Sandra Byrd's Blog, page 4

A Seer, A Prophet or A Witch?

"And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams..." Acts 2:17 King James Version

Six women in the Bible are expressly stated as possessing the title of prophetess: Miriam, Deborah, Huldah, Noahdiah, and Isaiah's wife. Philip is mentioned in Acts as having four daughters who prophesied, which brings the number of known prophetesses to ten. There is no reason to believe that there weren't thousands more undocumented throughout history, then and now. According to religious tradition, women have often been powerful seers, and that is why I've included them in my current novel: The Secret Keeper: A Novel of Katherine Parr.

Hundreds of years before the renaissance, which would bring about improved education for women, Saint Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) wrote medicinal texts and composed music. She also oversaw the illumination of many manuscripts and wrote lengthy theological treatises. But what she is best known for, and was beatified for, were her visions.

Hildegard said that she first saw "The Shade of the Living Light" at the age of three, and by the age of five, she began to understand that she was experiencing visions. [1]  Although she was understandably reluctant to share her visions she continued to receive them, understanding them to be from God and, in her forties, was instructed by Him to write them down. She said, "I set my hand to the writing. While I was doing it, I sensed, as I mentioned before, the deep profundity of scriptural exposition... I spoke and wrote these things not by the invention of my heart or that of any other person, but as by the secret mysteries of God I heard and received them in the heavenly places. And again, I heard a voice from Heaven saying to me, 'Cry out therefore, and write thus!" [2]

Spiritual gifting is not given for the edification of the person receiving it but for the church at large. Hildegard wrote three volumes of her mystical visions and then exegeted them biblically herself. Her theology was not, as one might expect, shunned by the church establishment of the time, but instead, Pope Eugenius III gave her work his approval, and she was published in Paris in 1513.

Several centuries later, Julian of Norwich continued Hildegard's tradition as a seer, a mystic, and a writer.  In her early thirties, Julian had a series of visions that she claimed came from Jesus Christ.  In them, she felt His deep love and had a desire to transmit that He desired to be known as a God of joy and compassion and not duty and judgment.  Her book, Revelations of Divine Love, is said to be the first book written in the English language by a woman. She was well-known as a mystic and a spiritual director by both men and women. The message of love and joy that she delivered is still celebrated today; she has feast days in the Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran traditions.

It had been for a good cause that Hildegard and Julian kept their visions to themselves for a time. Visions were not widely accepted by society as a whole, and women, in particular, were often accused of witchcraft. This risk was perhaps an even greater danger in sixteenth and seventeenth-century England when "witch hunts" were common. While there is no doubt that there was a genuine and legitimate practice of witchcraft in some places, the fear of it whipped up suspicion where no actual witchcraft was found. After imprisoning Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII proclaimed to his illegitimate son, among others, that they were lucky to have escaped Anne's witchcraft.  The evidence? So obviously bewitching him away from his "good" judgment.

In that century, the slightest sign, imagined or not, could be used to indict a "witch".”  A gift handling herbs? Witchcraft. An unrestrained tongue? Witchcraft. Floating rather than sinking when placed in a body of water when accused of witchcraft and therefore tested? Guilty, for sure. Women with "suspicious" spiritual gifts, including dreams and visions, had to be particularly careful.  And yet, like Hildegard and Julian before them, they had been given just such a gift to share with others. And share they must. 

One woman in the court of Queen Katherine Parr is strongly believed to have had a gift of prophecy. Her name was Anne Calthorpe, the Countess of Sussex. One source possibly hinting at such a gift can be found on Kathy Emerson's terrific website of Tudor women: [3]  Emerson says that Calthorpe "was at court when Katherine Parr was queen and shared her evangelical beliefs. Along with other ladies at court, she was implicated in the heresy of Anne Askew. In 1549 she was examined by a commission "for errors in scripture," and  that "the Privy Council imprisoned two men, Hartlepoole and Clarke, for "lewd prophesies and other slanderous matters" touching the king and the council. Hartlepoole's wife and the countess of Sussex were jailed as "a lesson to beware of sorcery."

According to religious tradition, women have often had very active prophetic gifts; we are mystical, engaging, and intuitive. I admire our sisters throughout history who actively, risk-takingly, used their intellectual and spiritual gifts with whatever power they had at hand.

