Lemon Squares ... You Need This, trust me

I've been working on this recipe for nine years.
It's done.
I give it to you.
Trust me, you need it.

LEMON "SQUARES"

(my favorite thing is the original recipe says it serves 24 ... i still can't stop laughing)

You need a 13 x 9 x 2 pan. It's best if it's glass.
You pre-heat the oven to 325 if the pan is glass; if not, 350.

CRUST
3/4 cup butter or butter flavoured Crisco
1 1/2 cups flour
1/3 cup powdered confectioner's 10x sugar

LEMON CURD
4 eggs
2 cups sugar (for a deeper flavor, I use 1 cup turbinado sugar and 1 cup white)
3 TEAspoons of lemon extract4 TABLEspoons flour
1 TEAspoon baking POWDER
a dash of salt
10 TABLEspoons of lemon juice, lemon concentrate is fine

• Cream together butter, flour and powdered sugar.
• If you are using real lemon juice, a couple of TABLEspoons of lemon zest makes the crust fun. It is, however, completely unnecessary for perfect Lemon Squares.
• Press the crust to cover the bottom of the (ungreased) pan. Sometimes it takes some pushing. Sometimes I need to flour my hands. Othertimes I need to put some butter on my hands, but never water; you want to keep this dry.

Bake for 18 minutes. I'm not kidding.

Start mixing the curd and then let it sit until the crust is ready. When you pull the crust out, take a whisk, swoop the curd for about 30 seconds and then pour it on the crust as you're still whisking, and put the pan back in the oven for 25 minutes. Period. Don't try and get cute with a perfect browning, it'll get sticky and gross and the edges will burn.

• Crack the four eggs and beat them like scrambled eggs, make sure it's all yellow, there will be a little froth.
• Mix in the 2 cups of sugar completely.
• Stir in the lemon extract.
• SIFT TOGETHER flour, powder and salt in to the curd.
• Stir together.
• Measure in your lemon juice and mix.
• Like I said, when you pull the crust out, whisk the curd up and continue whisking as you're pouring it out on to the crust. Put that in the oven for 25 minutes.

Let it cool before you cut it. I'm not kidding.
Don't sift powdered sugar over the entire thing; it seeps in to the squares. Sift powdered sugar over each slice individually before serving.
This gets better with each passing day, but it's not gonna last long.

Enjoy in good health.
P.S.:  You're welcome ;-)

God Desires Not Our Innocence, But Our Love

Jesus Dies, oil on panel, 14" x 18", 2004
 The Passion of Christ (For Barbara Crafton)
Doug Blanchard http://on.fb.me/11M5CRU

PALM/PASSION SUNDAY YEAR C 2013

Jesus died for our sins?
Readings:  Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31:9-16; Philippians 2:5-11; and Luke 22:14-23:56

as preached by The Reverend Mary Foulke

The Church of Saint Luke in the Fields

Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City

Innocence is a central theme in Luke's narrative of the Passion, Pilate is innocent, Herod is innocent, Jesus is innocent, there is a lot of "it's not my fault." The claim to innocence is also a visceral human response to just about any accusation whether the charge is merited or not, whether it is small - why didn't you take out the trash? - or large - global poverty is just too overwhelming, what can I do, it's not my fault. But when we hear the passion story we know, almost assuredly, that it is our fault. Today, however, I would like to suggest that fault is not actually a question that Jesus has ever been interested in.

I recently spoke with a colleague about how we as Christians are often heard to say, "Jesus died for our sins," without any understanding about what that might mean. In the past it has been an essential step of the sacrificial model, we were bad, a blood sacrifice was made, now we're saved even though we don't deserve it. This is way of thinking is primitive, it is a problematic interpretation of the events of Jesus' death. Too easily it can turn into a scapegoat model; for example, the legacy of anti-Jewish violence and persecution by Christians was and is a blatant attempt to shift blame, to hold someone else responsible, to offer another blood sacrifice as we try to purge our own shame. Our history of horrifying violence and persecution of others in the name of Jesus shows us just how un-redemptive the scapegoat theory is.
The problem is that we focus on the blood and violence as redemptive rather than the love. Because our bad behavior is only too clear, we focus on the suffering as "what we deserve," and we continue to seek those to blame. Yet another stream of scholarship would hold the Roman authorities to account for the abuses of Empire. It is not that there is no truth in this theory, it seems to me that the truth is complex, and ultimately not really the point for understanding our relationship with God in Christ.

Jesus' response to all people, especially those identified as "bad" or "at fault," was engagement. He didn't seem to dwell on the truth or falsity of sin, rather he invited them to join or rejoin community, to live in relationship with others. He didn't use the language of deserving or un-deserving, good or bad - well except that time that he referred to the Canaanite woman as a dog, but then he took it back. You might remember the story of Jesus travelling outside Jewish territory when a Canaanite woman asked him for healing for her daughter. Jesus said, "I have come to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." But she challenged him, saying "yet even the dogs can eat the crumbs under the Master's table." Jesus said to her, "you have great faith," and healed her daughter because she claimed relationship and community even when he had denied it.

In Jesus' last days he repeatedly was invited to deny his relationships with God and with others, but he did not. It was his disciples who lost heart, lost faith, and fled. Jesus love for his disciples, his unwillingness to blame them for even such obvious betrayal, was God redemptive invitation to relationship. Jesus was frustrated, angry, possibly scared (if this is not too heretical), certainly grief stricken, but he did not deny them.

