Lenten Fast 2013: The End

What wondrous love is this, oh, my soul, oh, my soul

What wondrous love is this, oh, my soul

What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss

To bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul

To bear the dreadful curse for my soul

Happy Easter!!!  On this day of resurrection, fasting ends.  Okay, some people say it ends earlier in Holy Week, but we surely did not need groceries before today.

So, at the tail end, here's a picture of The List:

 43 different items left, down from 70-something.  Still looks huge, no?

And here's the state of our cupboard:

 We can see the back of it.  And move things around easily.  This is progress.

Definitely emptier than the onset!  And yet, not as bare-bones as one might think after 40 days of trying to deplete it.  I still am convinced that our kitchen's food supply does NOT vary greatly from the majority of middle-class Americans, so I don't think we can only point the blame on Chris & Jenna's unique splurging lives and dismiss us as hoarders.

Since the last update, here are things I've observed in a fast of eating what we have instead of constantly accumulating more (with the only additions of milk and fresh produce):

Planning ahead is key, especially with the life we lead.  We hit a Wednesday night where we were leading worship for a college group and had to be there by 6:15-ish.  Chris gets home at 5:30, and I had an appointment or work stuff or something that prevented me from getting home early.  So we had a 45 minute window in which to load up our gear, print the set list and a few chord charts, and eat.  We had food to spare in the The Cupboard, but no time to prepare it.  So Subway got our dollar.  Had we been on it the day before, we wouldn't have had to indulge in convenient but pricier fast food.

We don't miss much.  It's so exciting to have a fridge full of healthy greens and blackberries ($1.29 at Aldi. Can't get over it.) that it's hard to feel lacking.  I will admit a few things I'm looking forward to come Monday: coffee creamer (been doing skim milk - just not the same, but I have lived), yogurt (have found a lot of yummy looking smoothie recipes that are begging for it), and maple syrup (we were out for months before Lent started, but now that we're actually using the pancake mix and searching out more consistent breakfast recipes, I am missing it.  Though this morning I discovered the joy of peach butter on pancakes.  I have no regrets.).  Chris has been nursing the last of the peanut butter for weeks, and I'm sure he can't wait for a fresh jar (any normal human would have consumed or tossed the half ounce that's left, but not this man).  Almond milk will be a welcome friend, too, and I bet Chris will be happy to replenish our chicken supply.  But really, that's about it.

We have had things for almost 2 years that we did not know existed and would have never eaten.  We had - count them - THREE packs of hot dogs in the freezer.  One of them was open.  Would we have ever made them?  Probably not.  (I'm not saying they were 2 years old - the ones we made tasted fine - don't judge.)  They became a joke item on my part, offering them to Chris as a dinner option, knowing he'd never want them.  How appalling.  We have also had a shake-and-pour Bisquick pancake mix for forEVER.  Maundy Thursday morning, it finally saw the light of day.  Why did we have this?!
In related news, I just saw something about making sure to discard any cake or pancake mixes that are past the expiration date b/c the yeast can grow spores, turn to toxic mold, and kill you dead.  ...We're still alive.  Hmm.

Muffin pans are breakfast-to-go's best friend.  Did you know that old fashioned oatmeal can be used for more than a yearly batch of oatmeal scotchies?!   Weird, right??  ...nope, just me?  Ahem...  I found this recipe for Baked Honey Oatmeal made in a muffin pan so that your servings are ready-to-go, and with it and some variations, we have had delicious HEALTHY breakfast every morning that we can grab, microwave for a minute, and eat in the car on the way to work.  (If you look up "morning people" in the dictionary/thesaurus, we will be listed under Antonyms.  "Creating" breakfast before 8 am is not humanly possible in our home.)  I'd like to thank our stoneware muffin pans - just spray with cooking spray, and no paper liner needed.

I want to eat healthier.  Only being allowed to buy fresh food makes me feel a lot better.  I'm not sure exactly what we were buying before that distracted us from this... which is likely the problem.  When there's too much junk in your life, you don't really know what any of it is, and yet you can't see the better things you're missing out on. 

Traveling on this fast is harder.  We had no restrictions on eating out.  We had to go away for 2 weekends this month.  Normally, I get us a big thing of trail mix, some beef jerky, and some cheese crackers and/or dried fruit for travel munchies - clearly within the milk/produce boundaries, though perhaps dried fruit could have been swung.  We could have stocked up on non-refrigerated fruit for snacks for this trip, like apples and bananas... But, we didn't.  So, we wound up spending much more on food on the road, and a lot of it was not very good for us.  Note to self: again, plan ahead, and think outside the box of routine.

