HOW DID I MISS THIS???

More importantly, how did Father Anonymous miss this?

A few years ago I lived within range of a Catholic Radio Station and I listened to it all the time.  It was the fundi Catholics but was just much more fascinating than your typical Christian radio.  Some of the stuff they taught was right out of the stuff Luther railed against and I thought had been explained away in all of our ecumenical agreements.  

One of the preachers I loved to listen to was Father John Corapi.  Just for his voice alone.  Deep and gravely.  He was funny and a good speaker.  I didn't agree with much of what he said but sometimes he'd talk about basic faith stuff, like the need to lean on God that we all can agree on.  He was like the EWTN's pitch hitter.  The great defender of Mary, the Pope and the Catholic Church.  Not afraid to call a sin and sin and tell us all how bad this liberal, morally lax culture was. 

And apparently last year he was found guilty of sexual immorality and drug abuse.  And then he up and quit the church.  I just read about this yesterday.  I know this is an old story in more ways than one, but I was shocked.

I'm not above entertaining a little schedenfruede, but this was really disillusioning for me.  I can't imagine how this hit the people who agreed with him and admired and looked up to him.  I have to wonder... is EVERYONE screwing around?  Not to over share but I must assure you, I'm not.  I don't even have time.  How did he find the time?

And why is the Vatican going after the poor nuns when this seems to be a much bigger problem for them?  Maybe they should be doing a better job of watching over the boy stars.  

Oh and mister anonymous atheist  whatever you are calling yourself right now who always likes to post some smug anti Christian stuff on the comments that I never approve anymore.  Just don't bother.

Tradition, Vestments and Doing Whatever the Hell You Like

This post has been a long time coming.  I have been thinking about vestments for some time now.

It’s become quite fashionable for both pastors (often younger ones but not always) and lay people to decry vestments as somehow creating a barrier to “authentic” ministry because they create an artificial divide between pastors and lay people in worship.  What is a bit amusing is they always talk like they are the first ones to think of this.  Please.  

Anti-vestment sentiment is as old as anti-catholic prejudice.  

A former congregation of mine had it in their founding minutes in the 1830s that “no clergy shall wear vestments as there is nothing in scripture about this”

As one person put it “It makes it look like you are having a different experience in worship than the rest of us” My response to that is “Um, well, yea I am having a different experience.”  I’m leading the worship.  My view is literally different.  I’m saying and singing different stuff than everyone else.   That doesn’t make me better.  It makes me, um…the pastor.  The Pastor is different.  

New Lent Stole

I never thought of vestments as elevating me or making me special, I always thought of them as making me blend in more with the worship and furnishings.  I’m now serving where two of the churches do not have air conditioning and sometimes to keep from passing out (or distract the worshipers who fear I may pass out) I have to forgo the alb and I really do feel naked and self-conscious up there without my uniform.  

When I wear my vestments it’s not really me anymore.  I’m just part of the worship.  My part is to lead.

Another observation I find interesting is that the very pastors who argue that pastors are just like everyone else and should claim no special authority are the very ones who feel free to break with tradition and pretty much do whatever the hell they want. 

I hear of clergy wearing whatever they want, doing whatever they please with creeds, liturgies, even lighting the paschal candle every Sunday of the year for no other reason that I can surmise other than they feel like it.    That seems like using your pastoral authority to me.  Not in a valid way to my mind.  

Scapular

But I must confess to doing something similar when I began ministry.  When I started out buying vestments I decided I liked scapulars better than stoles.  They fit women’s bodies better than stoles.  

My justification was that they were aprons and that was just a valid symbolism of service as the stole.  

I did what I see a lot of younger pastors do now.  I broke with tradition to do what I liked and I made up my own symbolism to justify it. 

 I kind of regret that now.  I’m in the process of replacing them all now with stoles.  Which is kind of a shame because I really like a lot of the designs on them. 

 But it is fun to buy new stoles.   

I also bought a cassock.  Which is really pretty silly where I am.  I wore it with a surplice this Lent and I wear the cassock for funerals.  Being someone who spends a lot of time deciding what to wear – a cassock can be quite a relief.

