Jerusalem Jackson Greer's Blog, page 9
November 23, 2016
On Thanksgiving
Be patient with yourselves, my friends.
This is my Thanksgiving wish for you.
That you will be patient with yourself.
That you will not expect perfection from yourself, or your pie, our your family.
That you will not put all your hopes for things to be different into this one meal.
But that instead, you will dole out huge helpings of grace and mercy. Patience and laughter. Love and kindness.
To yourself and to those around your table.
This pictures are from last year. They are from Thanksgiving 2015.
Why am I just now posting them?
Well, because last year I did not dole out enough grace for myself.
Last year I thought these images were not “blog worthy.”
I thought my table was too messy. The tepees too unfinished. The lighting too… who knows.
Whatever my reasons, I didn’t post these pictures. It was silly and vain and filled with self-distrust and stemming from exhaustion and unrealistic expectations.
And then this past week, when I went to look for Thanksgiving 2015 in my blog archives, and remembered I had never posted these images, I realized my mistake. My brain fart.
You see, I had forgotten.
I had forgotten to be kind to myself. To serve myself a humongous portion of grace and patience.
And the outcome was almost tragic.
For me.
This blog is not always where I do my best work, but it is where I record my life.
It is still, after ten years, what blogs were in part started to be, a scrapbook of a life – specifically my life.
So I dug out these images, worked over the lighting in Pic Monkey, and uploaded them , over-kill tablescape and all.
Because I don’t want to ever forget how much fun it was to pick all the twigs and leaves and grasses from our farmstead for the very first time.
How giddy I was to walk out my back door and onto our land which was full of berries and branches and vines!
And so yes, maybe I used them ALL. And maybe no one knew what to do with the decorative grasses at their place settings, but boy howdy did I have fun laying it all out.
And I want to remember that we had four generations under my roof for the day, and especially what fun it was to have a toddler around again!
I want to always remember watching my nephew and my grandmother play together, my sister teaching him how to use the tepee.
And the food. Good gracious ALL the food. So much. So good. So much abundance.
Our first holiday in our new kitchen.
So many dreams coming true at long last, all at once.
Getting to host a family holiday at our Farm of Dreams after a decade of wishing and pining and giving up and wishing again.
Here we were at last, with more pies than we could eat and a full table.
Why on earth should I care that I forgot to move the whip-cream can out of this shot? I shouldn’t!
And yet I almost let little things like this derail me from documenting this day.
Was it a perfect day? No, I suppose it wasn’t. Though I can’t tell you why now.
I don’t remember.
What I remember now, a year later, is that we gathered together and broke bread. We drank wine and ate pie and said prayers and the baby fell asleep in his daddy’s arms.
What I remember now, looking at the pictures, is that it was one of my favorite Thanksgivings.
Busy table and all.
So be patient with yourselves my friends.
There might be a lot of chances to get caught up in the details. In the politics and the recipes and the tablescapes.
But there will also be a lot of opportunities to serve up grace, to heap an extra portion of “whatever works” to someone who is worried about failing you. There will be a hundred tiny chances to be patient with yourself, with where you find yourself.
I pray you will embrace them all.
Happy Thanksgiving friends.
I am so thankful for YOU.
Filed under: Blog, Family, Feast Tagged: featured
November 2, 2016
The Love Language of Tree Stumps
I had just laid down for a nap when I got this voice text from Nathan:
“You should come look again.”
Now, usually I would ten shades of irritated for being called outside right as I was lying down for a nap. But not this day. This day I happily jumped up, stepped into my muckin boots, and headed towards the back west corner of our property.=, Where I found that Nathan (aka Sweet Man) and Wylie standing with pride over portions of a fallen tree that they had just began cutting up.
“What do you think?” Nathan asked. “Will these make good Advent Wreaths? Want me to set a portion aside for that?”
“Yes!” I squealed, doing my happy dance around the logs, checking out the quality of each section that had been cut. As I inspected the wood, I realized there was much more of it than we would could use for this years Advent Event. “Do you think we could make some into sitting stumps for a fire pit area?”
“Sure!’ was my sweet husbands reply, which of course resulted in more happy dancing from me.
There are now five generous pine tree sections rolled up near the house, all awaiting their new employment as sitting stumps and thinking stumps and Advent Wreaths and whatever else I can tease out of them.
Y’all, I love my husband. He knows me. He gets me like no one else does.
But I have to confess that there have been seasons when I have forgotten what a gift this is. Seasons when I have lamented what he isn’t instead of who he is.
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I always thought I would marry someone in the ministry. Maybe not a preacher, but definitely a worship leader or a youth minister. Strangely, this was not a conscious thought, but an assumption, one that resided buried deep, right underneath the assumptions that there would always be air to breathe and water to drink.