There is always more than meets the eye.  Especially toward the end, I saw a lot of ingredients that didn't really fit together and was prepared to just eat pasta with olive oil and veggies for days.  Yet, Chris saw elk chili.  (And it was scrumptious.)  Typical of the "there's nothing to eat!" plague of the household with full cabinets, there was always something more available if we thought about it hard and got creative enough.

We have thoughtful, sweet friends.  Kira kept us (me) functioning with the gift of a can of unground coffee she wasn't using.  We don't have a coffee grinder... but a few weeks ago we had the light-dawning realization that a Magic Bullet could probably grind coffee just fine for two people who love it but are not coffee snobs by any stretch of the imagination.  (I have gone a step up that ladder by becoming obsessed with Furnace Hills Coffee, which is from a local roastery and may be a few bucks more, but employs special needs folks, uses fair trade coffee, and supports orphanages in Ukraine and development in Asia - um, YES.)  Jenn read my whining post about the Williams Sonoma hot chocolate and brought us fancy Twinings Drinking Chocolate - virtually the same thing - that she'd had and wasn't using.  Did we need these things?  No, but these women saw a need and wanted to fill it - fabulously, with things they already owned and acknowledged that they didn't need to keep, instead of buying us something.  (Coincidentally, have I touched the hot chocolate yet?  I'll let you take a wild guess...)

Gluttony is real.  We don't talk about it much in America.  We talk about obesity, we talk about health, we talk about food labels and companies and recipes and trends... but I think I'm realizing how deep gluttony has gripped our country (which is why we don't talk about it).  The urge to collect and consume constricts our hearts and blinds us to what we're really doing and to the needs of the people not only across oceans, but down the street.   I heard a group of high schoolers talking about Catholicism and the 7 deadly sins, and gluttony was one of the last they remembered as they tried to list them.  I don't know about you, but when I think of it I get a cartoon image of an overweight person sloppily gathering food in his arms and shoving things in his mouth (before you think I'm a jerk, I think it's because of this cartoon series).  I don't think gluttony is usually this obvious.  Really, this is the sneaky genius of most sin - we picture an exaggerated worse-case scenario of it, separate our own actions from that image, conclude "I don't struggle with that," and carry on.  I think gluttony has joined hands with greed and stealthily tiptoed into my home and my heart with the goal of setting up shop for a good long time.  As their cover becomes more and more exposed, they revolt (see my previous mourning sessions/temper tantrums over hot chocolate and maple cream - ugh.) and kick and scream against the truth that I. want. for. nothing.

There are people in this town and little ones near and far who are starving today.  And this grips my heart and pulls my gut to help, yet is also met with almost immediate hopelessness of 'not really making a difference.'  We all know that people are starving, and many of us are willing to occasionally donate to organizations who will do something about it.  But we don't often connect the actual contents of our own cupboards to their need.  The old "There are kids starving in Africa, finish your plate!" gets met with "Are you going to mail them my uneaten Brussels sprouts?!"  What does THIS have to do with THEM??  What we physically have seems to be disconnected from others' needs, because it is ours and in our house.  

But really, in a way, we can send those unwanted sprouts to Africa.

We could keep close watch on what we spend on groceries.  We could give up items from our carts that are impulses or more than we need while we're at the store, total what we would have spent, and give that money to those who have none, therefore literally giving to them what would have been our excess.
We could keep track of how much we waste and then a) alter how much we buy and b) commit to giving the equivalent of our waste to those in need - if we're willing to spend it on filling a trash can, we should be willing to spend it on aching bellies that could be satisfied.
We could meal-plan to determine what we'll actually use in our cupboards for a week/month/fortnight and then raid our cupboards for (quality, non-expired) items that don't fit the list and take them to a local food bank, shelter, or other organization in need ('in need' being the key part - if they already have 84 cans of peas but no green beans, then giving them my nine additional cans of peas is not truly helpful).
We could.

If only we would.