I think this is what getting older does to you.  It makes you appreciate tradition more.  

It also makes you grumpy when you see others breaking with it so easily. 

 I suppose this is the way God planned it.  Younger people challenging the boundaries, older folks defending (yes I know that’s a stereotype, there are young conservatives and old iconoclasts) and somehow it is supposed to balance out. 

 I am more worried about pastors writing new creeds and new liturgies every week than what they wear.  I don't even like to worship at a strange ELCA church on vacation because I have no idea what I'm walking into.

  Anyway, I will probably wear my scapular with the cool three crosses this Sunday and my green one for a while as I still haven’t ordered a new green stole.

Friday Five-Inspiration and Catching Up

Taking a little credit for my daughter's cap and honors stole

The RevGalBlogPals are talking about Inspiration.  Well it's been a very inspiring weekend for me but I'm just going to go off script and not really answer the questions other than to say that first of all the RevGalBlogPals Friday Five have encouraged and inspired me to get back on my blog.  I have things I've wanted to write about but you know, serving three churches for a year and a half is starting to wear on me and I've had a lot of things going on.

I finished my training for Intentional Interim.  The final week was at Mount Olivet Retreat Center in Farmington Minnesota.  Talk about inspiration.  It's beautiful facility on beautiful grounds and the food is wonderful.  Their dining room is surrounded with big windows with bird feeders that are miked so you can hear the birds inside.  

The intentional interim training was really really intense but excellent, good learnings even if you aren't going into interim.  I really think I'm suited for that ministry but I do have worries of how the bills get paid if there is ever a time when there is nothing available.  OTOH I am reminded of how difficult it seems to be to find ANY kind of a call and how tenuous a so called "permanent" call is.

This weekend was very inspiring.  My daughter graduated from Augustana in Sioux Falls.   My sister flew out from California to come see it.  They really make a weekend out of it.  There was a reception for the Civitas Honours Program she was part of. 

 And then a fancy Senior dinner Friday night.  I bought these extremely cool five inch platform heel animal print shoes just to wear that night.  Because where else am I going to wear five inch heels?  Oh I wore them to the church Mother's Day brunch, but I digress.  Well believe it or not I actually have another pair of animal print shoes, but they have a lower heel and are old.  So I get to the hotel and realize I must have packed in the dark because I packed ONE OF EACH SHOE!  Oh I was so annoyed.  Bad words were uttered.  Fortunately I did pack another pair of decent shoes.  But see, I still looked good. 


 My sister never dresses up so we got her a new outfit.  We were just going out the glass revolving door, and BAM she walks into the glass door.  Bloodies her nose.  She had blood all over her shirt and we were not even sure it was not broken.  I had to leave her behind with my son (who does not have the patience for "Senior Nights").  The good news is that not only did she not break her nose, but there was no feared black eye either and she was able to attend the festivities the next day.

Altar at baccalaureate

Then there was the Baccalaureate, which honestly I think was more moving than the Commencement.   Beautiful Orchestra and Choir music.  Very inspiring.  Very cute when my daughter and her friends (who could choose who to process and sit together with for this) all decided to rhinestone their caps.  This is what comes from being a figure skating and learning to stone everything

Isn't she beautiful?

What has brought a lump to your throat or a tear to you eye in a good way?  Oh and did I mention the graduation was actually on her late father's BIRTHDAY?  I'd say there was more than *a* tear.  But all of it was in a good way.

 

Taking Sides

I've been meaning to say something about the Trayvon Martin case for a long time.  It's just been hard to get it out in a calm and rational way.

When I first heard that a young man was shot and killed for no real reason and the one who did it was let go on his own say so I was appalled.  What?  I just presented what happened in a biased manner?  I'm not being neutral?  I'm not acknowledging I don't really know what happened?  

Damned straight.  Because I am also appalled at the number of white people, white Christians, white ELCA members committing on Bishop Anderson's statement one facebook and the number of white ELCA pastors who all of a sudden are so interested in nuetrality and not taking sides.  Who are so unwilling to listen to the vast experience of African Americans when they say "HEY! Racism is alive and well.  This IS a race issue!  This happens more than you know!"  

