It’s going to take a LOT of lemonade!

I feel like I’m being stalked by lemons.

First there’s the when life gives you lemons line. After much contemplation by all the adults, and considerable conversation about what the girls might be learning, we’ve decided to postpone our Thanksgiving togetherness plans for a safer time.

I wholeheartedly believe it’s the right decision. It just hurts like hell. Or, as the title implies, it’s going to take a big bunch of lemonade to make it feel better.

However, I did promise you my magic Turkey Timeline and I haven’t forgotten. Just one more lemonade story on the way…

You see, I’ve been busy learning new things. I was sitting in a Zoom meeting when Charlie Brown’s friend/nemesis, Lucy, popped into my head.

It took a minute to make the connection, until I remembered Lucy’s “lemonade” stand where, now and then, “the Doctor” was in. And (Don’t laugh!) I suddenly found a couple of mental puzzle pieces which felt like they’d been hiding under the couch for quite a while.

You’ll have to wait for the details. Let’s just say, for now, that there is lemonade to be made, even in this world, and I’ve got a recipe!

So, without further ado…

Sue’s Magic Turkey Timeline…

We’re going to work backwards… First pick the time you want to eat.

ie. 6:00 pm Thursday

Start Cooking @ 2:00 pm (Yes! It’s both possible and fabulous!)

Brine bird @ 8 – 10pm Wednesday (If your bird is still a bit icy, no worries. Brine on!)

Wednesday at dinner – if, like us, you want wild rice dressing, you could cook the wild rice while you’re fixing dinner on Wed. It keeps well in fridge.

Set bird to thaw (IN FRIDGE) Monday, about lunch time.

This magic formula assumes you’ll roast your turkey like we do. (You really, really want to!) Recipe to follow on Sunday. OR, you could get a digital download of We Gather Together, here, and you’ll know (almost) all my secrets!

ps… The photo is my Vivid Legend painting today. Otherwise known as Grammy Learning New Things!

pss… Some of that “lemonade” I mentioned could make a great gift for someone really special! You can email me at suesvoice@gmail.com and ask to be on the first-to-know list…

Fear, Objections, and Moving On…

About 5 years ago, I wrote a book. It was published in very late October with exactly this time of year in mind.

It’s a really cool book, with just enough typos to balance my perfectionist tendencies while encouraging me to do a new edition. This year may have convinced me.

The book is called WE GATHER TOGETHER… holiday feasts with the family you have! And then there’s a note below the title.

Notes on contemporary food culture, menu plans, and delicious recipes to help everyone feel welcome!

You guessed it. I wasn’t planning for a pandemic when I wrote it. But here I am, planning two Thanksgiving feasts. One for the turkey eaters. Bill and me. And one for the fish folks. Our kids. Who, in theory, are coming, though the numbers in Georgia aren’t looking optimistic.

The chapter which shares its name with the title of this post begins this way:

Change is hard. Thanksgiving has been celebrated as a federal holiday each year since 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln declared a national day of Thanksgiving and Praise on the last Thursday in November. Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year’s Day, Easter, and the Fourth of July, among many others, have traditions with roots deep in our psyches. And we, well most of us, feel more comfortable with that which is familiar.

Which means, that while my sister and brother-in-law are likely to get their Thanksgiving feast from Boston Market, it will certainly include turkey and mashed potatoes and what passes for gravy. Not, perhaps, a perfect plan, but familiar enough to be comforting.

Students of neuro-linguistic programming remind us that some of us “sort for” same and some for different. Boiled down, this means that most of us, when given a choice will pick things that feel familiar, while there are a few of us adventurers who will choose things that are new, or novel. Often these folks marry each other and create no end of holiday stress trying to work it all out!

-Boardman, 18.

It seems to me that even those of us who sort for same may need to experiment with different this year. But here’s the big thing. While the details may be different, we can still sort for same… which is love.

