Monday, April 19, 2010

chicken wings and everett

The two are not connected in any way. Except the obvious fact that Everett's gonna love 'em like his daddy does. I made some home-made buffalo wings tonight and I thought they turned out great! Crystal's not too thrilled about chicken wings, so I had Stephen over, and we devoured them. Here are some pictures; and I can't help but throw in a few cool ones of my little man...



(there they are, fryin' up in the dutch oven)



(here they are, after the fryin', before the sauce)



(the finished product!)

And now, for some Everett:











In case anyone ever wants to make buffalo wings and thinks, as I did 'til tonight, that they're too hard and wouldn't taste anything like the restaurant...not so! Here's what you do:

Separate the joints of 4lbs of chicken wings, and discard the wing tips. Dredge each remaining piece in flour (seasoned with salt). Heat about four inches of oil or shortening in a dutch oven or deep pot to 400 degrees (about high to medium-high heat). Fry the wings in batches for about 12-14 minutes or until nice and crispy. While the chicken is frying, mix one 6 0z. bottle of Louisiana hot sauce with one stick of melted butter in a large bowl. Drain the wings and toss in bowl of buffalo sauce. Plate 'em, and eat up! Really easy, and tastes crispy and tender.

Friday, April 9, 2010

waiting room

Remember when the waiting room at the doctor's office had plastic magazine racks bolted to the wall and something to read for any kind of person? Now, the magazine rack has been replaced with a neat little sign alerting us that this is a "Wi-Fi Hot Spot!" The sound of pages flipping has been replaced with intermittant chimes from peoples' smart phones, letting them know their car insurance is due. (Wouldn't want to have to wait 'til I get home to know THAT!)

[DISTRACTING SIDE THOUGHT: in the future, I think babies will learn texting before they learn how to talk. Awww, Honey, Jimmy just sent his first text: "gaga. googoo. lol :-)" Isn't he so smart?]

In every public place, everywhere and every time people are sitting around waiting for something, it seems that more noses than not are buried in their phones. I don't know if this is a bad thing, a good thing, or just the same old thing people have always been doing, with a technological flare. Nobody knows what to do with themselves when they have to wait.

I am the chief of sinners.

I've never procrastinated. I'd love to claim this as a by-product of my superduper work ethic. But I think I just can't stand unfinished business. I'd be such a pissy ghost. I'm gonna be one of the busiest hospice patients anyone's ever seen.

I can tell, though, that life wants to strip me of that tendency. Lately, I have been so dogone tired that I have let things go to an appalling degree. I've looked at lists I've made of things to be done and just laughed. That won't be happening anytime soon. It goes against my own nature, but maybe my own nature is neurotic and unreasonable.

Between all the waiting I've done lately for things outside of my control, and just waiting for the energy and motivation within myself to do things, I should be a certified and centered monk. My mind should be a monastery. But I'm still a young man with a lot of nervous energy and intestinal turmoil.

This is clearly something that I won't be conquering today. In fact, I should probably wrap things up - my phone's telling me I've gotta pay my water bill.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

redemption

For years, I have been in a serious philosophical quandary about prayer. I have spent most of my life imagining God as someone who stands above us, sifting through emails and phone calls, deciding which prayers to answer and which to ignore for some unknown reason. What happens when two people are praying opposing prayers? I'm reminded of a verse in the Tom Wait's song The Day After Tomorrow. The song is written from the perspective of an American soldier fighting in a war, and feeling disillusioned:

"You can't deny, the other side don't wanna die anymore than we do.
what I'm trying to say is, don't they pray to the same God that we do?
tell me, who does God choose.
whose prayers does he refuse..."

As a kid, growing up watching the Cardinals play, I would get so wrapped up in the game that I'd be begging God to help them win. I never thought about the prayers of the Astros fans.

The most interesting thing about the view of prayer I adopted for most of my life is my own reaction to what I perceived as God's anwser, his action or lack there of. When I felt that God answered my prayers, I would thank him. When I felt that he didn't, I had to find some way of rationalizing it. Isn't it such an ingrained way of thinking f0r so many of us? When good things happen, we thank God - all blessings come from God. But when bad things happened, we don't blame him (or we know we shouldn't) - after all, they don't come from him, do they?

How is it that all good things that happen were caused by God, and all bad things were simply not stopped by God?

How is it that God helped deliver my babies safely into the world, gave us money to live, kept me safe every day at a dangerous job, helped me do well on a test, helped my baseball team win, but let 200,000 people die in an earthquake, let a friend die a slow and painful death to cancer, let millions of people starve, oppressed by the wealthy and powerful? I work on an ambulance. I've seen selfish, bitter, and abusive people live to a ripe old age, continuing to abuse their family and destroy lives. And I've seen thirty-year-old men drop dead without a moment's notice in front of their families that loved them. Why answer the trivial, and ignore the astronomical prayers?

Is it possible that God doesn't routinely alter the course of events, things that would or wouldn't have happened had someone not prayed. If God is eternal, and we are eternal, than God must be infinitely patient. Eternal, infinite significance doesn't lie in the events of life themselves, but in how they change us, who we become from them, what they teach us. I have to believe the concern of God, from his eternal perspective, would be our hearts, our nature, redeeming us to our true selves, his spirit empowering us to become who we were created to be.

That is why Easter has so much significance to so many people.

"God did not abolish the fact of evil. He transformed it. He did not stop the crucifixion. He rose from the dead." -Dorothy Sayers

Why would God need to make things happen or stop them from happening, when everything can be redeemed; everything can teach us and grow us; and we have eternity to learn? My prayers have changed. I wonder if prayer benefits the one praying more than the person or situation they are about. I pray for God's presence. I pray for peace. I pray for encouragement and strength. Pray these things for my children, my wife, all my family, all the world.

I pray for and believe in redemption.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

disturbing the peace

A puke-green streetlight just came on, and I'd like to accuse the buzzing transformer of disturbing the peace.

I really mean this when I say that I was VERY close to solving one of the world's greatest and most pressing problems. And now, I've been thrown back into the moment, where I'm sitting in the bed of my truck and supposing that I should fix my own problems first, then move on (time permitting). My thoughts aren't connected in the same linear way they used to be. Whether it's the sleep loss or just the atrophy of an undisciplined mind, I don't know. But I'm lucky if I think two things in a row that make any sense together. Tonight I'm going to embrace the chaos and let my free-radicals flow at near atomic levels and hope that no one around me gets cancer:

Peace is possible. The kingdom of heaven is a way of living, a way of seeing the world. With a mask over your eyes that blinds you to all the things in the world that could never hurt you but you fear anyway. A chemical in the air you breathe, ubiquitous oxytocin connecting everyone with Divine love. A knowledge of what and who you were created to be.

Children help you see that. They live very close to the kingdom of heaven.

But two children screaming and inconsolable at the same time is a Purgatory.

I wonder all the time why we think we have discovered a comprehensive view of God, based on the writings of only a few, and why modern theological writing cannot be viewed as Scripture. I think St. Paul would be mortified to know that a few embarrassing, angry emails shot off to a rebellious group of his followers would someday be Holy Scripture. I wonder why it took me so long to realize that when Paul said "all scripture is God-breathed" he obviously wasn't referring to his own writings but of the old scriptures, the ones that people were reading in his time. All positive communication is God-breathed, including many of St. Paul's writings, and many of our words and writings to each other.

Beauty is EVERYWHERE. Every moment is redeemable when you realize that. You are never stuck somewhere. I love the excerpt from William Blake's Auguries of Innocence:

"To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wildflower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour"

Finally, God is present.

I withdraw my accusation to the streetlight.