And I'm so overwhelmed and discouraged that we can not move forward with race relations in this country.  And I don't know what I can do.  But I can do this.  I can take a side.  I can look into the grief filled eyes of a mother, the grace-filled, dignified face of Trayvon's mother, Sybrina Fulton and believe her.  Because one of the consequences of being on the margins of society is that no one believes you.  Well I can believe her.  

I'm not a judge or a jury so I get to make a judgment.  I get to take a side.  And I choose to believe Sybrina Fulton when she says her boy was an innocent victim.  I believe her when she says she knows that is her boy's screams on the 911 calls for help.  She doesn't believe her boy attacked George Zimmerman and I believe her.

I mean seriously.  Everybody felt free to judge that Casey Anthony was guilty of killing her daughter, even after she was pronounced not guilty by a jury of her peers.  But now all this "caution" for the sake of George Zimmerman.  Let's not rush to judgment for him.


Now I don't know that I believe Zimmerman consciously killed Travyon because he was black.  I think Zimmerman is a man who needed to feel important and strutting around the neighborhood watch with his gun made him feel important.  Tracking down a thief made him feel important.  I kind of feel sorry for him.   Yes I believe he got himself into this mess but I think of him as a sad little man who just wanted to feel important.  I think Trayvon died so he could feel important.  I wish there was some other way we could have made George Zimmerman feel important.  


I am convinced race had everything to do with the Sanford Police taking Zimmerman at his word, dumping young Trayvon in a morgue and making absolutely no effort to find out who he was until days later his parents had to file a missing person's report to find out where he was.  I do not believe for one second a white boy would have been treated that way.

I'm taking sides.  I believe Trayvon's mother.

Friday Five - Holy Week

So the RevGalBlogPals are talking about Holy Week:

I invite you to share five favorite Holy Week things, five things that are truly worshipful for you

1. I think its' possible that my very favorite worship service of the whole year is The Sunday of the Passion.  What I do every year is take whatever Gospel we are in for the lectionary - this year it is Mark and I just take the whole passion story beginning with the entry with Palms, divide it up among readers for the various characters and I read the narrator, and intersperse Lent and Holy week hymns.  I always end with "Ah Holy Jesus".  I find it very moving.  It may be the one worship service I lead where I can actually worship.

2.  Art:I love to find Holy Week art.  So many different representations of the events of Holy Week. I've recently discovered Pinterest.  Oh have I discovered Pinterest.  Here's my Holy Week Board 

3. Handel's Messiah  I'm going to put Bach's St. Matthew Passion for the bonus, which I love, but really what I do during Holy Week is play all of the second part of the Messiah during Holy Week.  I just couldn't put all of that on here.

4. Holy Thursday:  the beginning absolution, when people come up and I place my hands on them and say "In obedience to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all your sins"  I have done it for the first time at most of the congregations I've served.  That first time I always worry that no one is going to come up.  But they do come up.  They are hungering to hear those words.  I am humbled to say those words.

5. Holy Saturday - I like to hold my first communion workshop on Holy Saturday.  Here's a post from last year.  I always think about finding a church that holds an Easter Vigil but when it comes down to it, I just want a quiet Saturday evening and try to go bed early for the sunrise Easter worship.

Bonus:  a piece of music that "is" Holy Week for you: 
Bach - St. Mattew Passion

Just What IS the Point of Foot Washing?

Foot washing at 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly

I suppose I should begin with a confession/disclaimer.  I have issues with being touched by people I don't know.  

This did not use to be a bad thing.  We used to have certain social boundaries that I kind of wish we still had. 

Like I don't appreciate the store checker, whom I do not know, reading my check and calling me by my first name as though we were good friends.  It used to mean something when you called someone by their first name.  It meant you had a relationship.  But you had to earn that relationship.  It didn't' just happen because you started calling each other by first names.

This is what I'm getting at.  Everyone wants community and God forbid "intimacy" but they don't' really want to work at  it.  

The guy at the large public worship service wants the right to hug me without earning my trust.  I don't understand how the fact that we are both at a public worship service gives him the right to grab me and force his body against me in a hug during the peace after I've kindly extended my hand to him for a handshake.  That's not peace.  It's not community.  It's certainly not intimacy.  It's rude and selfish.  The opposite of what the peace is supposed to be about.

