Greenblade - creation - faith - justice

On the Cusp

Our search for a new priest at Grace might be nearing its end. On Friday night, the candidate that the Search Committee selected (who we’ve been calling “Father/Mother McFadden-Chang” during Youth Group, in a humorous attempt to make it easier to talk about this anonymous-and-potentially-really-significant person) will visit Providence and be given a final once-over. On Friday night, we’ll share a meal with him/her;  “we” in this context means vestry members and their partners, so Jake-the-atheist will meet McFadden-Chang before most church goers do. Then, the Vestry and the Search Committee come together on Saturday morning , sit around, and try to make predictions. Will McFadden-Chang be right for Grace? Will Grace be right for McFadden-Chang? Does this person embody enough of our values? Is (s)he strong where we are weak? (Also, I’ll be wondering if (s)he liked the all-local vegetarian dish I’m preparing for the dinner, but I’ll do my best to not let that sway my judgment.) ... MORE

What does a cook look like?

Nothing major to report from Rhode Island this week. The farmer's market continues to sell mostly old root veggies, long-off-the-tree apples, and hydroponically-grown greens that I am more than willing to pay a fortune for. I am still not very good at praying before meals, but I am getting better at the after-meal prayer, the "Hey God, thanks for those things that I ate, and those people I ate them with, and for this day," which feels like a step in the right direction.

The one interesting, tangentially-Greenblade-related moment this week came last week over the lunch table. I was eating pasta with homemade marinara sauce, and homemade applesauce, and my coworkers were flabbergasted that I made these things, that I "really cooked." They could wrap their minds around me boiling the water for the pasta and opening the jar of sauce, but the idea of "really cooking," of making these things from scratch, surprised them. My coworkers couldn't ... MORE

Oh ravishing melon!

I am doing rather poorly at my Lenten practice to pray before I eat. I forget pretty much all the time.

In fact, I ate a bowl of sweet potatoes as I planned to write this blog and I forgot to pray before I ate them. This does not bode well for my overarching goal of adopting the saying of grace as an everyday practice.

Part of my prayer-problem, honestly, is that I have too much to be grateful for. When I do remember that I want to pray before I eat (or that I want to retroactively pray after I ate), I find myself thanking the farmer and the earth and the sky and the wind and the water and the organization that plans the farmer's market, and the electricity that powered the microwave and God... it's overwhelming to be that grateful and to eat one's lunch before it gets cold. So, I ... MORE