Thinking and living like this requires much more intentional thought and action than what our culture tells us we should have to bear.  Much more than my instincts give me.  But on this day, we read that Jesus defeated death.  He showed that where something is dead, it can live again.  Where selfishness abounds, there can be rebirth.  Where hopelessness prevails, there is yet hope.  Where blindness drives our days, scales can fall from our eyes to let us see the glory that comes when we loosen our grip on our stuff and use it to provide for our neighbors, brothers, and sisters.

From this point on, our fast is over.  Thus, the danger of returning to our old habits and patterns.  Neither of us want this.  We will begin buying other food items again, but ingredients that will help us make meals out of what we already own, rather than replacing them and shoving them back to the deep recesses of The Cupboard to rot and decay.  We will try to shop focused on what we truly need, rather than what we could have.  Because:
Just because we CAN have it doesn't mean that we SHOULD. 
(the antithesis of the American dream, folks..... also restated liberally from Jen Hatmaker in her book, 7.)

This, much more than mindless consuming, will God-willing show us glimpses of what the Kingdom is supposed to be like.

And when from death I'm free, I'll sing on, I'll sing on

And when from death I'm free, I'll sing on

And when from death I'm free, I'll sing His love for me

And through eternity I'll sing on, I'll sing on

And through eternity I'll sing on

Lenten Fast 2013: The Cupboard Challenge Begins

I love the church season of Lent.  Part of that probably stems from growing up in a "traditional, liturgical" church where the church calendar was serious business - it signified when to change the felt banners and candle colors and which section to mark with the ribbon markers in the pew hymnal.  I remember giving things up some years, like ice cream, and wailing to my mother about its absence while clinging to the freezer and trying to cheat.  Because, for real, a day without ice cream in my growing life was a day hard to come across.  (Chocolate chip cookie dough flavor with pancake syrup. weird. yes. but don't knock it til you try it.)  Amidst my griping, I also recall the Lenten soup suppers our church had on Wednesday nights, where two people from the congregation would each volunteer to make a huge tureen of soup for all those that would show up.  We'd have a short service afterward, and I don't remember those much, but I remember being introduced to Tomato Tortellini soup heaven.  Oh. my. word.  It was a cozy feeling for our church community to gather around a simple meal weekly for 40 days.

On to life today... I am not a creature of discipline.  Not in the slightest.  I fought my mother on every single clarinet practice session growing up, and I still fight with myself over piano practice that should happen yet conveniently gets replaced by more "pressing" things. (probably part of my love of being good at things instead of the things themselves - I highly recommend reading this blog post Chris wrote as a guest blogger for Off the Cuff Christian. The quote he references wrecked my life in a pretty darn good way.)  I let rooms of our apartment fall into total disarray and then belittle myself for my sloppy inattention and procrastination.  I get ideas of what to do with an evening, and suddenly 94 minutes have past and I'm still searching a Facebook newsfeed.  I walk into Target vowing that I will NOT buy another unnecessary albeit cheap piece of clothing, and 10 minutes later I'm grazing the alluring clearance racks.  So yes, discipline = not my tendency.

Enter Lent.  Defined.  Public.  Community-based.  Bleak midwinter.  No excuses.  YES.

When asked to give something up, it's easy to default to the ice cream, chocolate, alcohol, etc. vices that we enjoy.  Depriving ourselves of physical pacifiers definitely has merit.  But just the other day, we had a joking but lively dinner debate about what constituted "bread" and what did not for our friend that was going to give it up for Lent.  (Are scones bread?? Thoughts??)  When we come to this place of splitting hairs about what we can and can't have under our self-imposed restrictions, or when we drool into the freezer and whine and pout about our denial, we've missed the whole point of the sacrifice.  We have the chance to be emptied, to let the Spirit fill us and refresh us.  To let prayer and our Comforter be the thing we depend on in our moments of weakness instead of an immediate physical comfort.

I have also heard people say that Lent can be a season of taking things on, not just giving things up.  I saw a link circling around of 40 tasks to accomplish, a different one for each day, for the season.  I agree there can be good in taking on habits and experiences... but if you're telling me that in our American culture of absurd amounts of food, media, communication, possessions, money, transportation, you name it, that you can't find SOMETHING you could go without for 40 days, then I think our culture has fooled you as much as it's fooled me time and time again.  With doing a different thing each day for 40 days, I'm sure a lot of them are helpful and could be eye-opening.  But we are a culture of minute time spans who don't even want to watch a full 5-minute YouTube video.  This notion of changing things up daily, for me at least, feeds right into that self-taught impatience and ADD.  By all means, do it if you feel called - I am sure there are many for whom routine is normal, and shaking things up every day would let the Spirit work.  But I think we, especially young adults, hate to commit to things, and making a 40 day commitment can return us to roots of dedication and discipline we have long set aside.