So what's this got to do with foot washing?  Well, it's a long-standing church tradition to follow Jesus' example and wash each others feet on Maundy Thursday.  No church I've served at has had that practice and I haven't felt called to introduce it.  I would do it if I had to.  But I would not like it.  

So that fun new ELCA clergy facebook likes to argue about this a lot.  Some people do a hand washing because people are kind of funny about having their feet washed.  Some say this an innovation that is not helpful and not scriptural (unless you want to remember Pilate washing his own hands).  Me?  I don't want to do either one but if pressed, I'd have to go with the traditional foot washing.  

What bothers me about the argument is how many people say this is such a powerful, moving "intimate" practice.  And there's always that hint that people like me who  don't want people touching my feet are being like Peter who didn't want Jesus to wash his feet.  

But this practice is not about intimacy or having a "powerful experience" in worship.  

It's a symbol of humble SERVICE.  I'm not even sure Jesus meant for us to copy it and do exactly that in a liturgy.  I think he meant for us to,  you know, go out and SERVE people HUMBLY.  Like maybe we should go wash each others toilets.

Kings and Popes used to go out and wash beggars feet on Maundy Thursday.  

That was very nice.  Of course, at the end of the day, Kings were kings and popes were popes and beggars were beggars.  Probably the beggars did not feel as warm and fuzzy as the kings and popes did.

So it's fine to wash feet on Maundy Thursday and if I had to I would.  But if we really want intimacy and community, we don't achieve that instantly by a festival of inappropriate touching. 

I think the best way to create community is to work together in service, working together to make a world where there's an equal place at the table for kings and popes and beggars.  

We do it by the hard work of humility, of kings and popes and beggars, and everyone between, working together, listening to each other.  Instead of washing feet, let's listen to each other.  

The latest horror of the killing of Trayvon Martin showed me  whites need to listen to blacks more.  

Instead of washing someone else's feet, maybe we all need to just clean out our ears.  

And then, after we've worked together, learned to trust one another, listened to each other, then probably you can hug me AND wash my feet.  Or not.

What does this Facebook Urban Legend and The Help have in Common?

I think I'm annoying my friends with my insistence on pointing out most of the amazing photos and inspiring true stories that get posted and reposted on facebook are not true.  The latest is this one:  With this photo

A 50- something year old white woman arrived at her seat on a crowded flight and immediately didn't want the seat. The seat was next to a black man. Disgusted, the woman immediately summoned the flight attendant and demanded a new seat. The woman said "I cannot sit here next to this black man." The fight attendant said "Let me see if I can find another seat." After checking, the flight attendant returned and stated "Ma'am, there are no more seats in economy, but I will check with the captain and see if there is something in first class." About 10 minutes went by and the flight attendant returned and stated "The captain has confirmed that there are no more seats in economy, but there is one in first class. It is our company policy to never move a person from economy to first class, but being that it would be some sort of scandal to force a person to sit next to an UNPLEASANT person, the captain agreed to make the switch to first class." Before the woman could say anything, the attendant gestured to the black man and said, "Therefore sir, if you would so kindly retrieve your personal items, we would like to move you to the comfort of first class as the captain doesn't want you to sit next to an unpleasant person." Passengers in the seats nearby began to applause while some gave a standing ovation.
If you are against racism, share this

Oh my God - if I don't' share it does it mean I'm not against racism? 

According to Snopes.com - this has been around a while, at least since 1998.  The villain started out as a South African.

Well so what if it didn't happen, what's wrong with sharing it?  I dunno..aren't' there any TRUE stories of people standing up against injustices and discrimination?   And what is wrong with this picture?  It's All WHITE people. 

It's the opposite of the story of the Good Samaritan where the hero is a marginalized outsider.  Here the hero is the white attendant who has the power and authority to resuce the poor oppressed black man by sending him on up to the first class, and all the WHITE people cheer.  And don't we white people feel good about ourselves after reading this.  Share this if you are against racism.  There I've posted it.  I've done my bit for the cause.  Good for me.