[1]

Bennett, Judith M. and Hollister, Warren C.

Medieval Europe: A Short History

(New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001), 317.

[2]

Hildegard von Bingen,

Scivias,

trans. by Columba Hart and Jane Bishop with an Introduction by Barbara J. Newman, and Preface by Caroline Walker Bynum (New York: Paulist Press, 1990) 60–61.

[3]

https://www.amazon.com/Whos-Who-Tudor... photo credit: By Miniatur aus dem Rupertsberger Codex des Liber Scivias., Public Domain,

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1718595}

{ Photo credit: Portrait of woman with bonnet, By Rogier van der Weyden - FgHVXgaMJjBUuA at Google Cultural Institute, zoom level maximum, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13355456}

{ Execution by burning photo: Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=596897}  

An Enduring Tudor Mystery

Lady Mary Seymour was the only child of Queen Katherine Parr and her fourth husband, Thomas Seymour. Parr died of childbed fever shortly after giving birth to Mary, and the baby’s father, Thomas Seymour, was executed for treason just a few short years thereafter. But what happened to their child, who seems to have vanished without trace into history? This is an enduring mystery. 

The last known facts about the child include that her father, Thomas Seymour, did ask as a dying wish, that Mary be entrusted to Katherine Willoughby, Duchess of Suffolk and that desire was granted. Willoughby, although a great friend of Mary Seymour’s mother, Queen Katherine Parr, viewed this wardship as a burden, as evidenced by her own letters. According to Parr’s biographer Linda Porter, “In January, 1550, less than a year after her father’s death, application was made in the House of Commons for the restitution of Lady Mary Seymour…she had been made eligible by this act to inherit any remaining property that had not been returned to the Crown at the time of her father’s attainder. But in truth, Mary’s prospects were less optimistic than this might suggest. Much of her parents’ lands and goods had already passed onto the hands of others.”

The 500 pounds required for Mary’s household would amount to approximately 100,000 British pounds, or 150,000 US dollars today, so you can see that Willoughby had reason to shrink from such a duty. And yet the daughter of a Queen must be kept in commensurate style. There were many people who had greatly benefitted from Parr’s generosity. None of them stepped forward to assist Baby Mary.

Biographer Elizabeth Norton says that, “The council granted money to Mary for household wages, servants’ uniforms, and food on 13 March, 1550. This is the last evidence of Mary’s continued survival.” Susan James says Mary is, ” probably buried somewhere in the parish church at Edenham.”

Most of Parr’s biographers assume that Mary died young of a childhood disease. But this, by necessity, is speculative because there is no record of Mary’s death anywhere: no gravestone, no bill of death, no mention of it in anyone’s extant personal or official correspondence. Parr’s biographer during the Victorian ages, Agnes Strickland, claimed that Mary lived on to marry Edward Bushel and become a member of the household of Queen Anne, King James I of England’s wife.

Various family biographers claimed descent from Mary, including those who came down from the Irish shipping family of Hart. This family also claimed to have had Thomas Seymour’s ring which was inscribed, What I Have, I Hold, till early in the twentieth century. I have no idea if that is true or not, but it’s a good detail and certainly possible.

According to an article in History Today by biographer Linda Porter, Katherine Parr’s chaplain, John Parkhurst, published a book in 1573 entitled, Ludica sive Epigrammata juvenilia. Within it is a poem that speaks of someone with a “queenly mother” who died in childbirth, child of whom now lies beneath a marble after a brief life. But there is no mention of the child’s name, and 1573 is twenty-five years after Mary’s birth. It hints at Mary, but does not insist.

Fiction is a rather more generous mistress than biography, and I was therefore free to wonder. Why would the daughter of a Queen and the cousin of the King not have warranted even a tiny remark upon her death? In an era when family descent meant everything it seemed unlikely that Mary’s death would be nowhere definitively noted. Far less important people, even young children, had their deaths documented during these years; my research turned up dozens of them.

Edward Seymour requested a state funeral for his mother, as she was grandmother to the King (which was refused). Would then the death of the cousin of a King, and the only child of the most recent Queen, not even be mentioned? The differences seem irreconcilable. Then, too, it would have been to Willoughby’s advantage to show that she was no longer responsible for the child if she were dead.