Back to the thoughts leading up to our fast.  This year, Chris has been good about trying to get us to actually use some the groceries we accumulate.  He's been poking through the freezer and cabinets, pulling out things to throw together into a meal rather than rushing out for more ingredients to make a pre-prescribed recipe.  The man could create chili out of next to nothing.  To give you a frame of reference, he lived - willingly - for over a year in a place that looked like this:

Above: the cleanest and emptiest the "bathroom" ever looked. Yes, it was the entire, open basement. Yes, that's water festering on the floor.  He survived longer than I ever could.  He gets this whole "minimalist" concept that's foreign to the rest of us Americans.

And then he married a woman who grew up with a "Canned Goods Room" in her basement.  Family friends would joke about "shopping at the Laymans'."  True, we didn't have a 'pantry' in the kitchen.  So, instead, this is the Apocalypse Grocery Mecca Shelter of Things That Were On Sale So We Bought Twelve:

On the left: the chest freezer (which is the third operating freezer in the house, and it's filled to the brim), followed by shelves generally including cereal, bottles, granola bars, chips.  On the right: shelves of canned goods, juice, pasta, paper towels, etc.  Behind you on the right: more cabinets of canned goods.  And this is LESS than what was there when we were growing up. Not that it is not a closet.  It is an entire room.

So, having A bottle of ketchup was a foreign concept to me.  (Right now, we have three.  Big ones.  How big?  They were too heavy for me to lift with fractured ribs.)  How could you NOT buy at least five of something if you found a super good deal?!  STOCKPILE!!!!!!

In light of trying to follow Chris's lead, while he was at work the other day I compiled a list of (almost) every food item in the cabinets we use as a pantry next to our fridge.  I mean, I know we have stuff, but it didn't look like that much!  Here's the view:

This is what I came up with:

 It is backwards.  Not to prevent you from reading it.  

But because I took it with PhotoBooth and can't figure out how to reverse it.

People.  Seriously?!  There are things in there that I moved from my old roommate's house.  I lived there for over four years.  And yet I've given them exactly 2 seconds' consideration in terms of actual consumption.  This list does not even TOUCH what's in the fridge and freezer right now.  Look at all of that.  It's funny; on this tiny picture, it doesn't appear as long of a list.  But there are 71 DIFFERENT items on this list, and many of them have multiple cans/boxes in that cabinet.

And there are dear ones - some a plane ride away, some a WALK away - that would cheer if they had ONE of those items in their house to eat tonight.  One.

My heart twinges more and more each passing day when I see our overabundance and know that we are in the top 4% of the world's income.  That's a public school teacher and a children's library associate with musician side jobs - not exactly "high" salaries by America's standards.  But to millions, we are rich.  And I cannot abide another person saying "It just makes you thankful that we're fortunate and blessed, doesn't it?  Thank you, Lord, for blessing us.  Oh, and please, may You bless those less fortunate someday.  Amen."  NO.  It makes my stomach hurt.  For I do not think that God, who made himself human in such a way that he spent much of his ministry with no place to lay his head, is looking at me and saying, "Bless you, child.  I grant you the means to buy more spaghetti than you could eat in a year to build a fort in your cupboard, and that is precisely what you should do with it.  This is how I show you that you are loved."  (no, we don't have this much spaghetti. but we're in an apartment with minimal cupboard space. put me in a house with legit storage and I fear for my future and whether or not it will involve an episode of Hoarders.)  I'm pretty sure each time Jesus is confronted with any type of wealth, his directions are to give it to the poor.  I'm certain he gives US the tools to bless others with the wealth that already exists on this earth.

So, this is our Lenten journey this year:  We are allowed to buy milk and produce if we run out and are truly in need.  That's it.  Fresh produce is nourishing and part of our Year of Health guidelines (we instituted those after our 1st anniversary, when we realized how few of our clothes fit from the Fat Happy Lazy Married Times of year 1).  Milk is a beverage and an ingredient, so we will allow it.  Beyond that, we're restricted to whatever is in our cupboards, fridge and freezer for 40 days.  If we depleted almost everything, could we revisit and buy some essentials?  Sure.  Sadly, I bet we won't need to.  But maybe it will give us the TINIEST inkling of those so near us who have absolutely no choice about what they are going to eat for dinner - if they have one item, it's that; if they have nothing, they eat nothing.  And maybe, beyond thinking of them and saying a quick prayer before we chow down, we'll actually be moved to be Love to them and bring them what they need.