I have a lot of Black friends on Facebook.  None of them have posted that story.   Maybe because they have stories of REAL heroes to share.  Maybe we should listen to their stories instead of passing around fake stories of white heroes that make us feel good and let us forget that racism is a lot more complicated to deal with than finding a Black man a seat in First Class.

Day 5 of the Great Lenten Purge - Sewing

In order to get rid of stuff, you have to acknowledge who you are now. 

I used to sew quite a bit.  I don't sew anymore.  That's okay.   What is not okay is hanging on to spools of threads of every color, zippers, and buttons that I will never use.

My mother was an amazing seamstress.  (Lord if I'd known how much this was going to be about my mother I doubt I'd have taken this on) She never had much money but she dressed like she did.   She made most of my clothes which I did not appreciate.  Because we did not have a lot of money and I dressed like I did.  I think the last thing she made for me was my wedding dress. 

Because she sewed for me and because she was so good at it and because she had no patience for teaching me anything (She paid for me to have private driving lessons because she couldn't stand to be in the car with me driving)  I did not learn to sew from her. 

Sarah in a typical Easter Dress and matching

doll dress.  How about that hat?

When my kids were little I just bought some fabric and a pattern and started making clothes for my kids. 

I never was as good as she was.  I'm not good with detail so my seams are never straight and the zipper never quite right, but it was good enough for them.  


Every Easter I made my daughter a dress with a petticoat, pinafore, matching bow AND matching dress for her doll.  Until she was eight and asked "Mom could I have a dress that's not poofy?"

I used to make really loud and gaudy matching shirts that we all wore when we went on family vacations.  It was a good way of keeping track of everyone.  If the kids wandered off, other people around knew who they belonged to.  My husband, bless his heart, wore those crazy shirts I made without complaint.  In fact,  I think he liked wearing them. 

I think the last thing I made was a gown for my daughter to wear to her winter formal.  It was very stressful because I did not want her to go to a dance looking like she was wearing a home-made gown.  She seemed happy with it but it was not enjoyable.

I haven't sewn other than to hem or take in or repair clothing for years.  I'm not interested in sewing anymore.  I don't need all that sewing stuff anymore.  I don't need to pass them by in the room I still call the sewing room  and feel guilty that I don't sew anymore.  I don't have to sew.  If I want to sew something again I'll buy another spool of thread.

I wonder if one of the difficulties of letting go of stuff is admitting that you have changed.  

You don't like what you used to like.  You don't do what you used to do.  And that's okay.  Life changes.  I'm not a young wife and mother going on family vacations with young kids anymore.  Keeping the stuff around doesn't change that.  

Keeping stuff around doesn't make time stand still, nor would I want time to stand still.  

Like I (and I imagine every other pastor in town) said on Transfiguration Sunday, you can't build those tents on the mountain top and stay there forever.

I think there's a lot here about change, letting go of the past, and making room for the future involved in getting rid of stuff. 

 I wish I could lead a lot of churches I know through this discipline.  It would help.

What's in YOUR Refridgerator?

I've renamed my Lenten Discipline to the "Great Lenten Purge" rather than Giveaway.  

It's about getting rid of stuff I don't need.  Some of the stuff I don't need - nobody needs.

Today it was the refrigerator.  Seems like a pretty mundane job we all have to do every once in a while.  

There's a wonderful little book "Father Melancholy's Daughter" about the daughter of a widowed Episcopalian priest who suffers from depression.  

She cleans out the refrigerator on Maundy Thursday.  This was not a mundane job for her:

I decided to honor Maundy Thursday by cleaning the kitchen. This was the day for getting clean and starting over. In ancient times penitents prostrated themselves before the congregation, and after prayers were read over them and hands laid on them, they were readmitted to communion.

If you were high and mighty, it was your especial duty to humble yourself on this day, in keeping with the mandatum of Christ, "that you love one another even as I have loved you." Queen Elizabeth the First, "kept her Maundy" in the great hall at Westminster by washing the feet of twenty poor women.

In monasteries all over Christendom today, abbots and superiors knelt down on bare floors, washing and patting dry the feet of the lowliest kitchen monks....