The turmoil of the time, in which Mary’s uncle the Lord Protector was about to fall, the fact that her grandmother Lady Seymour died in 1550, and the lack of motivation any would have had to seek the child out lest they then be required to then pay for her upkeep, all added up to a potentially different ending for me. The lack of solid facts allowed me to give Mary a happy ending in my novel, The Secret Keeper: A Novel of Katherine Parr, an ending I feel is entirely possible given Mary’s cold trail, and one which I feel both “Kate” and Mary deserved.

{ Main photo credit: Used by purchase permission from iStock }

{ Additional photo credit: See page for author [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. By Unknown – http://somegreymatter.com/meltonconst..., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13408812 }

Life of Tudor Women, Part 3

Tudor Women and Fashion Rules It’s hard to imagine being told what fabrics and colors you could wear, isn’t it? Sumptuary Laws in place during Tudor times regulated the wearing of rich fabrics to the upper classes, the number of meal courses to be served for specific guests, and the purchases of luxuries allowed for each social class. Henry VIII, in particular, was concerned about the rise of the wealthy merchant class with no connection to nobility, so he revived and expanded the restrictions on clothing and other expenditures. For example, only members of the royalty were allowed to wear ermine, and only the nobility was allowed to wear clothing trimmed in fox or otter. Anne Boleyn was known for her stylish attire; she had it early and further developed it while in France. She brought French sophistication back to the English court and was known especially for her French hoods and for adding each day a small but different accessory to her wardrobe, which was always fresh.

Tudor Women as Mothers Children were treasured in Tudor times as they are today. A woman would probably have had a child every one to two years. Many women died in childbirth due to poor medical hygiene, and the chance at least one of their children would die was significant. Consider that Catherine of Aragon is reported to have been pregnant at least six times but had only one son who lived just a few days and one surviving daughter, Mary. Anne Boleyn was pregnant at least three times, perhaps four, but only Elizabeth survived. Katherine Parr and Jane Seymour each bore one child, and both women died of childbed fever. Neither the high-born nor the low-born were spared the grief of frequent miscarriages or stillborn children.

Giving birth for women of the noble class would have been a social event attended by the mother’s closest friends, and a midwife arranged ahead of time. Doctors almost never attended births. Puerperal sepsis, or ‘childbed fever,’ was common as handwashing was rarely practiced (by midwives or doctors.) A contemporary study for the UK’s National Institute for Health estimates the maternal death rate in the 16th century as 26 women per every 1,000 births. Compared to today’s figure in the UK of .11 per 1,000 women dying as a result of childbirth, you can see that childbirth was definitely a hazardous undertaking in Tudor times!

Tudor Women and Social Relationships Within the social structure of Tudor times, loyalty to family, especially family of origin, took precedence. For women of noble birth, that meant that advancing the social position of their families was their primary function. Oftentimes Anne Boleyn is seen as having been "pushed" toward marriage to Henry by a socially climbing family. The truth is, all families were social climbers, and Thomas Boleyn was no different than other good men before and after in seeking to advance his house, often to disastrous consequences, but sometimes, to love. Betrothals and marriages, the ability to produce an heir, and their connections as ladies-in-waiting to more highly-ranked nobles would have motivated the decisions made by and for noble women of this era.

The relationships they formed within noble circles would not only have been based upon similar personalities and interests but also the other person’s ability to help them advance their family’s interests. It was common for young women in noble families to leave their families for extended periods to serve at court. One type of close relationship that was familiar to women of noble households was with long-time servants who served not only as employees but also as confidantes and go-betweens with others in the household. This is clearly seen in Meg Wyatt's friendship with her longtime lady's maid, Edithe.

Life of Tudor Women, Part One

Life of Tudor Women, Part Two

Research Sources: Coventry.ac.uk; Elizabethan-era.org.uk; elizabethi.org; TudorsWiki; LocalHistories.org; NIH.gov

Main photo credit: Walker Art Gallery, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Life of Tudor Women, Part 2

Historical novelists are sometimes suspected of importing twenty-first-century values into sixteenth-century novels. While it's true that most authors seek to connect their readers with their novel's women of the past, it isn't necessary to ascribe new values to past women. They were, in many ways, much like us.

