Heather Holleman's Blog, page 109

Halfway Through a Month of Encouragement

Today I realized that most writers think they must write a book. You don’t have to write a book!  You might write any number of amazing pieces in your writing life. Write! Think about poetry, song lyrics, newsletters, magazine articles, opinion pieces for the newspaper, short stories, ethnography, devotions, how-to guides, advice columns, letters to the editor of your alumni magazine, film scripts, marketing for products you love, instruction manuals, a recipe book of treasured recipes with commentary, or a collection of the stories you’d love to pass on about your life. You could write a weekly email to your friends about what fascinates you like about bugs, hot air balloons, or maple syrup. Write to advocate for others. Write letters to your representatives in congress. Write top-ten lists. Write a wellness guide. Write a diary just for you. Write to God. Write sentences to hear the sound of them and collect lists of beautiful words like tranquil, birch, and effervesce. Write better definitions. Write a fresh résumé and mission statement. Write a review of a book or movie or album. Write tributes. Write toasts. Write a rant. Write satire. Write translations. Write jokes. Write.

 

Kitchen Terms that Might Change Your Life

One of my daughters and I spend the majority of our time cooking together. We’re always in the kitchen prepping complicated recipes or challenging ourselves with a new food project (like sushi!). We love to use the French terms for our cooking space. I’ll call out, “OK! Mise en place!”

Mise en place: It means “everything in place.” We love to have all our ingredients prepared and all our cooking utensils and pans out and ready. We keep everything so tidy and organized. The actual cooking or baking part seems like we’re on a cooking show where you just reach over and the little bowl of measured out chopped cilantro is right there. I’m learning to apply mise en place to everything–my writing area, my teaching, my chores. You spend half the time setting up the thing you’re going to do with everything you’ll need, and it makes the actual doing of it so fun and easy.

Sous chef: The second in command in the kitchen. This chef reports to the Executive Chef. In our kitchen, the sous chef is the one who makes the Executive Chef a success. This person hovers around, helps with anything and everything, and tidies up to make the Executive Chef free to create and become the artist of the kitchen. But you have to know who you are and what your role is. Before we begin a cooking day, we decide who is the Executive Chef and who is the Sous Chef. Sometimes it’s me. Sometimes it’s her. I’m learning that in life, I can serve in either role with joy. The Sous Chef makes others a success and can step in at any time to take over as needed. It’s fun to be that person sometimes.

Poor Air Quality Alert and What It Taught Me

Just now, I received an alert I’ve never received in my life before. It was a “Poor Air Quality” alert for our county. We’re supposed to limit our time outside. We’re supposed to understand that the air outside, for whatever reason, contains fine particulate matter that will aggravate people with respiratory problems. We are in a valley, after all. Perhaps construction vehicles or smoke from wood-burning fire places contributed to dangerous levels of inhalable pollutants. Who knows? I can’t see what’s in the air.

I think about invisible things that damage us—those unseen pollutants. What am I learning here? I think about limiting my exposure, finding places of fresh air, and listening to the wisdom of experts who see what I don’t see.

The spiritual life requires this kind of vigilance. We breathe in so much negativity, anger, and fear. We breathe in ideologies and impurities of all forms. I limit my exposure, I return to good fellowship and corporate prayer, of worship and rejoicing, and I listen to those who see what I cannot see on the path regarding temptation and danger of all forms.

I think about the alert systems of the human soul. I think of the Holy Spirit sounding that alarm–perhaps a whisper at first–that we’re in dangerous territory. Don’t breathe in this air. It isn’t for you. Move to new ground. 

The Wonder of Ordinary Things

Sometimes I just sit and marvel at profoundly ordinary things.

For example, I love maple syrup as a sweetener, and it suddenly occurred to me how marvelous it is. A tree weeps it out. God made trees that, when cut open, bleed out a sweet treat for us. How did God even think of this? I wonder about the planning process involved in heaven.

I read the words written by English chemist Robert Boyle in 1663: “There is in some parts of New England a kind of tree whose juice that weeps out its incision, if it is permitted slowly to exhale away the superfluous moisture, doth congeal into a sweet and saccharin substance. . . .”

I sip coffee with a splash of maple syrup in it, and I marvel.

 

Roasting the Cauliflower and Chickpeas

I found a great seasoning combination for roasted cauliflower and chickpeas. It’s part of a Forks Over Knives recipe called Cauliflower Shawarma Bowls, but I actually just love eating a bowl of the roasted things.

Mix in a big bowl the following:

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice2 Tbsp pure maple syrup4 minced garlic cloves1 1/2 tsp paprika1 tsp ground cumin1/2 tsp ground cinnamon1/2 tsp ground turmeric1/4 tsp ground coriander

Then, cut your cauliflower into florets. Drain and pat dry the chickpeas (also called garbanzo beans). Toss both the chickpeas and cauliflower florets in the bowl with the spiced mixture. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Place the coated chickpeas and cauliflower onto a baking sheet covered in parchment paper, and roast for 35 minutes or until the cauliflower is browned on the edges.

