choose your own adventure Christian romance novel

This morning I found out that the deadline for the AIDS book I've been "almost" done with since last summer has been extended from tomorrow until next week (sometime). I don't know if I feel more relieved (lots of work left to do) or horrified (another week of this?). In the meantime I just needed to let my brain have a little vacation, getting caught up with my Google blog reader.

Where I found this from the always-hilarious guy at Stuff Christians Life. Read and laugh.

Christian Romance Novels (with a special choose your own adventure version)

(It was either post this or a really horrifying article about the persecution of homosexuals in Africa, read if you are up for a really horrifying article today)

food for thought

If God is satisfied with the work, the work may be satisfied with itself.

C.S. Lewis, in The Weight of Glory

hit by a bus

I don't mean that metaphorically-- I really was hit by a bus this morning. A few minutes after 9, I was late for a meeting in Cambridge, and right across the street from my destination I entered the crosswalk (I did have a walk signal) and suddenly there was a bus in my face. I don't know how I didn't see it until it was right there, but I was focused on getting to my meeting and listening to my iPod and I was supposed to be in that crosswalk...

It was one of those very long moments-- I saw the bus about a foot away from my face, she saw me through the glass of the bus door, but it was too late for either one of us to do anything. I was hit at about the front door and apparently went flying and smacked my head on the ground. I think there is a second I don't remember because I don't really remember hitting my head, but a witness says I did. I just remember both my shoes flying off and being on the ground and then struggling to my feet and looking for my shoes.

Besides some scrapes and bruises on my hands and being a little sore on the side of my body where I hit the ground, I am fine. My wedding ring is scratched and dinged where it also hit the ground but I'm sure that can be fixed. I do feel plenty sober about what could have happened-- it could have been so much worse.

The main witness was a woman who works at the hotel across the street where I was headed for my meeting, and she said that there have been a lot of accidents in that crosswalk just like mine, some of them serious. Apparently the bus had a green light (it was making a turn) at the same time that I had the walk sign. This stuns me-- no wonder they have accidents.

I am just so, so glad it wasn't worse. That I glanced off the side of the bus rather than being hit on the front, or ending up under the wheel. By the grace of God.

Haiti

Sleep is not coming. I guess there are too many things on my mind-- the book, friends who are struggling, and most of all Haiti. There just are no words for a disaster like this.

(And shame, shame, shame on anyone who responds with anything less than the deepest compassion for our brothers and sisters who are living through this nightmare. If you don't know, Pat Robertson today both suggested that this disaster might be a blessing in disguise because it will allow Haitians to rebuild their houses better, and stated that Haiti's sufferings are caused by a pact Haiti made with the devil in 1804. The first comment was just idiotic, the second was unbelievable and inexcusable. J's comment was that Old Testament prophets knew that God would put them to death if they claimed to be speaking for God but weren't speaking His words.)

Thanks to Facebook, I know my American friend who was doing PhD research there is safe (had to take shelter in the French Embassy, then got out via bus to DR). I'm having lunch tomorrow with a colleague who was supposed to be going next week-- but thankfully he's not there yet. Nor is my other close colleague who goes several times a year. I have no idea about my Haitian friend and colleague who is always going back and forth. Or any of the Haitians I worked with when I was there in 2006. I read that the hotel I stayed in on that trip is now rubble. It's details like that that make this feel very real.

And the fact that I've been there, I've seen how tenuous life was before. I wrote about how it was the poorest and most desperate place I'd ever been. But, as anywhere, there was also beauty, humor, and life. I've just been re-reading those posts tonight. Remembering.

late night thoughts

I have a book manuscript due in exactly a week (minus a few hours) and I should be in 24/7 work mode right now-- because I certainly don't have enough hours in the week to do the work I would like to do on it. I have been struggling with motivation and discipline on this book for months and months and I thought once I really got down to the wire the deadline adrenaline would kick in-- but except for occasional episodes of mild panic, I am still having massive trouble not wanting to just twitter away my time every day in all manner of silly things. (Really, I actually created a Roth IRA today-- as if it really had to be done this week? Such is the extent of my procrastination.) To be fair, I did work a solid 10 hours today, which got me through one whole chapter (about 20% of the book)-- that shows you how much work there is left to do.

Meanwhile my brain is popping with all this other stuff, that I would much rather be thinking about than what to name the chapter sub-headings (something that really does need my attention). I don't know what it is, but 4 months into our time here at the seminary and 4 1/2 months or so from our departure, I am suddenly feeling ready to leave. Don't get me wrong, I love it here and there are so many people I am just getting to know that I will be so sad to leave, and I could happily live here for years. But I know the transition is coming and somehow I am just feeling very ready to have this chapter close and the next one start. I am sooo ready to have this book be done, ready to wrap up my job (one of my jobs, which will end on Feb 28), ready to pack up (ha! I haven't even totally unpacked), ready to know where we are going to live in the fall and who our friends will be and where we will buy our groceries and all that. I am thinking ahead to this summer and if we will really make it to Africa and where we will go and what we will do-- and I am excited about that, all the possibilities, and the new stuff, starting a PhD and maybe buying a house and getting established in a place where we may stay for a few years.