They valued education. Although medieval women's education was often limited to gentler feminine arts such as dance, needlework, and playing of the lute or virginals, by the beginning of the Tudor era, women were much more interested and involved in intellectual education. Queen Catherine of Aragon ensured that her daughter, Mary, had a strict regimen of demanding studies in accordance with her own upbringing.  Sir Thomas More is often credited with putting practice to the idea that non-royal women deserved as much education as noble or highborn men. As a result, his daughters completed an education in classical studies,  languages, geography, astronomy, and mathematics.

Queen Katherine Parr's mother, Maude, educated her daughters in accordance with More's program for his children, eventually running a kind of "school for highborn girls" after she was widowed. Eventually, educating one's daughters was seen as a social necessity, and men expected their wives to be able to play chess with them, discuss poetry and devotional works, and be conversant in the day's issues.

They knew they couldn't marry for love - the first time - but desired it anyway. Most historical readers understand that women in the Tudor era were chattel, legally controlled by their fathers and then their husbands. They married for dynastic or financial reasons; marriage was an alliance of families and strategy and not of the hearts. And yet, these women, too, had read Song of Songs wherein a husband and wife declare their passion for one another.  Classically educated as they were, Tudor women had unquestionably come across the Greek myths, including Eros and Psyche, and perhaps had even read the medieval French love poem, Roman de la Rose. 

If a woman was left widowed - and that happened quite often - she was free to remain widowed and under her own authority or to marry whom she wished.  Henry VIII's sister Mary married first King Louis XII of France for duty.  When he died, she married Charles Brandon for love.  After Mary's death, Brandon married his ward, Katherine Willoughby, her duty.  Later, she married Richard Bertie for love.  Katherine Parr married three times for duty, including her third husband, King Henry VIII.  Her fourth marriage, to Thomas Seymour, was for love. 

High and lowborn worked inside and outside the home. Highborn women were often ladies in waiting to the queen, a demanding, full-time job with little pay and time off. They ran the accounts for their husband's properties and juggled household management. For example, Katherine Parr's sister, Anne, served in the household of all six of Henry VIII's wives. Some highborn women, such as Lady Bryan, became governesses. Lower-born women were lady maids, seamstresses, nurses, servants, or baby maids, in addition to helping their husbands as fishmongers or in the fields.

Although there are some notable differences, we have much more in common with our highborn sisters of five hundred years ago than one may think!

Life of Tudor Women, Part One

{Anne Parr photo credit: Hans Holbein [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons}

{Mary Rose Tudor photo credit: By Attributed to Jan van Mabuse (Jan Gossaert) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons}

Life of Tudor Women, Part One

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a woman during the Tudor era, which is when all three Tudor Ladies in Waiting books are set? Here are some interesting tidbits about the ways a woman’s life was both different and very much the same as ours. .

Tudor Women Had Careers Like many of us today, some women during Tudor times worked outside the home as well as raising a family. Career choices for lower-class working women in 1500s England included street vendor, baker, milliner, tailor, brewery worker, textile worker, household servant, or seamstress. They were not allowed to act on the stage or work as doctors, lawyers, or politicians. Noble women and members of the gentry had more genteel choices, but those still required hard work! Many were tapped to serve as ladies-in-waiting (much like bffs/personal assistants) for a woman of higher rank. More senior ladies-in-waiting might also serve in positions such as Mistress of the Wardrobe. Imagine keeping up with Anne Boleyn’s wardrobe needs, which is what Meg Wyatt, as her Mistress of the Robes, did! Within noble households, you would also find women working as governesses.

Tudor Women Trained to Run Households Even though many of us have careers, the responsibility today for raising families and running households still falls mainly on women. It was the same during Tudor times, with young girls of all social classes being taught how to keep household accounts, manage or perform daily household tasks, grow and use medicinal plants, and represent their husbands well. Queens sometimes stepped in to rule while the king was away at war, which is what Katherine of Aragon and Katherine Parr did while each was married to Henry VIII. Upper-class women supervising large houses were expected to know the requirements of meal preparation, food storage, spinning of yarn and weaving, brewing of ale, and making necessities such as candles and soap. They would have been expected to keep their husband’s estates running smoothly in his absence. In the merchant class, men often employed their wives and daughters, who ran the business when necessary.

