Challah

There are really only a few, subtle traces of evidence that I’m at all Jewish: my nose, nagging sense of guilt, and obsession with Jewish holidays. Working amongst a bunch of other [more legitimate] Jews has helped to spur a lot of self-discovery about my cultural and faith heritage over the past year. There is so much beauty and symbolism in tradition, and I am entranced by how movements of remembrance and celebration speak to a deeper truth and fulfillment of eternal Promise in Christ. That last part is not something my coworkers are particularly interested in hearing about, but I think they appreciate my curiosity and desire to learn more about our common roots. I have enjoyed some incredibly sweet times of meditation on the Jewish High Holy Days that feeds my Jesus-loving soul in ways I desperately hope they too will one day experience.

All of the best holiday traditions are tied to food somehow (the Jews get it), and each has traditional meals that are chalk-full of meaning – from the process of preparing them, to the individual ingredients, to the way they’re presented and consumed – everything is significant. Rosh Hashanah begins next week, which means it’s challah time! Challah is a really lovely, simple, golden bread that begs to be shared in community. Challah means provision. It commemorates God’s love and care for his people as they wandered through the desert for 40 years after being set free from Pharaoh’s oppressive grasp. Every morning, God provided manna from heaven to feed his people as they lived in the desert. No one ever went hungry, but if they showed distrust for their Provider by hoarding more than they needed for the day, it would spoil. He even gave them a double portion the day before each Sabbath so they could maintain the rhythm of work and rest. Challah is made at the New Year and for Sabbath to remind us that God supplies all our needs, that his provision is not dependent on our work or striving, that he is always concerned for us.

Baking challah has special meaning for me this year. Since February, I have been wandering through a desert of my own. During this time I have wrestled with feeling like the Lord delivered me from captivity to sin and depravity only to dump me in the wilderness with zero direction or sense of purpose. I have struggled to make sense of the things happening inside and all around me. Friends so full of demons they take their own lives; once strong relationships falling apart; being surrounded by people but feeling utterly alone; being absolutely stuck in a stressful, unfulfilling job with no support and no way out. It’s all felt rather impossible, and at times has taken every ragged fiber of my being to not have a nervous breakdown and throw in the towel on everything. And yet every single step of the way, God in his mercy has provided. Even on the most desperate, soul-consuming days of despair he has always given me just enough to keep on keepin’ on. Or keep sitting, waiting. Often asking over and over, through a steady stream of burning tears, “God, what are you doing to me?” His answer: “I’m providing for you every day. Not your job, not church or your friends, not your parents. I am providing for you. I am sanctifying you. Cleave to me. Trust me.”

And it’s true. The Lord has always provided. Just like he did for the Israelites as they wandered –often aimlessly, hopelessly, faithlessly – through the desert. He provides because he is good. He does not treat us as our sins deserve. He gives us sweet challah while we wait for the promised land.

Ballah Shock Challah

Adapted from Joan Nathan

The secrets to good challah are simple: Use two coats of egg wash to get that lacquer-like crust and don’t over bake it. Joan Nathan, who this recipe is adapted from, adds that three risings always makes for the tastiest loaves, even better if one of them is slowed down in the fridge.

Time: about 1 hour, plus 2 1/2 hours’ rising
Yield: 2 loaves

2 packages active dry yeast (2 tablespoons)

1 ¾ cups of lukewarm water
1 tablespoon plus ½ cup sugar
¾ cup olive or vegetable oil, plus more for greasing the bowl
6 large eggs
1 tablespoon salt
8 cups all-purpose flour

½ cup raisins per challah, if using, plumped in hot water and drained (or whatever little surprises you want to tuck in there. My favorites include honey, apricots, and chocolate, but savory things are great too – like asiago and herbs….)
Poppy or sesame seeds for sprinkling (optional)

1. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast and 1 tablespoon sugar in lukewarm water.

2. Whisk oil into yeast, then beat in 5 eggs, one at a time, with remaining sugar and salt. Gradually add flour. When dough holds together, it is ready for kneading.

3. Turn dough onto a floured surface and knead until smooth. Clean out bowl and grease it, then return dough to bowl. Cover with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm place until almost doubled in size (at least 1 hr, but timing will depend on temperature and humidity). Dough may also rise in an oven that has been warmed to 150 degrees then turned off. Punch down dough, cover and let rise again in a warm place for another half-hour.