I attacked the spice shelf, unscrewing each bottle and sniffing; if there wasn't a definite smell of an herb or a spice, it went sailing into the trash bag. Better to have a clean space filled with nothing, than a cluttered space filled with things that were of no use to you anymore. My rubric for getting through this day.

I did a ruthless number on the refrigerator. Out went the rest of Miriam Stacy's tuna and noodle casserole, plastic container and all, .... We had far too many plastic and metal-foil containers that jammed drawers when we tried to open them or clattered down on our heads from top cabinets, when we were looking for something else....

The big black plastic garbage bag was filling fast. One must purify one's refrigerator with the same rigor as one purified one's heart.

 Gail Godwin, Father Melancholy's Daughter

Cleaning the refrigerator can be a profound activity.

We all have those containers pushed to the back corner.  
Inside they contain stuff that at one time was wonderful but now it could kill you if you ate it.  

That's true of so much of our lives.  

It's not just the bad habits we always had.  There are things in our lives, in the way we think, the way we approach life, that were good for us at one time.  

Now they don't work anymore and hanging on to them is killing us.  

That's true of the church.  It's true of me personally.  

Why do I let them get so bad, back there in the corner of the refrigerator?  

Well at first I think I'm going to eat it one of these days.  

Then it dawns on me that I'm not not, and it's going bad.  

And I don't want to deal with it.  Push it further behind the other stuff.  Out of sight, out of mind.  

But it doesn't go away.  

It gets worse and stinks up the refrigerator.  Eventually it's best not even to open it up and look at it.  Throw the whole thing away. 

Not every wound needs to be opened up and looked at and relived and analyzed.  

There's a lot in our lives we can just throw out, unopened.  Let it go.  Forget about it. 

I'm celebrating my clean refrigerator by making some bacon wrapped, cream cheese stuffed jalapenos.  I can smell them baking now.  Tomorrow we will go through some books.

The Great Lenten Give Away

I'm not one for Lenten discipline.  

It always seems to turn into being all about "ME" and what I've given up, or how I'm going to be more healthy or be a better Christian.  Whatever ME ME ME.  Kind of not what Lent is supposed to be about I think.

But an idea on Facebook captured my attention.  Forty Days, give away 40 items of "stuff".  I'd been thinking I need to get rid of more stuff before I move.  

I think it would be good to do this in a deliberate, prayerful and reflective way.  It will be a lot about me.  That's okay because it can be just as problematical avoiding thinking about yourself.  Sometimes it needs to me about me.

I've already decided I'm not going to just give away 40 things.  Because I have more than 40 things I don't need.  I'm going to do it thematically, and do some de-cluttering every day.  Except for Sunday.  And if I just can't.  

Because I'm much more into grace than discipline. 

Hanging on to stuff is an issue for me.  I attach sentimental value to things.  I like to collect things.  I like to think someday I'm going to use things I haven't used for years.  

When I watched the TV show Hoarders I saw seriously disturbed people living in horrendous conditions use some of the very same excuses for not getting rid of stuff that I have used.  That is scary stuff.

I first became convicted of this when I moved by myself in 2005.  I had an attic.  I had so much stuff I hadn't used or worn in five years.  Good stuff. Stuff other people could have used.  I realized how selfish it was to keep in the attic.  Downright sinful in fact.   

I got better but it's still a struggle.  So this is not just about cleaning house, it's a spiritual task as well. (I would have said "journey" but all the folk on the clergy Facebook page are making fun of people who use "journey" in Lent talk)

My bedroom closet

So today I started with clothes.  

I like clothes.  

I have a lot of clothes. I don't feel bad about liking and having nice clothes.  I do feel bad that I have perfectly nice clothes other people could wear hanging in the closet unworn. 

another closet just for jackets

So I went through the closets (yes plural) pretty ruthlessly.  I've done this before so I know the drill.  If it doesn't fit right or I haven't worn it in a year, it needs to go.  

There were these two jackets my Mom made for me when I was in my 20s that break both those rules.  They've escaped every other purge.  Not today.  

I think I used to keep them because they were supposed to prove my mom cared about me.  They just proved my mom liked to sew. 