And, at our house, the eventual brining of a turkey. Back to We Gather Together:

Brining: This is optional but I highly recommend it. I’ve tried both wet and dry brines and I like dry the best. It’s easier, often cheaper, a lot less messy, and ultimately, more effective. And it has no sugar! The purpose is to season the bird, while holding juices in the muscle for a moist, tender turkey, with gorgeous, crispy, perfectly seasoned skin. Wash your hands a lot during the process! You’ll need:

Coarse grey Celtic sea salt

Freshly ground pepper (black or mixed colors)

Dried thyme (or other herbs as desired)

A pan large enough to hold the turkey loosely. (ie Eco-foil from your local supermarket. Nobody’s perfect!)

Mix together in a small bowl: 4 Tbsp. coarse sea salt with 2 Tbsp. ground pepper and 1 1/2 Tbsp crushed, dried thyme, etc., if desired. (You can also do this with just salt, in which case you may need an extra Tbsp. for coverage.) Don’t use regular table or fine grind salt! It leaves a bitter taste and you have to reduce the amount significantly so it’s hard to cover the whole bird without making it too salty.

For an 18-20 pound, thawed turkey, remove any neck and innards. Reserve them for other uses, as needed. I freeze the neck, heart, and gizzard for soup stock. (At least I did before our family included two raw-fed Newfies!) The liver is great for dirty rice and may be frozen, separately, or fed to dogs. Pat bird dry, inside and out, with paper towels and place bird in pan. If using foil pan, place that on top of a sheet tray for stability.

Working in the pan, season the inside and outside of the bird well. Get down around the wings and legs and thighs. Leave uncovered or cover loosely with foil or freezer paper. Place in fridge, preferably the old one in the basement, and just leave it alone for up to 3 days. I like 18-24 hours.

Boardman, 81,ff.

I love this dry brining magic so much that I keep a jar, all mixed and ready in the pantry. Roast chicken. Big, thick pork chops. Yummy lamb chops, especially when figs are in season where you live. It’s all better with dry brining. And local, sustainably raised meat! (Ask me about times for these smaller pieces of meat.)

Check back Wednesday for my magic turkey timeline!

And if, by chance, you’re planning different things this year, for whatever reason, here’s a wild idea. Send jigsaw puzzles to the various places your family is staying safe and set up a Zoom meeting to work on them together!

ps… Some of my art is suddenly available in jigsaw puzzles! Click here to be magically transported to the new tradition land of puzzles.

pps… We’ll also be making prayer dots for the millions of families struggling with the pandemic in this season.

Pieces of a legend…

I’m having a bit of re-entry shock. It was, in a metaphorical sense, a looooong way down the mountain from the legendary painting adventure known as Vivid.

And when I got back down the mountain, all the things I hadn’t gotten done before were waiting for me. (I can see you nodding!)

I won’t bore you with the details, except to say that there’s handy homeowner stuff on that list. And holiday prep stuff. And learning stuff. LOTS of learning stuff.

Oh, and Luther has grungy ears and decided blowing coat would be helpful which means a whole bunch of other stuff, besides.

Intriguingly, it’s my first Legend painting that’s whispering the comforting thoughts in my ear. Here she is:

Wow, has she taught me a lot!

You can use your imagination on what some of those teachings might be. There’s one, though, that I especially want to share tonight.

You see, her name is Follow Your Heart. I have followed my heart to this time and place. I suspect following it into the future will mean coming out from under the rock where I sometimes hide.

Being visible. Entering the world as a living symbol that love conquers all. Gathering my beloveds and inviting them into their own legendary futures.

It’s going to take a lot of us. Women who understand the need for loving legends in our families and our world.

We have the power to change lives. I’m saying yes. And I’ll have more to share soon about how you might join me. For today, Follow Your Heart is hanging out in my special Etsy holiday gift shop, in a couple of different forms, along with some of her best buddies, ready to follow you home and remind you, the way she reminds me.

It’s the red-winged blackbird in her hair!

ps… Luther says to remind you that he’s legendary, too!

My clown name was Hope!

I’ve been thinking a lot about hope this week. For the obvious reasons, of course. For some other reasons, as well.

As I mentioned on Wednesday, I’ve spent this week, virtually, in California at a retreat with some of the most amazing women I’ve ever known.

Together, we set out on Legendary journeys. Each day had its own question. In her enthusiasm, our fearless leader mentioned the last question – today’s question – on Thursday, I think.

