Peripheral Ponderings

“I have found such joy in simple things;
A plain, clean room, a nut-brown loaf of bread
A cup of milk, a kettle as it sings,
The shelter of a roof above my head . . .”

One of the silver linings of this time of isolation is that we have a chance to find out how wonderful the simple blessings of life can be, and truly how much we already possess in our lives.

Many people are taking the gift of extra time to enjoy baking.   When my daughters make their own bread, it seems a serendipitous revival of their heritage.  Their great-grandfather owned a bakery in a small town in Holland, and he delivered his bread to customers using a horse and wagon.  Tasty bread, if his slogan is translated correctly!

Once, years ago, when my Dad was observing as I plaited my small daughter’s hair, he commented that he knew how to do that.  When I looked at him skeptically, he assured me that indeed he had braided the dough for many loaves of bread!  A bakery meant  hard work, requiring the participation of the whole family, and it sustained them as they were growing up.

Recently,  I heard a fascinating TED talk by Peter Reinhart, master breadmaker, teacher, author, and theologian.  He has written books, including The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, and calls bread a “transformational food.”  All over the world, people are nourished by  various forms of bread.  Bread is “the staff of life.”

Reinhart points out that breadmaking is a process of death and resurrection, beginning with the death of the wheat when we harvest and crush its seeds to make flour.  Creator-like, we form a kind of clay, adding water.  Leaven is introduced as a new life, which in turns gives up its life in the baking.

To interpret his own craft, Reinhart turns to the ancient teaching  that there are different levels in a story:  the literal, the metaphorical, the ethical, and the mystical or poetical.  And we see that bread can be symbolic of much more.

Jesus offers himself as the  “Bread of Life.”  All things exist because of  Him, because of His sacrifice.  We truly live in this literal and mystical nourishment.  What appears simple, everyday, and ordinary is so much more.

We celebrate the sacrament of communion with the breaking of bread, but in a sense, all bread is sacred.  It is a gift from a providential God.

” . . . Oh, I have found such joys I wish I might
Tell every woman who goes seeking far
For some elusive, feverish delight,
That very close to home the great joys are:
The elemental things – old as the race,
Yet never, through the ages, commonplace.”

Selections from Grace Noll Crowell,  “I Have Found Such Joy”

Mary, did you know
That your baby boy
Would save our sons and daughters?
Did you know
That your baby boy
Has come to make you new?
This Child that you delivered
Will soon deliver you?
Buddy Greene, Mark Lowry

In the stone of this masterpiece, Michelangelo has so poignantly sculpted Mary’s sorrow that we are drawn into its depths.  In Jesus’ infancy, Mary had been told that a sword would pierce her own soul because of this child, and she must have viscerally shared his agony at his crucifixion.

Years ago, when my mother-in-law was deeply mourning the death of her 32-year-old son, she said “I hope you never have to do this.”   The sharp pain in the untimely loss of a child is recognized in cultures all over the world.   In Greek mythology, crops were imperiled when the grain goddess Demeter desperately searched for the daughter that had been snatched from her.

When the tragedy is so great, words can feel so inadequate a consolation.  Jesus had said that he would rise again, but to his despairing family and friends this seemed like mere talk. He had been betrayed, abandoned, had sustained mockery and savage brutality from his enemies.

In the hours of darkness, Mary stayed there, witness to her son’s pain.   In love, Jesus entrusted her to John, his beloved disciple, before He declared his work finished, committing his spirit to his Father.  And then there was the silence, the burial.

Labour pains are sharp pains, but in the joy of new life, these are forgotten.  Mary had to have been profoundly changed by what happens next, this incomprehensible mystery:  three days later, Jesus rises from death into glorious life.

As a seed falls to the ground, sacrifices itself so that there can be a much greater increase, so Jesus’ courageous decision to live and die in humility and complete humanity makes possible our own delivery from death into life.  Way has been opened for her, for us, for our sons and daughters, for all who want to live in the presence of God.