The struggle for contentment comes in so many forms, and for me at least, it is nearly constant. Probably it is for most of us, if we are honest. Tonight I was reading the blog of a friend who lives in Cambodia and it made me feel half crazy to be in a place like that, seeing and experiencing all the amazing variety and adventure of an overseas life, rather than being in my quiet and cold little corner of New England (where so many days I don't even leave the building!) It was the second time today that this mad longing for something else had siezed me, the other time being when I randomly ran across an online ad for Saudi Arabia. Ah, contentment-- it so rubs against my grain. So I was thankful for my friend's words (here and here) on being obedient and content wherever God places us, because as she notes, every life and set of circumstances has its difficulties. No matter how wonderful and abundant the life that God has given us, there will be circumstances in which contentment and joy are a choice.

So for the next 4 1/2 months I want to be content here. I want to be all here. I want to recognize and fully enjoy every blessing that God sends me here. Even in the midst of winter, book deadlines, and incessant head colds, I want to embrace the here and now. Join me in praying for contentment?

Foodie Friday: Vegetarian Mulligatawny

Some of you (like my husband) may know mulligatawny from Seinfeld's infamous Soup Nazi. I am not a Seinfeld watcher (cough, cough) so I have never seen that episode. I have had a vague notion of a soup called mulligatawny but I don't think I'd ever had it until last week at the Portland airport. We were just grabbing a quick bite but trust PDX to be fabulous-- at a great little deli called Elephant's I got a cup of mulligatawny which had me saying every second bite, "Oh my goodness, this is good."

When we got back to Boston we stayed in the city with my friend Carolyn for a couple nights and she had this very delicious soup in her fridge (which she had made) which was almost more delicious than the mulligatawny. I had to have the recipe. That soup was butternut tortilla soup (I'll share the recipe once I've had a chance to make it myself), but it was from the New England Soup Factory cookbook, which Carolyn had just gotten for Christmas, after tasting an amazing soup at someone else's house. (I had never heard of the New England Soup Factory but their cookbook is clearly making converts!) So before I left Carolyn's house I flipped through it and copied some recipes, including this one for vegetarian mulligatawny.

If you are wondering, mulligatawny is a kind of curried lentil soup with coconut milk. Supposedly the British invented it when they were in India-- hence the Indian spices, though not quite Indian preparation. I'm sure there a million versions out there. The one I had at PDX had chunks of chicken, which was very good, but I am trying to get us to eat less meat. This recipe is a winner in my book because you don't even miss the meat, it's cheap, filling and delicious, and nearly no work. I had chopped the vegetables over the weekend, which was a good thing, because in the last few days I have been hit with some nasty virus that has completely zapped my energy and left me staggering around the house moaning about how bad I feel. So last night it was nice that all I had to do was stir a pot. This version is modified a bit from the New England Soup Factory version, and I'll probably play with it some more-- such as adding another veg, or even chicken. Enjoy!

Vegetarian Mulligatawny

3 T. olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 large or 2 small onions, diced
2 ribs celery, diced
4 carrots, peeled and sliced
1 lb. dried orange lentils
1 T. each curry powder, cumin
1 t. ground coriander (the recipe called for 2 t., but I thought it was a little strong-- add to taste)
1 t. cayenne (the recipe called for 1/2 t.-- again, add to taste)
32 oz. can tomatoes (I used crushed because it was what I had, but I think diced would be better)
2 c. cooked chickpeas
8 c. water
2 c. peeled, chopped apple (a tart apple is best)
½ c. long-grain brown rice (such as jasmine or basmati)
2 c. light coconut milk (or 1 c. regular coconut milk + 1 c. water)
2 T. honey (or to taste if you like it sweeter)
½ bunch fresh cilantro, chopped
salt & pepper to taste (it needs a fair amount of salt)

Saute vegetables in olive oil until the onions soften. Add spices and stir for 1 minutes. Add all remaining ingredients except coconut milk, honey, and cilantro. Simmer 40 to 45 minutes or until rice is fully cooked. Stir in coconut milk, honey, and salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with cilantro.

Makes about 20 cups.

Serves 12.

society's disastrous sexual predicament

In trying to get through piles of work emails (late on a Sat night), I ran across an article full of stunning quotes, like this one:

No one seems to have noticed, however, that a loss of a sense of shame means a loss of privacy; a loss of privacy means a loss of intimacy; and a loss of intimacy means a loss of depth. There is, in fact, no better way to produce shallow and superficial people than to let them live their lives entirely in the open, without concealment of anything.

And a little later:

Only someone completely lacking in knowledge of the human heart—someone, in fact, a little like Margaret Mead—would have failed to predict the consequences [of adolescent sexual activity]: gross precocity followed by permanent adolescence and a premature world-weariness.

Finally:

Having been issued the false prospectus of happiness through unlimited sex, modern man concludes, when he is not happy with his life, that his sex has not been unlimited enough.

The blog title also comes from the article, all of which is well worth reading:

All Sex, All the Time (Theodore Dalrymple, City Journal, 2000)