Relationships take courage. Relationships call us to let go of the need to be right, they invite us to lose the need to win, relationships encourage us to release the need to blame and shame others or ourselves. Relationship with God and with other people are not an "anything goes" realm, they are an "everyone is deserving" realm. Everyone needs and deserves love and freedom, and the place where those needs are met is the kingdom of God. What if the disciples had been more courageous and had not abandoned Jesus? What if Christians had the strength to acknowledge and embrace our Jewish origins without the need to supersede them? In our nation, what if white people were to choose to be in relationship with people of color rather than trying to deny racism or our culpability in it or wallowing in isolated guilt? (not my fault!) What if we thought there was enough love and freedom for there to be more than two distinct genders, more than one way to understand ability, more than one way to learn or to think or to be human. What if we were not so afraid of it being our fault, what if we thought we deserved love and freedom? What if we contemplated God's will to be that all of creation, even us, even those we consider undeserving, what if we all claimed and celebrated love and freedom? Jesus died for our sins. Jesus died rather than turn away from relationship with us. Jesus also left us a sign of hope, an ongoing reminder of what we deserve in the Eucharist, a celebration of the kingdom of God, a tangible meal of courage and love where all are welcome and all receive what we need, where we are all part of the body of love. This week let us ponder God's desire for us, to know that it is not a desire for our innocence but for our love.

Amen.

Original Sin: Are You Hiding From God?

If you've never seen R. Crumb’s The Book of Genesis Illustrated I urge you to give it a look,
it's amazing.
http://bit.ly/Uj7Wf5

Genesis 3:7-13

Then the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves apron-like girdles. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and woman hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, Where are you? He said, I heard the sound of You [walking] in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself. And the Lord God said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat? And the man said, The woman whom You gave to be with me—she gave me [fruit] from the tree, and I ate. And the Lord God said to the woman, What is this you have done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled (cheated, outwitted, and deceived) me, and I ate.

 So, HEY, everybody ! and Welcome to Lent 2013 ! Sew, even though Ash Wednesday CAN fall as early as February 4, it sure seems like it snuck up on us this year. 

I realised in cobbling this post why my writing always seems so rushed.

"I believe my head is so big  because it's filled with dreams." The Elephant Man

"That's why her hair is so big ... it's full of secrets ..."Mean Girls

There's so much I want to say. There is so much i THINK i know, there is so much i'm SURE i know, there is so much i want to SHARE ! "i'm a givvah, i give." Like in this quote from Genesis:

1. I want to talk about "apron-like girdles";
2. I want to talk about "Lord" "God", their meanings and etymologies, common understandings and uses;
3. How much I GET MY LIFE from the image of the "Lord" "God" walking "in the cool of the day" ... just before sunrise and just before sunset have ALWAYS been my favourite times of day, I think they're absolutely mystical and Jewish scholars tells us, especially on Sabbath,  that, when kindling the Sabbath candles, a woman holds the power of the universe; as a woman kindles candles in her home, candles are kindled in the divine realm, symbolizing the union and harmony between heaven and earth that is achieved on Shabbat.
4. I want to point out, in Genesis THU-REE ! the Original Blame Game, which I think is HILArious: God is all, "Did you do this?" and A-dom is all, "THIS woman YOU gave ME ! !  ..."

But antyway, back to the post:

One of the things I absolutely GET MY LIFE from is better to me than any Ofrah AH! HA! moment ... it's that moment when you're listening to or reading Scripture and someone offers a different slant on a moldy old passage that  you NEVER thought of before, you NEVER HEARD of before ... something that literally shakes your brain and causes you to think in an entirely different direction, waking you to a world filled with new colours and vistas. This happened to me last night at our Ash Wednesday service. I know almost everyone thinks they have the greatest, smartest, bestest Rector on the planet, but I gotta tell ya, we sure do, and between her and our other priests we have some of the FINEST preaching on earth. 

Her sermon isn't up on the website yet, but, in essence, what Mother said was this: Perhaps it was not disobedience which was Original Sin, as obedience is something which must be learned; perhaps Original Sin was HIDING FROM GOD.  I want to point out that I TROOLEY do not believe God is angry at the beginning of this passage at all. I think God is all like, <Where ARE you> ... all gentle like, and then angry at the circumstance ... <What the hell are you doing? Why are you HIDING from ME? WHO TOLD ! you you were naked, you're BEAUTIFUL ! that's why i MADE you this way ! WHO TAUGHT YOU SHAME ?!?!?! i don't WANT you to know shame, I want you to walk in the beauty of my LOVE for you ! !> (auntie dasch translates it all for you tee hee)

Let's face it: <Even the darkness hides nothing from God...for God did knit [us] together in [our] mother’s womb.> Do we think anything we think or do or say is a SURPRISE to God? Do we think God doesn't know what's going on in our spirit? in our heart? in our mind? Let's make a Lenten pact: that we take EVERYthing to God in prayer and lay it at the feet of God.

I'm going through it right now...my mother-in-law is in hospice on her journey from this life to a desired better and heavenly country where she may finally rest after a decade of physical limitations, a long and vibrant career teaching generations  of high school students, and 80 years raising hell and whooping it up feyusly. SURE, I'm praying for the ease of her discomfort, a peace-filled and gentle slide into the light of God's eternal sabbath rest, and strength for the family she will be leaving behind. But I also went through an entire DAY yesterday (Valentine's Day, btw) having a HUGE pity party that EYE'M doing all this stuff and getting no recognition for it, EYE'M going out of MY way to be the perfect husband, the generous provider, the behind-the-scenes genie, and strong enough for everyone else and who is thanking ME, who is being strong for ME. I took it to God and guess what I heard: I'm right here. I am your strength. Am I not enough for you? Turn to me and I will give you rest.

Let's not hide from God. Let's take everything to God, all our weaknesses, all our frustrations, all our anxieties, all our concerns ... and let God make this a peace-filled, refreshing Lent for us all.