It wasn’t until Nathan and I were good and married that I realized that this was not to be. My young and handsome husband had many interest and talents, but ministry was not one of them. Despite growing up a preachers kid, he felt no call of his own – something I couldn’t quite wrap my brain around. In fact this was the first thread that was tugged out of a carefully woven story I had knitted together over the course of my twenty – three years. Growing up in an extended family full of preachers and worship leaders, loving church life as much as I did, I had an unconscious expectation that everyone in my family, and in families like mine, would naturally want to work in ministry in some form, why wouldn’t they? Isn’t it the most fun?
It wasn’t until one of my younger sisters pointed this out to me that I even realized it was something I believed.
Standing there in our mother’s kitchen during a visit, my younger sister Jemimah curiously lobbed the words “You think we will all end up in ministry or church leadership don’t you?” The question took me aback, because the answer seemed obvious to me – of course we would all end up in church work, if not as employees, at least as strong lay leaders. It’s what people did. At least it was what our people did. It had never even occurred to me that life would be any other way.
But Jemimah’s question that day stuck with me. Could it be, that perhaps not everyone that I loved – or in the world for that matter – felt the same pull towards the church and ministry that I did? And could it be that this was legit? That it was an okay way to live, to not be in formal ministry? What a radical thought.
–Okay, so in retrospect I know this should have been an obvious thing. I should have known logically by the age of 23 that we would not all end up in ministry, but I didn’t. I really didn’t. You see, I had always chalked my interest in ministry as biological. It was part of my DNA, part of the family culture, just part of who we ALL were. But that day a tiny little spark of light grew a little bigger. What if my interest, my LOVE for church work and the work of the church, wasn’t all biology? What if it was a call? Could that be? Could all my passion and questions and delight and frustrations and dedication and hope for Christ’s church – in all it’s forms – be more than just a family hobby? Could it be a real call, unique to me, to a life of ministry? Of preaching, and writing, and pastoring, and serving and worshiping and leading in all these things? What if it was me who was supposed to be the minister, not Nathan?
It should come as no surprise, the way God works and all, that Nathan, the one I had assumed, somewhere below the layers of logic and evidence, would go into the ministry in some form, who would be the one to bring my call into the light. Who would use the word CALL to describe my passion, to explain the magnetic attraction between myself and all things ministry related. Who would continuously push me and support me, challenge me and cheer for me as I began to slowly step into this idea.
The idea that I was the minister, not him.
You see, I always thought I would marry a minister, but instead I became one.
Growing up in a patriarchal religious system I had initially looked to my husband to fulfill the call that I was feeling. I had assumed that he would be the one to lead, and I would be the one to help. But the Spirit moves in mysterious ways, and God has different plans than ours. And it was my sweet husband who would quote 1 Timothy 3:1 over and over to me in times of doubt and timidity. It was he who never doubted my calling, never doubted my gifts, who was and is and will always be, my greatest cheerleader and my greatest bullshit meter (no one can smell a puffed-up ego-driven self-serving preacher like Nathan Greer can.) There is no one (with perhaps the exception of my father) who is prouder of me and no one who pushes me harder to keep growing as a minister and a leader, who believes that I have been called to a good work. And simultaneously there is no one who feels less called to formal ministry than Nathan.
Which brings me back to the tree stumps.
Once upon I thought that Nathan would be the minster and I would be his helper in ministry.
And then I became a minister and I thought that Nathan would be my helper in ministry.
But that idea died a quick death. A death that included more than a few tears on my part as I looked at other ministry-couple peers. Couples that seemed to love working in ministry together. Couples that shared similar passions and call to official roles in church work.
I wanted what they had. That singleness of vision and forward motion. That shared work.
But no matter how much I pushed that was not to be our dynamic. And so I grieved. I grieved (and still from time to time observe a moment of silence for) that dream, that picture in my head of how it was supposed to be, and instead I begin the process of opening my hands to what was to be instead. I began to look with an open heart for what would rise from the ashes of that burnt-up and false expectation.
And often what I find is a text message that says “come outside and see what you think now…”
What has begun to rise from the ashes of my assumptions is something beautiful, something sustainable, something equitable, something that is us.
What has begun to take shape is an understanding that while neither of us are helpers in each other’s vocations, we are each other’s greatest helpers in life.
So no, Nathan doesn’t lead worship at church, and he doesn’t help with youth lock-in’s, or go to committee meetings with me.
But he does proof my sermons for grammatical errors (always so many,) and he puts back a plate of dinner for on the nights I have late committee meetings or adult ballet. He cheers for me when my career has a big day and he plants me huge pumpkin patches, and he saves the logs of fallen trees from the burn pile so that we can turn them into thinking stumps and Advent wreaths.