Tudor Women Were Obedient In most cases, the young woman in the time of Henry VIII was raised to obey her parents, church, and husband. In the upper social strata, young women were married to whoever would most benefit their family or monarch. Some noble women during this time, however, were educated and wielded power by advising their husbands and forming favorable alliances. During Tudor Times, women promised to obey their husbands at marriage, but Kate Middleton, The Princess of Wales, did not when she married Prince William!

Tudor Women and Marriage Women were expected to marry and have children, no matter what social class, during the days of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Marriages were usually arranged for adolescent girls in the noble class, but most lower-class women married in their teens and twenties. Sometimes early marriages were consummated years after the marriage if the girl was deemed too young, or sometimes, such as in the case of Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, who was married for the second time by age 12 and became a mother to Henry at age 13, young girls were not so fortunate. Divorce was rarely possible. When the end of a marriage was desired, the common option was for the woman to enter a nunnery, at which time her marriage would be annulled. These were the options Henry VIII presented to Katherine of Aragon when it became clear that he would not get a male heir from her.

{Photo credit: See page for author [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. By Unknown - [2], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=825024}

Our 8th Annual Teacup & Coffee Mug Exchange!

Ⓒ Sandra Byrd

Teapal Treats! Donut You Love Them?

© Sandra Byrd

Welcome to this year’s Tea-Pal: eight years of making new friends, discovering and sharing delicious tea (or coffee!), and trying tasty recipes.

Your invitation to the party will arrive via my newsletter (check your spam!), but here’s the recipe I’ve used this year - Homemade Apple Cider Donuts. You might want to give it a try!

I love donuts, but perhaps ones that are not too sweet. These tender gems include apple cider (and you can use boiled cider for a more concentrated, nuanced flavor) and are easily baked at home. They make a lovely weekend breakfast or an after-dinner treat, and there will be plenty to share.

Have a good time baking (follow the link), and I look forward to seeing you at the party!

Homemade Apple Cider Donuts

Crazy4Fiction Summer Book Bash #3: A Whidbey Island Summer Picnic

© Shutterstock, used with purchase permission.

Welcome, friends, but let’s hurry! We don’t want to miss the ferry to Whidbey Island. Whew, okay, we made it, and now thirty minutes later, we’ve left “the world” behind and can enjoy this beautiful island.

© Sandra Byrd

After a short drive in Helen’s restored Buick, let’s park, head through the gates, past the barn and house, and meet the rest of our friends in their gorgeous, flourishing garden. Eunhee and Grace are already here, and Johanna got up early to make her Sin rolls. What? Yes, for sure. Pop a cherry tomato in your mouth on the way in. There’ll be individual bouquets on the table for everyone to take, too.

© Sandra Byrd

What? You’re new here and don’t know much of this story? Welcome –everyone is welcome at our picnic table. Click here for an intro to the story. Then come on back for an Heirlooms Summer Picnic. Back now? Good. Hungry? Great!  

© Sandra Byrd

 We have fried chicken, potato salad, and pickled vegetables, all presented for your eating pleasure in two ways: one that might be more familiar to you, and also, Korean style. I’d advise choosing some of each because they are both fantastic.

© Sandra Byrd

© Sandra Byrd

Don’t eat birds? Neither does DJ. How about a slice of vegetarian quiche?

© Shutterstock, used with purchase permission.

You’re going to want a hand pie – peach – for dessert. They’re Cassidy’s specialty, you’ll remember, but the blackberries aren’t ripe yet.

© Sandra Byrd

 Helen and Cassidy put together a playlist and Nick brought out the audio equipment to set the mood. Here’s a link to the list in case you want to use it at your own summer garden party. Want to dance? DJ’s ready to get us started!

Wow, the entire day has gone, but there is nothing more beautiful than sunset on Whidbey Island. So what do you say we skip the ferry and take a quiet ride on a small boat back to town – and to the next Crazy4Fiction Summer Book Bash stop!