 They are old but still look good and someone else will enjoy them.  They are not doing any good in my closet.  

At least I don't do the "Sometime I'll lose weight and it will fit" I used to do.  I've long gotten rid of clothes too small and I haven't gained weight in several years.  But why would I want to keep clothes that remind me I've gained weight?  And if I do lose weight, of course, I'll want to buy new clothes!  

I do have some clothes that I didn't realize till I got home that they didn't really fit right.  I thought it was frugal to wear them anyway.  

No.  It's not good to wear ill-fitting clothes for any reason.  

Out they went.

Tomorrow I'll go through the linen closet.  I actually need new sheets.  I keep using old ones that don't fit the mattress and slide off.  I have lots of old comforters that are stained with cat puke and wine.  I think I will give those to an animal rescue.  

Other items to go through, Christmas decorations I never take out, books, kitchen items that I haven't unpacked in a year so why do I need them?  

Sewing equipment, probably all my counted cross stitch yarn, my eyes aren't good enough for that anymore.  

I will have to go through my shoes but that's going to be hard.  I do wear all my shoes.  But I have a lot of them.  I'm going to need to build up some spiritual strength before tackling that.

What do you have in your closet you haven't used in years that someone else would use?

King Cake

I don't make this very often.  

I do serve pancakes on Fat Tuesday.  It's funny (well it's not funny) how many people do these things having no idea why.  
Of course pancakes were a good way to make sure you didn't waste any left over eggs, milk and oil that you would have to give up for your Lenten fast.  

Fast?  What's that?  

And why would anyone think it was a sacrifice to give up eggs and milk.  We take those for granted and consider them staples not the luxuries they were to many long ago and millions even today.

Doesn't seem right  celebrating Mardi Gras, if you aren't intending to go without anything in Lent.  I should talk though, I never was one for giving up stuff for Lent.

Anyway - King Cake:  

King Cake is really appropriate anytime in Epiphany (Names after the Three Kings)  but it's also become a tradition during Carnival. It's really more a sweet bread, than a cake. 

Cake

1 Cup Milk

1/4 Cup butter meleted

2 packets yeast

1/2 Cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp salt

4 cups (more or less) flour

1/2 tsp nutmeg

Scald the milk and take it off the fire, add butter.  Let it cool a  little, pour in a food processor, add yeast and sugar and pulse.  Add salt, nutmeg, 1 egg and half  a cup of flour.  Pulse until blended, then add egg and keep adding flour a half cup at a time until it pulls all together.  

Take it out, put it on a flour board, knead it in flour until it's elastic.  

Note:  you really should have some experience with bread making to do this.  If that scares you, I think you could make this with frozen sweet roll dough.  

(Baking and kneading bread is not hard, just takes a little practice) 

Pour a little oil in a large bowl,  coat the dough with oil, cover, leave in a warm place for about 2 hours.  It should rise to about twice it's size.

While that's rising, make the filling:

• 1 Cup Golden  raisins
• 1 cup dried cranberries (this is my idea - I had some and I thought they were pretty good)
• 1/2  Cup brown sugar.  
• 1/4 Cup melted butter
• 1/2 Cup chopped pecans
• 1/2 Cup Bourbon

Soak the raisins and cranberries in the bourbon while the dough is rising.  Mix it all together except for the butter

After the dough is risen, divide it in two balls.  Roll them out into a large rectangles.  Spoon the filling in the middle, then pour melted butter over the filling.  Roll them up into two logs and put them together to make a ring.  Cover and let them rise again about 40 minutes.

Bake at 375 for 30 minutes.

Mix Two cups of powdered sugar,  a tablespoon of bourbon and a few tablespoons of water.  Brush the glaze on the cake while still warm, then sprinkle alternating colored sugar - purple, gold and green. Pour any left over glaze over that.  

The Plastic Baby.  

It's traditional to stick a plastic baby (the baby Jesus) in the cake.  Who ever gets it has to make the cake next time.  

I put it in the filling.  Some people feel weird about baking plastic in a cake and stick in through  the bottom after it's done backing.  

If you buy a cake, they give you the baby separate.