4. At this point, you can knead the raisins into the challah, if you’re using them, before forming the loaves. To make a 6-braid challah, either straight or circular, take half the dough and form it into 6 balls. With your hands, roll each ball into a strand about 12 inches long and 1 1/2 inches wide. Place the 6 in a row, parallel to one another. Pinch the tops of the strands together. Move the outside right strand over 2 strands. Then take the second strand from the left and move it to the far right. Take the outside left strand and move it over 2. Move second strand from the right over to the far left. Start over with the outside right strand. Continue this until all strands are braided. For a straight loaf, tuck ends underneath. For a circular loaf, twist into a circle, pinching ends together. Make a second loaf the same way. Place braided loaves on a greased cookie sheet with at least 2 inches in between.

5. Beat remaining egg and brush it on loaves. Either let rise another hour or place in fridge over night to slow-rise, then bake in the morning (you can also freeze them at this point if necessary).

6. If baking immediately, preheat oven to 375 degrees and brush loaves again. Sprinkle bread with seeds, if using. If freezing, remove from freezer 5 hours before baking.

7. Bake in middle of until golden, around 30-40 minutes depending on your oven. Cool loaves on a rack.

Note: Any of the three risings can be done in the fridge for a few hours, for more deeply-developed flavor. When you’re ready to work with it again, bring it back to room temperature before moving onto the next step.

Lindsay’s House

I visited my friend Lindsay at her new house recently. After her best friend and roommate moved to Southern California, Lindsay knew she was being presented with an opportunity to really spend some time letting her healing and growing from wounds and disappointment she’d been avoiding. A forced change of scenery pushed her to figure out what she needed to do to take care of herself and move forward at her own pace. The things and people that had filled her life weren’t there in the same ways anymore. She had a rare opportunity to face her soul and not shrink away from what she found or let other people or concerns take the attention away from what was going on inside her. I have always admired Lindsay’s strength. She’s one of those confident people. She’s ok with herself. She isn’t afraid of her weakness or the parts of her that feel messy – she’s honest about them but not identified by them. She gets that she’s in process. And because of that, it’s really easy to just be at rest around her. She creates space for people in a really beautiful, subtle way – just inviting them to be who they are and have grace with whoever that is. Lindsay is learning to love herself, and learning to be content in letting Jesus love her. Letting that be enough. Moving into her new house is part of that process.

By the grace of God, Lindsay found a great 2-bedroom home in the Sunset to move into. It’s spacious and quiet with a huge kitchen, a garage and a back yard – unheard of in the city. It’s a few blocks from the beach, and has a great little sheltered patio off the kitchen. It also has an entirely pink bathroom with really great floral wallpaper, dusty rose carpet throughout, a big, neglected garden, and bright yellow walls. The house has so much potential – I couldn’t help but day dream about having a similar place all to myself and really investing in fixing it up – planting a great garden and creating a cozy outdoor space; turning the patio into a little whimsical place of solitude; decorating and filling up the rooms with eclectic, comfy furniture; painting the walls really warm, yummy colors. Lots of projects to invest in. Lindsay and I like to joke about how much our intrinsic need to nurture makes us quick to gravitate toward projects. Historically the boy projects. Life lesson #431: Houses are much healthier outlets for this itch than boys.

As we walked to the beach together, we talked about how easy it is to get swept up thinking that every ounce of her house’s potential has to be realized now. That she has to make everything her vision of perfection instantly. When she comes home and has an extra few hours, Lindsay feels guilty if she isn’t filling her time with something outwardly productive – like painting those yellow walls. I’m exactly the same way, so it was easy for us to commiserate about how hard it is to get out of that mindset. As we talked about this, though, it was fun to realize how maybe there was a lesson in the house. While Lindsay could just sweep through and devote all of her spare time to changing everything about the house that bothers her, that wouldn’t be respecting the process of letting herself settle in and get to know the house and find rest in it with all its little quirks and unfortunate color schemes. And besides, Lindsay’s going through a lot of change herself lately, and who knows if she would even like all the changes she made to it 6 months down the road. She’s in process, too, so it makes sense that her home should reflect that – it should grow with her and become more Lindsay as she becomes more Lindsay.