Filed under: Blog, Faith, Family Tagged: featured
October 18, 2016
5 Books for Celebrating the Church Year at Home
One of the questions I get asked a lot is if I could please recommend resources for those who are new to celebrating the Liturgical Calendar/Church Year at home, which is something you would think I would be prepared to do. But all too often I clam up – I forget names, titles, authors, my birthday, whether or not I brushed my teeth this morning… In other words, I should never be on a game show. “On the spot” is so not my thing. But making a quick blog post with links and pictures is my thing, so here it is – 5 books for learning about and celebrating the Church Year at home:
I love, love, love, the series that this book comes out of – it is a quick, easy, and HELPFUL read for anyone who wants to learn the very basic rhythm and reasons of the liturgical calendar.
While this book is written for new Episcopalians anyone can read and learn from it, especially those who are completely new to the Church Year idea. This book will give you a good handle on where this practice comes from, how to decipher the terms, and some ideas on how it is observed in churches and homes.
To Dance With God
This book is perhaps the most in-depth one of the bunch. To Dance with God is packed with meaning, history, and wisdom, often waxing poetic (in a good way) as to why celebrating the Liturgical Calendar matters, as well as being filled with plenty of how-to ideas, readings, and projects. If you want to go deep into the Church Year, this is the book for you.
Let Us Keep the Feast
This is a slightly more down-to-earth version of To Dance with God – i.e. not quite so poetic, but still packed with great info. My favorite parts of Let Us Keep the Feast are the “Around the World” portions of each chapter, which share how the Church Year is celebrated all over the globe (something I love to incorporate into our home traditions) and the scriptures for memorization references for each feast and celebration. While you might not sit down and read this one straight through, it would be a great resources to consult before each season.
A Homemade Year
(okay, so this is my book, it’s true. But still, it firmly falls into this category. )
A Homemade Year is part faith memoir, part liturgical craft/recipe/party book, written from the perspective of someone who (up to that point) was completely new to all things Liturgical but who wanted to find cute, modern ways to celebrate them at home. Out of all of these books, AHY is still the only one (and of it’s kind that I know of) that is in full color, with lots of images of the recipes and projects and parties within it’s pages, something I am particularly proud of and something I had to fight for. When I set out to write this book, my goal was for it to be a sort of Martha Stewart- meets-Anne Lamott-meets-Phyllis Tickle kind of book, and I think we got pretty close, considering I am not nearly as cool as any of those ladies. While not as in-depth as or specific as the previous two, AHY is still a great resource for parents who want to celebrate the Church Year at home creatively.
Passing it On
This book by Kara Oliver is an easy to use guide to creating faith practices oriented around the Church Year. Each chapter features a Weekly Gathering Plan, Prayer and Practice Prompts, and other visual cues. If you are looking for somewhere to start with little to no prep this is a great resource.
While there are many other great “faith at home” books (I see another post coming soon…,) these are my favorites that are Church Year specific. Books that can help you learn about the history, meaning, and value of the Liturgical Calendar, while also inspiring you to began celebrating the Story of God at home at your own pace, with your own talents.
Are there any books that you think should be on this list? Leave a comment so I can check them out!
Filed under: Blog, Faith Tagged: featured
October 4, 2016
The Sacred Practice of Being Oneself – Owning My Style
I will offer You my grateful heart, for I am Your unique creation, filled with wonder and awe.
You have approached even the smallest details with excellence;
Your works are wonderful;
I carry this knowledge deep within my soul.
Psalm 139:14 The Voice (VOICE)
I have never doubted that I was loved. By God, by my parents, by my husband, my children, my friends.
But I have always doubted that I am wonderfully made.
That it is some sort of weird fluke that I love theology and glitter, decorating and liturgy, a yard of chickens and a house of worship, a dinner table jammed pack and a solitary retreat.
I have believed the lies that say that my love of pink diminishes my validity as a serious thinking person. That the intensity of my love for family and gatherings is a sign of an unrealistic Pollyanna-esque outlook. That posting pretty Instagram pictures means I am being fake.
But lately God has been arresting me in these man-made lies, reminding them that none of these things have come from him.
That instead, the truth is that I am a unique creation, filled with wonder and awe (which feels really strange and braggy and embarrassing to say out-loud.) That even though I am not perfect, that even thought I am still growing and learning, a completely work-in-progress, that I am still wonderfully made.