What does your soul long to express?

I knew the answer immediately.

HOPE!

I’ve known this at some level for a while now. Probably since my girls came along. Hence my book, Grandmothers Are In Charge Of Hope.

And hope is a familiar notion for many pastors. At least those of the tribe I tend to hang with.

I’ve been carting an index card around for a couple of days now. There it is, in big letters… HOPE!

Just between us, this has been something of a challenging week on that front, in the afraid-to-hope kind of way.

I burst into sobs of relief when Bill found me getting ready to go back to California for the day and announced that Pennsylvania had been called for Joe Biden. And I, who have been news-avoidant for several years, have been glued to CNN, torn between wanting to take to the street with the dancing rejoicers and praying that they’re not sharing the Covid virus with their joy.

I used to be a nurse.

Eventually, I took a break from CNN and turned back to my Legendary self. That’s when I remembered. My clown name was Hope.

An explanation is clearly in order.

In the mid ’80’s, before I entered Columbia Theological Seminary to study for the ordained ministry, I did some work with a youth pastor in Florida who led a troupe of clown ministers.

Well, actually they were teenagers, willing to be, in a very real sense of the phrase, fools for Christ.

I remember helping with make-up lessons one weekend. Each clown learned to put a small red teardrop beneath the outer corner of their left eye as a symbol of the love of Yeshua.

And we each chose names. Back in those days when I was a mostly-broke single mom about to embark on a road I couldn’t imagine, I chose Hope. (Or, perhaps, Hope chose me.)

I remembered that today.

It feels, in many ways, like a good day for that.

It also feels like a good time to realize that many things are possible and not all of them would make good sense.

Which, at the risk of being redundant, may be why we hope in the first place.

And also in the last.

ps… Channeling my British ancestors, for just a moment, may God save Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. And all of us.

pps… The painting is clearly suffering through new visionary encounters requiring, well, editing but she graciously agreed to appear, teardrop and all.

Thin places…

As you may have noticed… I like learning new things!

The concept of thin places is one of those new things, just now. According to Celtic traditions, a thin place is where one can walk in two worlds. Such places are not experienced with our usual senses of seeing, hearing, touching, etc. They are, rather, more occasions of gnosis… the Greek word for the knowledge of spiritual mysteries.

This feels like a time of thin places.

The moon will be full early in the morning. I’m not an expert on the lore and symbols of the moon. (We didn’t cover that in Seminary!) I can tell you that the moon is considered by some to be the feminine co-creative energy of God, as you see in my painting, The Co-Creative Soul.

In non-pandemic years, we would be celebrating (or avoiding) Halloween. The Beasties don’t understand but I’m glad for their sakes that we’re avoiding the ghoulies and ghosties this year. Too much door bell ringing!

Personally, I prefer the tradition of All Saint’s Day, observed on November 1.

Growing up, all I knew about Saints was that the Catholic kids in our neighborhood got to stay home from school on a whole bunch of days we public school kids didn’t and it had something to do with Saint days.

If you’ve been hanging around a while you’ve heard me tell this next story before…

When I was working on my doctorate, I was taking an on-campus class at Columbia Theological Seminary which is just down the road from where we live in Decatur, GA.

Walter Brueggemann was teaching about Imagination. (If only I’d known then where that would lead me!) He was also preaching in chapel, on November the first.

Now, Saints don’t come up much in chapel at a Presbyterian seminary. At least they didn’t somewhere in the mid 1990’s. Walter, thinking perhaps that we needed a bit more education, decided to explain things.

Saints, he said, are all the people who believe for us on days when we can’t quite believe for ourselves.

I’m not sure that’s how those long-ago Catholic kids learned it, but Walter’s version totally works for me and I’m blessed with a list full of those folks.

I’m betting you are, too, if you just ponder about it for a few minutes. And the world is better when we remember and choose to believe.

Then there’s the thin place looming over any American who’s paying even the slightest attention, along with most of the world. The election.

I’m reminded of realizing, a while back, that we don’t really have control over much of anything. On good days, we have influence.

And, like so many of you, I have influenced myself to the point of exhaustion over this one. Now, we wait.

