Hi again. It’s been a while, and well, you know, the reason is life. Life in a pandemic where there is remote school for a first grader and parents with full-time jobs. I’ve missed you. So I thought I’d write a little about something I read last week.
I recently opened a book my friend lent me nearly a year ago. (Leslie, if you’re reading, I will return this to you next time I see you. I promise.) It’s Barbara Brown Taylor’s An Altar in the World, and Leslie is not the first person to tell something along the lines of, “Oh you’d like this, she writes like you do about faith and practice.” This is the highest compliment, to be compared to Episcopal priest and writer Barbara Brown Taylor. But I think it’s more thanks to the fact that we have common membership in an institution that allows for great variety in the pursuit of life’s mysteries.
Her introduction to the book begins with an exploration of the meaning of “spiritual not religious,” a phrase I so often hear from friends and strangers alike when they realize that I’m one of those goes-to-church people. Brown Taylor knows just as so many of us goes-to-church people that the spiritual and religious two paths aren’t so divergent:
“Those who belong to communities of faith have acquired a certain patience with what is sometimes called organized religion. They have learned to forgive its shortcomings as they have learned to forgive themselves. They do not expect their institutions to stand in for God, and they are happy to use inherited maps for some of life’s journeys.”
I love those words, “a certain patience,” because we are not apologists for the wrongdoing our institutions have inflicted on people and places throughout history. But nor do we reject the practices and traditions that have held together the communities that have called the institutions home for thousands of years. To hold those together, the wrongdoings with the life-giving traditions, requires “a certain patience,” indeed.
I wonder if the real sticking point here is how the spiritual-not-religious view religious institutions. Ironically, I consider myself less dogmatic about my membership in the Episcopal Church than many of my atheist friends. I’m probably more agnostic about what I think about God than the friends who love me in spite of my Christianity.
Brown Taylor includes this quote from Gautama Buddha in the first pages of the book:
“Seek not to follow in the footsteps of men of old; rather, seek what they sought.”
Leave it to the Buddhists to say in a single sentence what has taken me paragraphs.
Table Talk
(I’ve decided to start including a short section in this newsletter to talk about food. I love food, to make it and to eat and especially to make and eat it with others.)
My son and I have been drooling over the idea of Parmesan and pesto dinner rolls cooked in a skillet, and I think we’ll make and devour them together this weekend.
When I sent him out for egg roll wrappers (for stuffing with pastrami, Swiss, and sauerkraut, obviously), my husband accidentally bought a package of wonton wrappers. Since then, I’ve had an urge to make dumplings of some sort, an endeavor that requires “a certain patience” of its own. So I paged an assortment of friends — we call ourselves Cookbook Club — and wondered aloud whether we should make dumplings together over Zoom in celebration of the Lunar New Year. At least three are in, so now I’m looking at this recipe for seafood dumplings and this one for “golden potstickers” I made years ago. Oh and this one for dumplings made with chile crisp, a condiment we are never without in my house.
Signals
(Where I share links to the things that stick out among the noise of the Internet)
My friend and part-time hermit, Heidi, has a wonderful newsletter. When she shared a draft of one with me, I told her it was like reading an email from a friend who always has the best advice. “Prayer and mindfulness are supposed to feel good, not feel like drudgery,” she writes.
I think a “certain patience” with yourself is probably a good way to cast that drudgery aside and “feel some freedom,” as Heidi invites. I hope you’ll have a read and subscribe.
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Last year, I heard this song for the first time on Ash Wednesday and was transfixed. I listen when I need to connect with my sorrow for the world. Its supposed history is fascinating.
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I’ve been enchanted with the Instagram account @stillherestilllife, where a prompt (a still life photograph) is shared and artists are invited to interpret it. It’s weird and beautiful and everything I love about art. This morning I was thinking about how much I love the unity amongst difference this art conveys. Here’s this week’s prompt:
And here’s a delightful interpretation:
Talk to Me
Tell me, what is the best dumpling you’ve ever eaten? Were you joyfully gathered with others or blessedly alone? Did you dunk those dumplings in a salty dipping sauce or drizzle them with chili oil? What were they filled with?
I want to hear all about it, whether you went on a trip to China and stuffed your face with tender pork-filled purses dunked in broth or fried up a freezer bag of gyoza from Trader Joe’s.
All dumpling stories are good dumpling stories.
I’m also curious about what you have developed “a certain patience” with. Is it your parish? Yoga? Yourself? What got you there? What keeps you there?