                    Alleluia, Christ is risen.
                    He is risen indeed!

 

Last year we were given a great gift, a brief moment in time in which we could have the opportunity to connect with my aunt, Mies Simmelink, (pictured with daughter Nelly), and her family.  My cousins and I could bring the matriarchs of our family together at the nursing home cafe, and we could enjoy each other’s company.  My aunt was 101 years old.

I remember childhood dinners with ten kids along with the adults at her table.  I remember (and still have) the dress she sewed for my youngest sister Linda, and my sister Wilma still remembers the kindness my aunt showed to her in a time of trauma.

I find myself missing the presence of the senior citizens of my community in this time of COVID-19 isolation.  They have had rich and full lives and survived many hardships, emerging spunky and resilient.   They have accrued wisdom.  They are my landmarks.

In a recent TED talk by Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, an African climate activist, she talks of a time when she brought scientists to her community.   When people began to pack up their goods, saying that it was going to rain, the scientists were confused.  Though the sky was cloudless, in a short while it began to pour.  The scientists were left scrambling to protect their belongings, but the elders of the tribal people knew to observe insect behaviour and take heed.   She points out that technology is perhaps a hundred years old, and modern science several hundreds of years old, but that indigenous wisdom is from thousands of years.

We have much to learn from our seniors’ years of experience, and we are the ones who have much to lose when we dismiss them as irrelevant.    There is so much potential for wisdom, and for joy in the interaction between generations.

In the last years of their lives, our elders can become focal points, drawing others to them.   They are the centres that hold together elaborate networks of community.  We are truly blessed by them.

 

While we have been hearing about the COVID19 virus for weeks, it has certainly been affecting our lives dramatically in the last few days.  We grieve with those who are suffering from this virus and their families.  More than ever we see that we are all connected.  In the words of poet John Donne:

       “Each man’s death diminishes me
        For I am involved in mankind
        Therefore, send not to know
        For whom the bell tolls
        It tolls for thee.”|

For the majority of us, at least for now, this virus mostly means social isolation and distancing.  In a season of Lent, it means not being able to worship with other people.  It is not being able to visit those who live alone.  It is no sports on television, and difficulty for businesses whose wary customers have avoided them.  It is hardship for others who have been laid off.  But it also means that you see who the real heroes are, the truckers and warehouse staff who have put in the hours needed to keep the grocery stores supplied in the face of panic, the neighbours checking up on each other.  It means the silver lining of lower air pollution, and an opportunity to ask about whether our industrialized, entitled lifestyle was really so necessary.

It means keeping ourselves occupied when self-quarantining and for some, that is proving quite a challenge.   Online resources have proven to be a boon for virtual community and information.  There’s time for reading books and listening to music.  We can connect with our tribe, people we sometimes have taken for granted.  The nature we’ve neglected beckons as spring has begun.   Out of long-term storage, we unearth half-done craft projects, and give them another try.

So I’ve gotten to work on making a quilt out of my leftover material stash and an old quilt pattern, something I’ve been meaning to do for quite a while.  Quilting has always been, for me, a way of incorporating the circumstances of your life, though they be only scraps, into something beautiful.  Quilts evoke memories and emotions, as you come across material from old children’s clothing. as you think of the people who worked with you in quilt class.  They remind you of the circumstances in which they were created.

We don’t yet know what will happen in the next little while.  The world has seen plague before, and sometimes creativity finds whole new ways of expressing itself.  Boccaccio’s The Decameron was written around the time of the Black plague, 1348 AD.  It’s a collection of 100 tales by 10 people who have secluded themselves away in a villa outside Florence, Italy.  Hundreds of years later it was part of my Italian Literature class curriculum.

We also don’t know how this will change the world going forward.  But, just as I include both dark and light in piecing a quilt, we can trust that God, the great Designer, will graciously waste nothing in our lives.