And vote, just in case you haven’t yet.

And put it all out there with our friends and family about why we’ve chosen what we have, if they’re still wondering what they will choose.

That can be scary. It’s also an act of huge courage and hope in a world that needs both, desperately.

There’s no telling, in this moment, how long this particular thin place will last. For now, hug (virtually, if need be) the ones you love. Make one more contribution, even if it needs to be smaller than your email suggests! Give someone a ride to the polls if you can. Remind yourself, if it helps, that we’ve been through thin places before. And know that there are still lots of us believing. (Probably not all at the same time, but it works, anyway!)

ps… Many of you live in other lands. I think I speak for lots of Americans when I say that we’d be grateful if you were believing with us, too!

pps… #Biden/Harris2020

Can you see it???

Today, I went to a meeting. In and of itself, that’s clearly not news!

It was an online meeting, all quarantine appropriate, and full of people I didn’t know before.

It doesn’t matter so much, in this moment, what the meeting was about. Here’s what you need to know:

Over 700 people, from all over the world. Kenya, Canada, USA, France, Mexico, Ireland, Brazil, the Ukraine, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Trinidad & Tobago, the UK… and those were just the ones I caught going past in the chat!

If you’ve been to meetings like this, you may be familiar with the quotes going by on the screen in the beginning. One caught my eye…

Don’t be pushed by your problems… be led by your dreams. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

And there, in that little spot of www.land, I found some hope in the midst of what I’ve been experiencing as election terror.

The hope came, mostly, from being surrounded by hundreds of strangers all there because they, too, have dreams for their lives and our world.

I’ve already voted and, as far as I can tell, my job in this moment is to keep dreaming a better nation. A better world. Because, as I’ve mentioned, I have two granddaughters growing up in this world.

Chances are you have a similar motivation for the future.

Let it be conscious. I know it feels safer to try to bury it, so that disappointment isn’t so scary, but that’s not going to work. Please, please, please let yourself believe in whatever it is that keeps you getting out of bed in the morning and doing the good you can.

In the coming weeks, I’ll have some more information about the meeting, and about what I’m up to. And some ideas about how you might get involved…

For today, check out the art, above. It’s under layers of a painting from a year or so ago. If you look closely, you might just find an eye, gazing with hope into the future.

ps… Hi from Phoebe and Luther who have been helping by, you know, not eating roofers and such!

How often do you think about your roof?

It’s pouring rain outside right now and I, rather oddly for this point in my week, am giving thanks for our roof.

When the rain started, I dug out from under all the blog writing tools in my lap and went around the house, checking. Five skylights, none leaking. No water over the door to the basement. And tears rolled down my cheeks.

You see, we have a new roof. It’s been quite a production.

To be honest, we’ve needed it for a while. The old one was the least expensive version when it went up 20 years ago and a good 10 years past its official life-expectancy. Which is to say, this really wasn’t much of a surprise. It just hadn’t made its way to the top of the list until it did.

Many decisions were involved. How to get the most possible good out of wise spending. How to do some good for the rest of the world while we were doing good for us. How to invest in something longer range than a box of bandaids.

Going through this adventure has made me even more conscious than usual of all the souls on this planet who would be beyond amazed to have a dependable roof. To have choices about a roof. To be able to think beyond the next rainstorm.

We’re not done with the drama. There are several more adventures related to the roof yet to come. And there’s a good chance they’ll be just as much hassle in the doing as the roof has been.

The bottom line is that we are fortunate enough to get to choose the questions. Questions that affect us and our family and, with a bit of perspective and a smidge of imagination, you and your family and all the families who are our global neighbors.

I’ve learned, as many of you know, most of what I know about Civics from watching The West Wing. It’s not a perfect educational plan, perhaps, but it works for me. And I suspect that our roofing adventure is a fair model for what we, not only as Americans, but as world citizens, are going through just now.

When you get right down to it, it’s about the questions we’re asking. My prayer is that we ask wisely.

ps… the art work is a smidge of a painting known as Abundance Muse. For me, dandelions are not weeds, they’re a really good picture of hope, even in the rain!

pps… dandelions are prayer dots, too!

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