 

An American family of 4's food waste for a month. Oh, my heart.

(And no, we won't just go out to dinner if we think we have "nothing to eat" or don't "see" anything - the shameful, sinful response thought we both have all too often when we peek in that cupboard).  Last year, we gave up eating in all restaurants for Lent, and that helped us get over our cravings of quick, easy, cash-sucking, and often terrible-for-us food.  We'll probably go out a few times, but the goal is to eat here as often as possible.)

I plan to chronicle what we eat for my own curiosity - I want to see how lavish our meals remain despite these restrictions.  That blog post may come in pieces or all at once at the end - we'll see how long it gets.

Thank you, Jesus, for showing us that fasting can cleanse us and make more room for Your spirit in us.  I pray you do that in us - as our excess decreases, give us eyes to see what we truly need and what those around us need.  Please increase.

(On a side note, Jenna personally is fasting from her personal Facebook account for Lent.  If you've left her love there, you are not being ignored!)

Time

I do not often have the discipline I should.

Time is something that, every few weeks or so, causes me to despair at how little I have of it.  There are not enough hours in the day to practice, to see the people I want to see, to get some quality date time, to keep our apartment clean, to write new songs, to write poetry and prose like I used to, to exercise...

I am a planner, and sometimes this can be a fault of mine.  I get stressed out when I don't know what's going on and frustrated when plans get foiled.  It is something I am gradually learning to loosen up about, definitely with Chris's help (he's the type that often does not plan the way I think he should, and yet things miraculously always work out for him!).

But with the planner in me, if I don't think ahead about un-scheduled time, life can flip on its head and go from having "not enough time" to piles of wasted time.  It's spring break, and I have so many high hopes for it!  Chris roused me on his way to work at 8 am this morning, telling me he left the freezer door open and I'd better get up to close it (perfect trick, it actually got me out of bed - not an easy task!!)  After a few minutes I stumbled to the kitchen (he closed it after all) and then to the living room, where I picked up the laptop "just to check email."  It is now an hour and a half later, and what have I done?  I sent one band marketing inquiry... am now writing a blog post... and spend the whole rest of that time changing Facebook pictures, looking through Twitter, browsing a few blogs, and generally a whole lot of nothing.

Both Chris and I run into days/nights like this, where we get into a funk at how poorly we spent the hours we had.  There are so many worthwhile things to do, and yet we gravitate toward those that will not feed our souls or benefit others.

I think there is a fine line here that I need to walk... I often err on the side of having a “Martha heart,” bustling around trying to accomplish things and fretting about To Do lists. And it's true that I need to not have many mornings like this one where I sit on a couch in the face of everything else I could do. But getting off these cushions and spending the next few hours doing laundry and cleaning is not going to bless my heart, either. I have a wonderful mother who has worked so hard to take care of our family for my whole life. I am in awe of all she has done! And yet, often when we talk, she is frustrated with a day, and says that she “didn't get enough things done.” Indeed, I remember BALKING at hearing that phrase in my teenage years - “Jenna, it's time to get some things done!”  I think I hated the word "things" in the phrase, as if there were these looming tasks that would never be complete no matter what I accomplished (and thus precluded me from getting started at all at times!).  And for all the joy my mom has brought us and others, it makes me sad when her perception of her life is tied to how many chores and tasks she got done in a day.

The Gospel writers tell of Mary, who got it exactly right when she sat at Jesus' feet, soaking in his presence and every word he had to say.  And this is the very thing I am prone to shy away from, wanting to complete something tangible and being tempted to do something else first (which almost always results in me not spending time with Him at all).  I hate this about myself, and hate that I recognize it every few months and slip right back into the same pattern anyway.

So, I am getting off of the couch to first go read and talk to God.  It's not on my To Do list... but really, maybe it should be.  Maybe it should be the first thing, written at the top in all caps in bold Sharpie.  Maybe then I wouldn't begin days and nights with aimless meandering on the internet.  I don't think God's desire for my life is for me to put Him on a To-Do list.  But if that's how my brain operates, maybe it's a least a place to start falling more in love with Him.