Feast! It’s a spicy, Indian flavored bowl of yumminess!

A Theology of Writing

I’ve loved encouraging writers this month on social media. Today, I remembered how God developed in me a “theology of writing.” Tomorrow, I’ll encourage writers to pause and reflect on writing itself. Here’s the sneak peek:

Tip: Pause and Reflect. Today we reflect on writing as a spiritual practice. This helps connect us more deeply with the beauty and wonder behind our writing projects. Here are my favorite ways to think about writing from the Bible:

Writers witness. God tells Isaiah, “Go now, write it on a scroll that it may become an everlasting witness” (Isaiah 30:8). I just love this command to go write. 
Writers tell the next generation . The psalmist declares: “We will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done (Psalm 74:8).
Writers encourage : Consider how Isaiah declares, “the Sovereign Lord has given me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary” (Isaiah 50:4).
Writers know the power of story ; they follow Jesus’s example of the power of story as He taught in parables.
Writers worship as they write; God Himself wrote through the hands of the biblical writers. Writers reflect God’s nature as they create and communicate through the gift of writing. 

I’m thankful for what seems like such a simple thing like writing that’s actually a deeply spiritual act.

Wherever You Go

This morning I wrote in my journal the words of the Lord to Jacob in Genesis 28: 14-15

“I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

I note how God is a God who is with us, who watches over us, and brings us to where we’re supposed to be. He doesn’t leave us. He fulfills His promises to us. But why? It’s because of Who He Is, not because of our goodness or skills or any kind of behavior.

I’m amazed at how sinful Jacob can be. He tricks his own father. He deceives his father-in-law. He’s not a perfect man at all. But the promise of God obviously doesn’t depend on his good behavior. I love the picture of grace I see in God’s words to Jacob–that extend to us today.

Very Near

Did you know that Psalm 46:1 says, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of need”? Maybe you’ve read that verse to say “an ever-present help” but the Hebrew translation is indeed “very.”

It means exceedingly present, more and more present, super-duper present! It means, most accurately, especially present.

God is especially present with you in times of need. After this verse, we read this powerful line: “Therefore we will not fear.”

Don’t you love it? We don’t have to fear anything because God is especially present when we need Him. He is very, very near.

What God Sets Up From the Beginning

I cannot help myself: I’m starting again with Every Word: A Reader’s 90 Day Guide to the Bible. I just love structuring my morning with this Bible reading plan.

When I start Genesis, I always wonder if there’s anything else to learn. I mean, I’ve read it a hundred times maybe. But today, I discover something so beautiful and powerful that I had never noticed before.

A few months ago, I heard a pastor ask if we knew the very first thing God declares as holy in the Bible. Was it creation? People? Himself?

No. The pastor said that it was “rest.” You can check for yourself in Genesis.

So this morning, I read for myself the astonishing statement in Genesis 2: “And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.”

It struck me: God doesn’t need to rest. Why would God declare resting from work holy? Why is it the very first thing, of prime importance, that we understanding this holy moment of resting from work?

Can you guess?

I remembered Hebrews 4:9-10, and my heart began to sing. We read: “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God;  for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his.”

The symbol. The signpost. The plan.

Was God setting up a plan of salvation from the very beginning? Was He forecasting how one day soon we would rest from our works-based righteousness and enter into the holiness of Jesus where we receive the gift of salvation through grace alone? Paul tells us, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works. . . ” 

God sets it up from the beginning. He declares the holiness of rest that we learn is the rest from earning our salvation, of working for God’s favor.

We rest. And it is a holy place.

When You Don’t Know What to Do: The Comfort of Psalm 25

I love Psalm 25. It pulls my heart! It’s such a perfect psalm for anyone reading who doesn’t know what to do next. David writes this:

“Show me your way, O Lord, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are my God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.”

He continues:

“Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways. He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way. . . Who, then, is the man that fears the Lord? He will instruct him in the way chosen for him . . . May integrity and uprightness protect me, because my hope is in you” 

I think of the phrase, “[God] will instruct [the person that fears the Lord] in the way chosen for him.” It’s so comforting!

When we pray for God to teach us His paths and instruct us in the way chosen for us, we know to look for and consider what form this instruction might take: wise counsel from other Christians, fresh opportunities, peace from the Holy Spirit about certain directions, alignment to scripture, and the desires God gives our hearts.

I wonder, too, if David worried that he might have made a bad decision along the way (like some many of us do!). What now? David says this powerful statement that I often pray when I feel like I’m in a situation that’s not God’s best for me: “My eyes are ever on the Lord, for only he will release my foot from the snare.”  

I ask what feels like a “snare.” I pray David’s prayer, and I rejoice that God will not fail to instruct us in the way He chose for us.