

 

Yes, January 3rd is the date J.R.R. Tolkien was born in the year 1892. Once I actually gave a party in his honor, on what would have been his Eleventy-First Birthday.

At the end of 2011 several of us Glad people did see the new Hobbit movie. We were reminiscing about our distant historical connection with lovers of everything Tolkien. The main claim to fame I can see is that Kate started an e-mail discussion list on Tolkien's writings, characters and stuff called Hobbit-Hole. She does still have friends from that group, but she had forgotten that she was the creator of it.





Some 20 years ago I read the whole Rings trilogy to all the children. Kate was probably too young to appreciate it then. And I read The Hobbit myself twice. Seeing Peter Jackson's movie made me want to read it again, to remember the amiable and heartwarming spirit of it, which I didn't find in the movie, though I did like the film enough overall.

And Pippin eagerly offered her own annotated edition for Mr. Glad and me to read aloud together. We plan to start today, on the author's birthday. Leafing through the pages of this book made me excited to begin, and I thought I'd share a few illustrations with you, too. Maybe if you click on the pictures you can see them better in a larger version.


I'm not feeling too adventurous at this time of year - well, truthfully, at any time of year. But right now I'm going to get a fire going in the woodstove so we'll be all ready to cozy up and read about the adventures of a Hobbit.

To your memory, dear Mr. Tolkien! 

The earth is full of the Lord's mercy.

This passage I just happened to read today seems to be just right for contemplating at the beginning of a new year. Its focus is the Lord's nature and works, but it includes instruction to us humans, too. The second line makes me think how all of our art and culture ought to be to His glory, and done to the best of our ability, demonstrating the best of our humanity made in His image.

Sing to Him a new song;
Sing praises beautifully with a shout.
For the word of the Lord is right,
And all His works are done in faithfulness.
He loves mercy and judgment;
The earth is full of the Lord's mercy.

Psalm 32: 3-5 (Septuagint)

Lord, fill us with Your Holy Spirit this year so that 

we would be in unity with that mercy that your earth is full of, 

and may our lives be a beautiful praise song to You.

Christmas Cookies for Show-and-Eat

The new favorite cookie this year was Salted Toffee. This was a happy accident sort of thing. We had come by a bag of mini Heath Bars, not something we normally would buy, and I didn't want to end up eating them one-by-one, so after we ate a few I thought I would make cookies with the rest.





I'd seen recipes online for Heath Bar cookies, and I used one of them that didn't have nuts. My version had a little less Heath ingredient, since we had snacked it down. The specialness I added was to combine some large-crystal sugar (Demerara) and coarse sea salt and roll the tops of the cookie-dough balls in that before baking.

Everyone loved these cookies. If that bird were real, he would have eaten the whole cookie by now. But he is painted on a pretty tray that May gave me for Christmas.

Soldier's Joy brought the darlingest delicious thumbprint cookies that were filled with strawberry and rhubarb, and some chocolate-dipped dried apricots that combined to add to the visual appeal of the cookie platters.

Those bright-white round cookies are our only store-bought item, Pffernusse from Trader Joe's that Mr. Glad wanted to try in memory of the cookies his German grandmother used to make.

The coconut-y balls are Date Delights, for which I'll give you the recipe here. They are another chewy toffee-ish experience we have been creating ever since my grandma gave our family a tin full of them one Christmas past.

Date Delights

1 cube butter
1 cup cut-up pitted dates
1 beaten egg
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup chopped walnuts
2 cups Rice Crispies
sweetened coconut flakes, about 7 oz.

In a 9x12 baking pan mix the walnuts and Rice Crispies. Set aside. In another bowl put the coconut flakes. 

In a saucepan melt the butter, and add the dates, egg and sugar. Stir all together in the saucepan and boil over medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.
Remove from heat and beat in the vanilla, and immediately pour the candy mixture over the walnuts and cereal. Stir well. As soon as the mixture is cool enough to handle, form into balls and roll them in the coconut flakes. Cool.