Pie

It’s been a weird week. There’s probably always a strange dance happening between my flesh, my spirit, God, and the devil, and this week I just happened to be hyper aware of that. There’s a tension in my inner person that is tangible in my shoulders. My heart is prone to wander, as the hymn goes. I need Jesus so much. I’m waiting. Stuck in the ambiguous middle of a bunch of potential transition points. I’ve been praying for a new job by the end of summer, and have an initial interview this week. I’m not sure where I fit in at church, and have been praying about that, too. A vision for how to serve there has started to piece itself together, but I’m still so unsure of myself. I don’t know what calling means. Community groups are about to start up again, and ours was getting a bit funky before we paused for the summer. Not sure what it will be like when we resume. There are these men that I keep inadvertently stringing along because I don’t want to hurt their feelings by being honest about my complete lack of interest. I think the Lord is calling me to let go of a few very comforting things, but I’m scarred and unsure of his voice. It feels like junior high in a bad way.

And so I make pie. It’s become my ‘I’m feeling awkward and unsteady and need to be alone with butter for a little while’ stress release. That probably doesn’t even make sense. Basically, baking helps me to feel less dark and twisty inside. Last year it was challah that drew me into a really special, intimate sort of communion with Jesus. This year it’s pie. Pie is comforting and warm. If it’s smell had a name it would be ‘Welcome.’ It’s so simple. You take some really beautiful fruit and wrap it up in a package of golden, buttery goodness and bake it until its lovely scent has so filled your home that you can’t take it anymore and you pull it out of the oven to share it with your friends and neighbors because that’s what pie demands.

Jesus uses pie to soothe my angsty soul. When I got home from church today everything felt confused and muddy. I wanted answers and closure to some of these things I’ve been asking God about I hadn’t gotten any. Again. And then I made a peach pie and meditated on God’s provision and how he’s weaving his story through my broken, wayward life. On how I could make blue ribbon crust and still the best part of the pie will always be the fruit inside that I had nothing at all to do with creating. And life started to be hopeful again, not because I figured anything out but because the Lord in his great mercy reminded me of his sweetness. I got the only answer my anxious heart truly needed today: I am dancing over you as you make pie.

Plants

I have a little potted garden growing out on the walkway that runs along our apartment. It’s sort of an experiment in urban gardening – I’m learning all sorts of things for next year. Like that beets might not like pots. Bean and pea tendrils are infinite as long as they have something to climb up. Strawberries are sensitive to change. There is such a thing as too much water. I tend to compare myself to plants a lot – there are so many beautiful scriptures that liken us and the spiritual journey to agricultural elements and processes – trees, fields, branches. The natural world is a beautiful mirror of the story of God. All of creation speaks of the creator - the rhythm and deep mystery of it all. The whispers of the Divine are contained within a pea pod. I’ve been identifying with my garden a lot. Here are some reasons why:

1. You have to neglect watering certain plants and let them dry out or they won’t produce fruit, just lots of nice, green leaves. The production of fruit is directly correlated to dry seasons.

2. Starring at a plant doesn’t make it grow faster. Growth takes time. You cannot will flowers to come, they just do when they’re ready and they last for a season.

3. Gardening is hard and requires you to put in work and time, and yet it’s ultimately the Lord that makes things grow.

4. Seeds have to fall to the ground, die, and be buried in order to grow into new plants. New life comes out of death.

5. Sunlight is necessary.

6. For vegetable and fruit-bearing plants, the pretty little flowers have to die and fall away for the fruit to come.

7. I still don’t actually understand how tiny seeds become huge, life-giving plants. I get that light and water and good soil help this process along, but what actually makes a seed become a plant – how it knows what to do and does it faithfully – is beyond me. The heart is that way, too – all the ingredients can be there for a life surrendered to Christ, but the Holy Spirit has to come in and do something to the heart to turn a person to himself. It is deep magic.

Last week while I got ready for work, I was listening to a podcast from the church I attended in college. The sermon was about our call to usher the in-breaking Kingdom of God wherever we go. The pastor likened this call to the picture of a young family gardening together. The little kids with their plastic shovel and rake, so proud of themselves and all the hard work they’re doing to plant and make things grow, and the parents smiling on them, delighted in their desire to help, and also lovingly amused at their children's notion that the garden’s growth is rooted in their efforts with their little plastic shovels. The Father invites us to be part of planting his Kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven, but he is the one who does the real work. He cultivates the garden of the soul. It is deep magic.