This is something I have NO problem believing for you – I absolutely believe that you are a unique creation, filled with wonder and awe. I would sing that from the roof tops and make you a glittered bunting to hang over your doorway so you could be reminded each and every day if I could. I believe it so deeply in my bones that you and everyone on this planet is “fearfully and wonderfully made.” And yet. And yet this is something I have never embraced for myself.
Why do I have a hard time believing that I am wonderfully made? Oh, so many reasons. Reasons both deep and shallow. Reasons that come from childhood interactions and reasons that come from societal norms and reasons that come from the institutions I have been a part of and reasons that I cannot trace to any specific genesis, but are still very much present and real. Reasons that have to do with body image and what it means to be feminine in our culture and reasons about how success and intelligence are measured and celebrated, reasons that have to do with the glorification of cynicism and the mockery of earnestness. So many reasons. Based on the popularity of the I am Enough movement, I am guessing you have some of these same reasons – and could probably add your own. I believe the Enough movement is born out of this same struggle – the struggle to make peace with who we are instead of who the world or our families or our churches or our workplaces say we should be. The desire we all have deep inside to own how we are created.
So here is my first step. Over the next month – or longer if life interrupts – I want to take a little time in this space to stop apologizing for how I am made, and instead to begin the sacred practice of celebrating my uniquely created self. I want to learn how to receive, with a grateful heart, the deep soul knowledge that I am who I am for a reason, and that the reason is good, not a flawed fluke of misappropriated interest and talents.
And I will begin with the Sacred Practice of Owning My Style.
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All too often we separate our lives into categories – sacred and secular, important and trivial, – forgetting that the lines are only drawn by our attitudes, the lens through which we look. We are the deciders – the ones who get to choose whether we treat something or someone as sacred, worthy of care, worthy of bringing into the light, worthy of celebration and honor. We are the ones who put things and people into boxes and categories – hiding things we are ashamed of in dark closets and under old beds, dismissing whole parts of our lives or hearts as irrelevant because of our insecurities, the fear of being mocked or proven wrong causing us to sweep whole bits of our truest selves off to the side, where they won’t draw attention or get in the way of who we are supposed to be, who the world tells us we should be.
Which is just plain dumb and a lousy way to live this one beautiful life.
But still a lot of us – myself included – have fallen prey to this way of thinking. We have all fallen short of recognizing the glory of God in how we are created, and in the marvelous created world around us.
I turned 42 last month.
42. Decidedly not young, but not that old. Hopefully firmly in the middle, maybe even a little less than middle-life.
A lot of people told me that I would love my 40’s. I have not found that to be true. Yet.
Instead, I feel as if I have landed in a second adolescents. A second shedding of identity, a second reckoning of who I am and who I want to be.
There was a lot of navel gazing this summer. I road a roller coaster of emotions, the highs – glorious mountain tops and the lows bottom of the pit low. I spent most of August in a fog of depression (something I have been experiencing from time to time since my twenties.)
I am pretty sure some of this navel gazing has to do with age, and some of it has to do with stage of life and some of it is situational.
I am a slow processor. I need a lot of quiet and a lot of time to sort through how I feel and think about things. I need time to sit on the couch and stare out the window. Time alone to float in the pool, wander in the garden, stroll through the flea market, paddle across the pond. This aloneness is how I pray and I how I work to unpack and sort through all the whirling thoughts I cram in my heart and brain while I am busy handling the daily demands of my life.
The past 4 years have been incredibly jam-packed with change, and losing two grandparents within two weeks time this summer, pretty much broke the dam of Things I Could Handle Well.
And so now, on the other side of summer, with the everyone back in their routines and the temperatures cooling down (something that is crucial to clear thinking,) I am beginning the long tedious work of sorting through all the emotional boxes I packed up while I was Handling All the Things.
We have been in this house now for two years. I know the lay of the land and the rhythm of the seasons here. I am no longer the new kid at work and the boys (who are almost grown) are no longer the new kids at school, Sweet Man has his tractor, we have planted and harvested and put up an entire garden, there are chickens clucking in my backyard, all my siblings are married off, my second book is in the hands of my editor…
Things on the outside of my life are fairly settled for the first time in a long while. Which means that things on the inside are now taking their turn at causing mischief.
And so the shedding. The navel gazing. The roller coaster. The declarations. The opinions. The owning. The identity.
Which brings us here, to the title of this post – to a declaration and an owning of identity.
I have decided to observe the sacred practice of owning my style.
In the Christian tradition Sacraments are defined as “the outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that grace.”
Some faith traditions celebrate and recognize only two outward and visible acts as sacraments (baptism, communion) and some faith traditions celebrate more (confirmation, ordination, confession, marriage and so forth).
Ultimately, no matter what faith stream you are in, or which sacraments your church observes or doesn’t observe, what makes something a sacrament or not, is intentionality.