© Sandra Byrd

Thanks for visiting!

Sandra Byrd’s Crazy4Fiction Summer Book Bash Giveaway

Making a Living or Making a Life

© Sandra Byrd

I quit.

What, you, too? Okay, so we’re in good company because, according to the experts, it’s currently a quitter’s market in what has become known as the Great Resignation. Millions of people are asking themselves, what am I doing? And why? A few months ago, 44% of workers were looking for new jobs. Some cited the desire for better pay, working conditions, and flexibility. But these have always been reasons to ladder hop or ladder climb. So what’s new now?

Covid.

The pandemic brought into sharp focus that life is short and unpredictable; maybe we don’t want to spend the bulk of our lives making a living but not making a life. If the cattle on a thousand hills are already His, our ultimate goal can’t be to make money, can it? Is life, as Thomas Hobbes famously claimed, nasty, brutish, and short? Although the son of a clergyman, he seemed to hold little hope in faith. He moaned, “My mother gave birth to twins: myself and fear.”

More than we’d like to admit, we make career and professional decisions based on fear, not faith in how we’ve been created and by Whom. We’re told - and we sometimes tell our kids – that “useless” degrees in areas such as history and English will lead to unemployment. On the other hand, STEM degrees are the clear path to success, so we’d better head into science, engineering, or math. My son, a bioengineer who was resolutely sad once he had no more calculus courses to enjoy, once told me that math is the language of God. “I sure hope not,” I replied, “because if that’s true, I don’t know who I’ve been talking with all these years.” Instead, God speaks to me in metaphors that are personal and intimate, which has also helped me build a profession neatly dovetailing with how He created me.

© Sandra Byrd

And no one wants my math abilities. Trust me.

I don’t think life is nasty or brutish though it is definitely short. And because of that, I’m going to pitch an alternative view for our professional lives and callings. Life can be rich and filled with joy. Jesus contrasts his intentions with those of the destroyer of our hopes in John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

War, plagues, pandemics, inflation. It makes it difficult to believe that we can have an abundant life right now. Toby Mac questions this in his song Promised Land. Many Christians might be nodding right along to that tune. Yeah. Hey. Where is my promised land? And yet, despite the turmoil roiling our earth, which a student of history sees punctuates every era, we were born for such a time as this. You were divinely placed in this season, designed and equipped to thrive.

Author James Clear tells us, “It’s only work if you would rather be doing something else. Find a way to carve a career out of what you already want to do.” My friend Renee Chaw took one of those “useless” history degrees and merged it with other things she loves: vintage clothing and caring for the environment. She said, “To me, finding, repairing, and often saving pieces from landfills to be worn and cherished by another generation thousands of miles away is the most rewarding part of what I do. Digging through digital archives to research each garment puts my history degree to good use. I never thought I could make a living doing what I love. But I am!”

© Renee Chaw

Of course, not all jobs pay the same. My son, the engineer, made more money right out of college than most artists – myself included – do after decades of work. I refer to myself as a carbing artist, not a starving artist, because sometimes the stress of a writer’s life – reviews, deadlines, financial concerns – leads to a deep dive into a piece of cake or a bag of Ruffles. And yet – God provides. In addition to writing, I coach, helping and encouraging those created to write, like I was. There may be seasons when we need to stay at a job we don’t love. We might need to splice together several opportunities to make a whole. We could choose to work a day job by day and a life job by night until the job we love becomes the job we keep and keeps us.

Our culture sometimes insists that we be content and thankful we have a job, as though it’s somehow selfish to look for a career path that is a good fit. One day on a research trip in France for my French Twist series, I wore a pair of pretty but ill-fitting shoes. Instead of enjoying Parisian art, food, and architecture, I spent the day looking for blister pads. A pair of shoes just right for my feet, pretty or not, would have helped me enjoy the journey. Would anyone suggest I continue walking in those painful shoes rather than buying a pair that fit and enjoying my stay?