The red squares in the foreground are Cranberry Jellies. I adapted a recipe from a past Sunset Magazine to make a treat that Pippin and I especially like. It's refreshingly lacking in any fat except for walnuts, and is a nice chewy way to get your cranberry fix and add color to the display.

Cranberry Jellies

3 cups Trader Joe's Cranberry-Orange Relish (2-16 oz. tubs)
2 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups water
13 envelopes plain gelatin
3 cups chopped walnuts

Combine the first three ingredients in a bowl (I used a stand mixer) and while the paddle is turning, gradually add the gelatin. When thoroughly mixed transfer to a saucepan and heat just until the gelatin is dissolved. Stir in the walnuts and pour the mixture into a 9x12 pan. Refrigerate until firm. Cut into small pieces and dust lightly with cornstarch. I don't refrigerate them after this point.

Many times I've told myself that I must make fewer cookies at Christmas, but this year I realized that it's one of my favorite things to do. I have so much fun thinking of the collage of different flavors and forms of the little sweets that I don't even feel the need to eat them. It was long after Christmas Day that I even tried one of the new Peppermint Cream Cheese cookies I made this year.

But now by what is the Seventh Day of Christmas, as I finish up this post, and also New Year's Eve, I've expanded the festive feelings by eating lots of cookies, too! They all taste as good as they look, or better. The last red plateful will go out of here this evening -- I wish I could bring one to your house when I say Happy New Year!

 

What animal is hiding here?

 

Just one of many beautiful photographs from an article featuring the work of Art Wolfe. I could not see many of the animals until I read the caption telling me what to look for.

It's still Christmas in San Francisco.

At Union Square

On the way to the airport to send Kate and her boyfriend back to Washington DC yesterday, we drove around San Francisco and saw that people are still enjoying a Christmas spirit. It made me very happy, because I'm certainly not ready to take down my lights or stop eating cookies.

Present Site of Former Sutro Baths

While daylight still shined we drove to Ocean Beach where just to the north you can see the site of the Sutro Baths that were built in the 1890's and burned down in 1966, late enough that I might have had the chance to swim in them had my grandmother taken me across the bridge from Berkeley where I visited her.




 
Six of the seven indoor pools of varying temperatures contained sea water that during high tide flowed directly in from the ocean, and even at low tide pumps recycled all the salt water within five hours.

The famous Cliff House is still nearby and can be seen in the background of this postcard. That picture shows its Victorian shape, one of many different forms it has been built into over more than a century. If you click here you can see a slide show of its architectural history.

Evidently the operating costs of the baths were too high to keep them going, and they had been closed not long before a fire destroyed the building. I wonder what it was like to swim there -- certainly more pleasant than the frigid water outside, where a wetsuit is needed nowadays. When you see photos of people of the past on the beach they are always in multiple layers of long skirts or pants with hats.

Market Street from Twin Peaks summit

After our group ate dinner we still had some light left, and we drove up the Twin Peaks where the views are wonderful. The moon was just coming up at that point, but we stayed long enough to get this picture including the bright stripe of Market Street.


Then it was a quick drive over to Union Square and the parking garage that is directly underneath. Here I basked under the lights of tall storefronts and the Christmas tree in the middle of the square, and even palm trees with strings of lights.

Street musicians played at various spots around the square. This duo was surprisingly good for their limited equipment, and the drummer even did a fire-drumming-and-eating trick after dousing his sticks with lighter fluid.

An ice rink is set up during the winter months and it was very popular this night, even though 90 minutes will cost you $10. It appears to me everyone is having a magical experience out there on the ice, wearing their scarves and hats and gliding around under the giant Christmas tree. But if I did it, my feet would get all my attention feeling like blocks of ice themselves.

It's good I got this extra boost of holiday cheer, because I don't want to miss any of the joy between now and Theophany (Epiphany or Three Kings Day to some of you), and also I have more Christmasy things to write about, and I've run out of time and space. More on cookies and grandchildren and such like soon to come.

More Merry Christmas to you all!

Union Square