The intentional decision to say to oneself and the world “this physical and public act of ______ represents the inward and spiritual grace of ________ given to me by Christ, and this act of ________ is also a way that I receive that grace into my life.”
This intentionality is how we live can live sacred, sacramental lives. It is what can turn a dinner party into Eucharist, an evening swim into a baptism, a walk with a friend into healing confession, and a weekday nap into Sabbath rest.
Yes, there are official sacraments of the Church, but our lives are filled with simple, sacred moments everyday that remind us of those official sacraments and vice versa. Our everyday moments and practices can become sacramental if we approach them with intentionality, with an awareness of the graces they are pointing to.
For me, one of the sacred acts I have begun to celebrate and receive from is in owning my style.
This sacred act is one I am practicing in order to live out what I would tell any of you with complete conviction – that we really are all fearfully and wonderfully and amazingly made.
I want to carry this knowledge deep in my soul. I want to believe it down to my tippy toes for myself, as strongly as I believe it for you.
We are all made in the image of God. All our creativity and love and generosity and questions and knowledge and hope and wisdom and whimsy and compassion and righteous indignation and mercy and passion and hospitality and all the things that make us ourselves – these are not mistakes, or weakness, or flaws. These are gifts. These are not things we need to apologize for or hide.
Maybe you have no problem remembering that you are wonderfully made and hallelujah for that! But I am relatively new at it, and so I need some practices to help me remember, to help me live it out.
Which brings me to my house.
For as long as I can remember I have had my own sense of style – both in terms of fashion and in decorating.
My fashion sense gets lost from time to time due to life and weight and mood and budget, but I have been decorating my space with great purpose since the age of ten.
And for a long while it was good – I did what I liked, I decorated how I wanted to decorate, I didn’t really fret about what other people thought or what was trendy or current. I fell in love with vintage, with shabby chic style, with Mary Englebriet, with Country Living. I followed my bliss.
And my bliss, as it happened, was something other people liked as well. Magazines came and photographed my house, people walked in our front door and said “ohhhhh” and “ahhhhh”””. Even P Dub got in on the action on Instgram by “liking” my kitchen and leaving comments.
It was lovely. And easy.
And then I fell head over heels in love with Joanna Gaines just about the time we moved to a mid-century farmhouse, a house that was pretty much a blank slate.
And all of a sudden I was paralyzed. So many choices and a very specific budget and all the stress of completely turning our life upside down meant that I no longer knew my own mind or style. I know longer trusted myself.
So I tried to go the white-on-gray-on-white farmhouse route. But just couldn’t hang.
I need color. Desperately.
And so, despite the gray walls and white floors, I began to let the color creep back in. And I loved it. It made me giddy. I did happy dances as I arranged my colorful books and vintage globe collection.
But it wasn’t exactly Jo-style.
But whatever. I loved it. And yet… the doubt, well it had begun to creep in.
Then I got a couple of emails from magazines wondering when this house would be ready for pics.
And my anxiety shot through the roof.
You see, we have no baseboards.
The bathrooms are still stuck in the 70’s.
There is fluorescent lighting EVERYWHERE.
Our vent-a-hood is sitting on the floor.
The closet doors are all a hideous brown.
My living room curtains are drop-cloths and tea towels, and one is shorter than the other.
And frankly we have boys and a farmstead – don’t even think of eating off my floors.
And besides all that, what style is our house even in? Which magazine would it be a good fit for?
Is it farmhouse? Is it one room school-house? Is industrial country? Is it shabby chic? It isn’t much Joanna Gaines anymore.
There are vintage toys everywhere, buntings and banners hanging in every room, every room looks as if a box of crayons was spilled…
And then I got an email from one of those join-our-list-and-get-great-deals home furnishing sites, with the subject line: Vintage State Fair
Now, I rarely open these emails because I rarely have the funds to shop these sites – even at that discounted prices. But I have a soft spot for County and State Fair’s, and well you throw the word vintage in there, and boom! You have hooked me.
When I clicked on that link I suddenly realized that Vintage State Fair is pretty much the best description of exactly where my style is these days.
And just that little bit of knowledge, that tiny bit of definition unleashed freedom in me, a freedom I hadn’t felt in a long time.
Suddenly I knew that while I love Joanna Gaines style, it is her style and not mine. Same goes for Junk Gypsy’s and Rachel Ashwell and all my favorite Instagram and Blog designers. I love being inspired by their style, but I cannot emulate their style. I also cannot – will not – fret about whether or not my house is magazine worthy or current or trendy or whether or not my friends will like it. That’s just dumb and egotistical and the exact opposite of sacramental living.