However, just because we want a career that fits doesn’t mean it will be delivered to us in an Amazon van. In that John 10:10 verse, “may have it abundantly” is written in the present tense (it’s for now, all time, to those who believe) and subjunctive mood. That means it’s a mood of possibility, potentiality. We have to do something. We must act instead of simply expecting it will be provided for us. It’s the same kind of action expected one chapter earlier, when Jesus rubbed mud onto the eyes of the blind man, providing the solution, and then told him to go wash, act for himself, and partner with Him.

In my new book, Heirlooms, my modern-era heroine has a decision to make, and she doesn’t have much time to make it. Does she play it safe to make a living? Or does she take a significant risk and choose to do things others don’t understand or approve of to make a life, one she felt God created and prepared her to enjoy? Each of the book’s four principal characters has a decision that leads her to take risks to create the life she wants to live in their essences, not their identities.

In his book, Called to Create, Jordan Raynor quotes Dorothy Sayers. “Work is not, primarily, a thing one does to live, but the thing one lives to do. It is, or it should be, the full expression of the worker’s faculties, the thing in which he finds spiritual, mental, and bodily satisfaction, and the medium in which he offers himself to God.”

What do you live to do? How can you offer yourself to God through this? Is this the year you’re willing to risk so you can make the life you want?

This article originally appeared at Seekerville.

Sweet as a Cherry Hand Pie

© Sandra Byrd

When I was a kid, our next-door neighbor baked a killer cheesecake. It was the Goldilocks of cheesecakes, not too heavy, not too light; it was just right. When asked to share the recipe, though, she politely declined. It was a family recipe she’d changed to make her own and her signature dish. “I’ll make one for your any time you ask, though,” she promised. And she did! That was better than having the recipe.

Decades later, I baked my signature chocolate chip cookies for my daughter’s work crew. “They said they’ll pay you if you bake them every month,” my daughter told me. But I didn’t want to bake them for pay. They come from my heart, and my heart is not for sale.

In my new book, Heirlooms, Cassidy Quinn sets her mind and heart on finding a way to keep her family’s property. Everything on the grounds is an heirloom – the house, the barn, the plants, and the delicious food that comes from them. She bakes fabulously flaky and fruity hand pies – her signature dish – but balks at charging for them. When she was growing up, she and her Gran had made them together from the fruit of their land. Cassidy would bake them any time someone asked—but not for money. They came from the heart.

Other women in Heirlooms have recipes that are their signature dishes, too.

Johanna and her Sin Rolls and Eunhee’s Seaweed Soup. When Cassidy delivers a gift to the mother of the man she once thought she’d marry, his mom hands something to her. “Greek walnut cake. You’ll love it. I only make it for family.” Her eyes watered, and so did Cassidy’s. It was not at all clear that they’d ever be family.

Do you have a signature dish, or do you crave one that someone you love bakes or makes? Need a little time to think about it? That’s okay. While you do, why not bake these delicious cherry hand pies, courtesy of Cassidy, me, and Heirlooms?

© Sandra Byrd

Cherry Hand Pies

Ingredients

4 pie crusts. You can buy premade or use whatever recipe you like.

4 Cups Sour Cherries, pitted and, if frozen, thawed and drained (save some of the draining juice)

¾-1 C white sugar. Start low and add to taste

1\2 C King Arthur Pie Enhancer (Once you try this, you’ll never bake pies without it!)

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

2/3 C of the cherry juice, from draining, or water, if the cherries were fresh

Demerara Sugar, for sprinkling

Directions

1. Mix everything but the pie crusts and Demerara sugar over medium heat, constantly stirring, for 5-6 minutes until it’s all jelled and tastes as sweet as you like. The KA Pie Enhancer doesn’t require cooking, but this turns out better if you do, just a little.

2. Roll out the pie crusts. Cut out circles using a 4”-5” biscuit cutter or the rim of a glass. Or, you can cut 3” squares out of the pie crust if you prefer that shape.

3. Place about 2 Tbs pie filling in the middle of the circle or the square. You want about ½ inch margin around the center cherry filling. Fold the crust over the cherries (circle) or place a second piece of crust atop the first (square).

4. Crimp all of the edges, then sprinkle with the Demerara sugar.

5. Bake on a parchment-lined sheet in an oven preheated to 425 degrees for 16-20 minutes, till golden brown. Cool completely before eating.

Originally published at Reading is my Superpower.