Words

It’s ironic to write for a living and yet most of the time feel completely devoid of words that matter. When you write grants and reports for the majority of the week, it’s easy to get lost in jargon and monotony. I write all the time yet I feel like I have no words to express the places in my soul that need to be known. Like being desperately thirsty in the middle of the ocean. It’s almost cruel. I groan a lot lately when I try to speak. I try to give shape to what’s happening in my inner person and it comes out either unintelligible, or sounding really trite and pre-fabricated. Like something you’d find on an inspirational poster, right next to the furry kittens chasing a butterfly through a field. And yet here I am, writing in the most public of places. It’s absolutely terrifying. And I need to do it like I need to eat. For too long I have let my job and anxiety over a million things steal my words, my hope, my joy. Yet as Jesus is sweetly restoring my soul, I’m learning in a more true way than ever before that this life is a feast – the banquet of the King that he invites to be an active part of, both being fed by him and breaking that bread with our community. Ushering others to the table. I need to learn to find words for that, because feasts are meant to be shared. I’m an absolute child who understands very little about life or what’s to come, but I know I have a good and faithful Father who desperately wants to instruct my heart and invites me to taste and see that He is good.

I’m starting to see that maybe it’s been good for me to have lost my words for a while. My tendency is to over share, to speak too soon, and in so doing preempt what God is trying to say to me or the way he’s wanting to instruct those around me. Words are precious and powerful and shouldn’t be wasted. I’m learning – painfully, slowly – that some things need to remain hidden. I need to learn to be ok with treasuring things in my heart and not always putting words to them right away, if ever. But there are things that I need to voice (or type) in order to work out the groanings and find continuity and delight in the story God is weaving through my life and the community he’s placed me in. And so I will write about that here. I don’t know exactly how this will take shape, and I can’t promise anything earth-shattering or poetic or 100% theologically sound, but that’s ok because really this is just something my soul needs to do. It’s not about the result, it’s about the process. My cup is filled up and spilling over with joy in his presence. This is a space where I will channel some of the overflow.

faithful

So it turns out I'm really bad at this whole blogging business. No surprises there - I tend to get really excited about things in theory and then sort of suck with follow-through. But I'm trying to work on that...

We shipped my sister - my bean - off to the other side of the world yesterday. For the next year [at least] she's going to be teaching english to adorable little button-faced Korean children. Kendall left for her adventure, too - serving in the Peace Corps in Nicaragua. And Chelsea left for Uganda. All on the same day.

Part of me really longs to be in their shoes. Once the travel-to-obscure-places bug bites, it's darn near impossible to cure. [Not that I would want to be cured] But when I really think about it, I'm quite content and even happy to be where I am - in podunkie little Crescent City. Because that's where the Lord has called me for now, and as unexotic as it may be, I wouldn't trade it for any all-expense-paid foreign place that was outside of that will and design. I've done my share of floating on the outer rim of God's best for my life, and I really don't care to revisit that locale. 

Words can't do justice to how happy and proud I am of those three incredible girls for following the voice of God to the far reaches, and doing it with humility, grace, and thanksgiving. They have some of the most beautiful hearts I've ever had the honor of seeing, and I know they will do immeasurably great things by the grace of God.

It's amazing to me how when we step out in faith, God responds with 'right back at ya, kid'.... It really shouldn't surprise me. How many of those verses along the lines of 'seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you' have been ground into my little christian brain since I was old enough to memorize them for sunday school prizes? Seriously. Good thing my heart is finally catching up.

my brain: public

Blogging is a weird, weird concept. As if Facebook isn't enough.

But really, I suppose I believe there's a lot of value in processing things in such a way that allows other people to know and understand what's going on inside the dark recesses of my mind. Now that I live back in Crescent City and am for the majority of the year cut off from my closest friends and confidants, it seems almost imperative that I make a point of keeping some sort of record of the goings on in the life and times of Kirsten just so that getting the skinny doesn't have to be so overwhelming.

And so I shall blog.