Instead, I am going to own my style with wild abandon. I am going to continue creating a home that points me towards joy and hope. A home that is filled with all things cheerful, colorful, and comfy. A home where people can put their feet on the coffee table, pick on a guitar, read books sprawled over a comfy couch, play with vintage toys, and make pancakes on a whim.
A home that is in its totality is an outward and visible sign of the inward spiritual graces that are JOY and COMFORT and WELCOMING.
Graces that are both celebrated and received in this house.
Graces that Christ offers us in abundance, but that the world can make it hard to access.
When you come through our front door you may notice all the unfinished places of projects still in process, the hodgepodge thrift-store furniture that I love, and ALL the color, maybe you will like those things, maybe not. And that is okay – those things are for me, they are the things that bring me JOY.
But I also hope that when you visit Preservation Acres, you will experience COMFORT and WELCOMING…
I hope you will find a table where you are invited to feast and pray.
A kitchen that is open to all – a place where you can help yourself to a cup of a coffee or a bowl of cereal anytime you want.
A kitchen with room for many to work together, creating nourishment and laughter, memories and dinner.
Spaces for dozing, reading, watching, and singing. A place where you can come and sit a while.
A home where nothing is too precious to touch or hold, to old or to torn to be loved, a place where beauty is found in the mess and the chaos.
A guest room for rest and restoration. A place to retreat and sleep and dream.
These are just a few of the outward and visible signs in my home that I hope will point our family and all who visit towards the inward spiritual graces of joy, comfort and welcoming. Graces that we can all use daily. Graces we sometimes forget to look for and receive.
They are also the outward and visible signs of the inward spiritual grace that I am uniquely and wonderfully made. Approaching the decoration of my house from my personal combination of ascetic and sacramental leanings is how I am wired. Collecting vintage toys that bring me joy AND are fun for our littlest visitors, looking for just the right set of guest room bed linens that my guest will enjoy AND are cute, seeing my kitchen as a place to nurture relationships AND nourish bellies, – these are my callings. They may not be yours. And that is OKAY.
Not all our homes have to be Joanna Gaines or Jerusalem Greer style. They don’t even all have to have any real intentional style at all. It’s your home – do with it what you want. Celebrate your unique created self your way. Own your style – or lack there of!
For me learning to trust that I am fearfully and wonderfully made means that I must stop apologizing internally and externally for what I think makes me different. I must stop comparing my outsides to other’s outsides. I must stop worrying about whether or not caring about the color of my sofa makes me a less serious spiritual thinker. I must stop wondering if my love of preaching means I shouldn’t enjoy party throwing. Instead I must own who I am a gingham loving, party throwing, theology tinkering, glitter crafting, occasionally preaching, farmstead gal, filled with awe and wonder, filled with the soul-deep knowledge that she is loved as she was, loved as she is, and loved as she will be. Selah.
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Now, what wonderful part your created self do you need to own this week?
Filed under: Blog, Faith Tagged: featured, My Home, Preservation Acres
September 21, 2016
Introducing Preservation Peeps
At long last we have chickens! Again!
If had told me two years ago that it would take us this long to be ready for our first Preservation Acres flock I would have slapped you and wept for days.
Y’all setting up a farmstead at the age of forty while working full-time and raising teenagers is no quick matter. Rather it is the epitome of a “long obedience in the same direction.” It is doing a lot of not-fun things, things that involve a lot of sweat, money, and time, compromise and creative solutions, in exchange for some very basic rewards like food, and some delightful rewards like fields of flowers.
Preparing for our chickens was a little bit of it all.
A lot of compromise (a temporary house/run set up), a lot of sweat (mostly by Sweet Man), a fair amount of change (portable electric fencing isn’t free), and pure delight (chickens!!!) and here we are at last – our Preservation Peeps are here at last!
And they make me sooooo happy.
Like stupid goofy-grin happy.
Not like this, which is me when I discover there is no coffee in the house.
But like this, which is what I am like at Baptist church potluck.
I love hen hinnies. They are so fluffy!
The Dominique’s are by far the friendliest.
Vintage Nesting boxes. I had thought about putting these in our kitchen for storage, but the shelf size is a little limiting.
A lovely retired friend at church raised these for us. She was ordering some for herself and another friend. She over ordered to make sure she would have enough and we got the excess. Amazingly she didn’t lose a single chick! That is one great chicken grandma!
I think this is the one Miles has named Angel.
One of the Gilmore Girls ( we have three – Lorelia, Rory, and Sookie.)
Temporary digs until winter when we can clean out an overgrown shed (too many creepy crawlers and stingers in there right now) and convert it to a proper chicken palace.
Lucky the Rooster. So far he is a decent fellow, not mean or heartless. And his crow is such a fun thing to hear in the morning!
We have 10 hens and 1 roost.
Our flock is a mixture of Welsummers (beautiful dark brown feathers, chocolate-colored egg-layers), Dominiques (black and white,) and Ameraucanas (green and blue egg layers). No eggs yet, but soon!
So there you have it! Preservation Peeps are on the farmstead at last! A lovely bright spot in a rather rough summer!
Filed under: Blog, Farm Tagged: chickens, featured, Preservation Acres
September 10, 2016
Nathaniel Turns 40
Last weekend I threw Nathan (aka Sweet Man) a surprise 40th Birthday Shindig. And it was an amazing afternoon spent with some of our oldest and dearest friends, many of whom we had not seen in a decade.
Here is a round up of the day, along with some of my favorite things about it all:
Plaid Flannel.
Sap buckets of Zinnias.
Homegrown pumpkins.
BYOB (So. Much. B.)
BYOC (chair)
Getting the bands (Electric Church, Jody Evans the Silver Crickets, Monkhouse) ALL back together at last.
Dancing to Jody Evans playing his Strawberry Wine.
Xandra’s AMAZING homemade carrot cake.
Kids all over the yard.
Kids on the trampoline.
Grownups on the trampoline.
12 feet of sub sandwiches.
Industrial jar of pickle spears.
A case of juice boxes.
Candles and party lights when the sun went down.
Make new friends, but keep the old, some are silver and the other gold..
Chicken wrangling.
Pig chasing.
Sword fights.
Bike rides.
Camille’s cookies.
Laughter, laughter, laughter.
All the hugs. So many hugs.
Perfect weather.
The Gibson.
Family.
Cheese Dip.
A happy Nathan.
************************
Such a great day. One we will never forget.
(ps – thanks to Judea and Ellie for snapping pics for me!)
Filed under: Blog, Family, Fete Tagged: featured, Preservation Acres
August 18, 2016
Annual Back-2-School Retrospective
This year began on a rainy Monday, but thankfully everyone had handled it with sunny dispositions.
I am so proud of my boys – they have grown so much over the past year – both in height and in maturity. There have been bumps and growing pains, bad choices, and stubborn hearts, but there has also been bravery, honesty, tenderness, and love. Over the past year they have each risen to a multitude of challenges and I am so proud of them both.
Here is to a new year!
Now, Are you ready for the feelings?? The annual tear-jerker? Let’s do this.
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
11th and 7th Grade
It’s really nice to not be the new kids any more.
It is also really nice to be welcomed back home by Gus!
Hurrah for another school year!
Filed under: Blog, Family
August 3, 2016
Adventures in Preservation – Canning Pasta Sauce
Do you remember that scene in Anne of Green Gables when Matthew buys all that sugar because he is too embarrassed to buy Anne the dress with the puffed sleeves?
Do you remember when Marilla is dividing the sugar into smaller bins and says, rolling her eyes and huffing,
20 pounds of raw sugar, she says, her voice full of exasperation and admiration all the same time – do you remember that scene?
Well, that was me when I realized that we had planted 69 tomato plants.
69 tomato plants, I said, my voice full of exasperation and admiration.
What in the world would we do with the bounty of 69 tomato plants?
This right here is just one morning’s harvest on a lite day. Crisper drawers, baskets, and window sills have been spilling over with tomatoes. I have eaten more tomato sandwiches this year than I have eaten in total over the past 41 years and Nathan takes at least with one with him everyday to work.
We have given away tomatoes, made jars of the best salsa, and now, finally, it was pasta sauce making time.
I have made jelly before and Nathan has made refrigerator pickles, but this was our first time canning together and Nathan’s first time to hot can.
We began by standing in the canning section of the store, staring at the shelves, trying to decide – did we want to make sauce or can whole tomatoes? Did we want to freeze or jar?
In the end we decided to go with a simple sauce based on the recommendation of a seasoned canner who was also standing in the store aisle trying to decide what to buy, our decision weighed heavily by our desire to save time down the road.
Each of the boys cooks one meal a week, and Wylie’s usually involves popping open a jar of sauce to serve with frozen pasta, so we decided that during the buys school year the chances of using pre-made sauce was greater than the chance that we would be making sauce from scratch on more than a few occasions.
Decision made! Pasta sauce in jars it was!
Here is the very complicated recipe we used:
Step 1: Buy this packet.
Step 2: Follow all it’s directions.
In total we used 2 packets of mix, countless tomatoes and canned 12 pints of sauce.
The total process took about 5 hours because Nathan was the only one coring and peeling the tomatoes and he is very methodical. I think if we had all been on that part it would have gone a lot faster.
Also we should have started boiling the canning water a lot earlier than we did because that huge pot took FOREVER to get hot.
But maybe there is something to be said for the slow, methodical, potentially meditative work of coring pounds of tomatoes a few at a time, then placing them in a steamer basket, and gently slipping their skins off before beating them to a pulp in the food processor, and maybe there are spiritual lessons hidden in the time it took for the enormous pot of water to start a rolling boil, lessons about patience and Slow Living.
Maybe. Or maybe not. I honestly couldn’t tell you as I am suffering from SSHCS – Severe Summer Heat Cranky Syndrome.
It’s so hot here that I think God may be on vacation in Colorado.
One thing we forgot to do, that our lovely canning friend suggested, was to add some tomato paste to the mix to help thicken the sauce up a bit, and now that we have made a batch I agree that it is pretty thin, so we might add a small can of paste to each jar as we use it.
Other than being a bit thin, the sauce was really fresh and delicious, and much better than the jar sauces we buy.
We even gave it an official try over “Wylie’s Pasta” (as we now refer to bags of frozen ravioli and tortellini’s,) and Miles who tends to lean more towards cream sauces, gave it two thumbs up.
And there you have it – We have put up our very first batch of Preservation Acre’s Pasta Sauce! Another farmstead first! Hurrah!
Filed under: Blog, Farm, Feast Tagged: Cooking, featured, Preservation Acres
July 26, 2016
4th of July 2016
One of the blessing’s -in-disguise of this summer was our impromptu Independence Day celebration at Preservation Acres!
In between funerals (such a bizarre statement, I know) two of my siblings and parts of their families were able to come on over to the farm for some amazing food, lots of laughter, swimming, and fireworks-galore as we celebrated the 4th. The day was a beautiful and much needed reprieve in the middle of the sadness.
This summer I have discovered that one of my most favorite parts of living at Preservation Acres is getting to share it with others and being able to spend this day with two of my siblings who are rarely in the same place at the same time was the best of all.
Happy Birthday America – let’s try and find some peace, shall we?
Filed under: Blog, Family, Fete Tagged: Farmhouse, featured, Preservation Acres, Raising Greers
July 11, 2016
Why I stopped using the All Lives Matter Hashtag
Conviction is a powerful thing.
I can no longer be that arrogant or hypocritical.
Somewhere between Trayvon and Charleston I used the All Lives Matter and the Black Lives Matter hashtag together.
But I soon stopped.
Why?
Because I cannot blatantly tell such a boldface lie.
I do not live like all lives matter.
How do I know?
Because I buy products made by child laborers in China, I eat in restaurants with undocumented workers paid a less than living wage, I have an empty bedroom in my home that could house foster children or a homeless friend, I mock people who think differently than me, my children go to schools where the teachers are underpaid, and I shop in a store that thinks women shouldn’t be given fair health care.
#BlackLivesCame about because none of us actually live as if all lives matter.
If we as a country, or as Christians, or humanity, lived, loved, respected and cared for each other as if we believed all lives mattered then we wouldn’t kill, beat, hang, cheat, dismiss, mock, ridicule, sell, and abuse each other.
But we do those things.
And some of us do those things to certain lives more than others. Which is why the cry of anger and fear and hurt has become so deafening.
So maybe the way we start living as if all lives matter is to start by loving and caring for and protecting the most abused, the most cheated, the most often of those who are beaten, killed, and mocked.
I also no longer use the ALM hashtag because the way I live, the words I use send a message to my children, my friends, and my community about what is most important to me. And if I dismiss or minimize the cries of my neighbors, if I assert my experience as the only truth, if I ignore their pleas for justice, then the message I am sending is that my life is centered around ME and my comfort.
As a Christian I believe that the greatest commandments are to Love God and to Love My Neighbor.
Which I believe, means I should live a life that revolves around loving God and loving my neighbor. Even when it is uncomfortable or awkward.
If one of my neighbors is hurting, then I need to speak love and give aid to that neighbor in their language – not mine. I need to express love in the way that meets them where they are, not in the way that is easy or even makes the most sense to me. It is not my heart that needs tending.
Is this not the message of Pentecost? Did the Holy Spirit fall so that those worshiping would understand each other better? Or so that those outside would hear of God’s love in their own tongue?
Continuing to use the ALM hashtag would be like refusing the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
Black Lives Matter is not my native tongue. But it is the language of my neighbor.
And maybe we start by speaking the language of the marginalized and oppressed, inviting the Holy Spirit back into our midst, like the day of Pentecost, letting go of the language we know, for the language of our hurting friends saying loudly that Black Lives Matter.
Selah.
Other post to consider reading:
Filed under: Blog, Faith Tagged: featured
