Out of the Depths

Sometimes when a passage from the Bible hits me I commit to learning it by heart. Not by memory. Yep, there is a difference. Usually I write it out by hand having perused a number of different versions. I then feel free to use the Glenys Badger version! I leave it near me where I will see it frequently. And yes, because I am a modern person, I even have it on my phone to refer to. And so I begin to read and reread and to have it so I can speak it, sometimes in public and sometimes just in my heart in the dead of night.

Recently Psalm 130 grabbed me. It is one of the psalms that God’s people used to say on their way to Jerusalem (A song of ascents, so presumably uphill. I know the feeling.)

It starts with the line ‘Out of the depths I cry to you, Oh Lord.’ Someone was having an uphill battle. Do you ever feel like that? It goes on to admit that if God kept a record of our wrongs none of us would stand a chance. And then comes one of my favourite words in the Psalms - BUT. ‘But’ often comes as a contrast to what has gone before. And so it is here. ‘But with God there is forgiveness.’ As a result the writer waits in hope as those who watch for the morning. Yes, in times when it would be so easy to despair, whether for ourselves or for the state of the church, or the world, there is hope. The writer urges us to hope in God for there we will find steadfast, unfailing, passionate, extravagant love.

Psalm 130 is in my heart. Check it out. And may it fill you heart with hope and the assurance of the love of God.

Soup

PS True confession. This pic is not of soup. It is last week's dinner but I thought it was pretty...

No fancy title for this musing. Just soup.
My mother made soup every weekend except for the very hottest summer weekends.
The process started on Friday night when she put beef bones and perhaps a bacon bone in the pressure cooker along with some dried peas and barley.
The vegetables (onion, carrots, celery and ???but never potato) went in the vitamiser. Ours was an old fashioned version called a Blend or Mix, commonly called the Blendor.
The fat came off the cooled stock in the pressure cooker and in went the veg. Thus we were ready for the weekend. Anyone coming home from tennis or netball and rushing off to youth group was accommodated. Likewise Sunday when the day was full with church in the morning, Sunday School in the afternoon and church again at night. Hearty soup with some toast did the trick at tea time.
So it was the same soup every time - varied only by whether there were tomatoes to make it look a good colour and what vegetables Dad was growing.
Mum never made pumpkin soup or zucchini soup or minestrone or mulligatawny or anything else exotic. (Heaven forbid chilled avocado!) Tomato soup came out of a can and chicken noodle from a packet but 'weekend soup,' that was special. Try as I might I never got it quite right.
But on returning from a week away I was keen and ready to go - soup. Chicken and chickpea this time, then sweet potato for a friend with a toothache. Who cares about the weather. As long as there is soup.

Impostor syndrome

I recently read about impostor syndrome and how even a highly skilled surgeon doubted her own abilities and would need to quieten her negative self talk before operating.
When I began a new job years ago I remember one of the managers asking me how it was going on about the third day there. I confessed I wasn't sure I knew what I was doing and she wisely told me 'fake it till you make it'. When I left nine years later, I wondered if I was still doing that as I faced each challenge the job brought.
The biggest feeling of being an impostor comes when I stand up in front of the people at church and speak. I have always been an upfront person. When I was in year 7 and the teacher said he would ask someone to thank the politician who had shown us around parliament house, I knew it would be me and so it was. Off the cuff I made the necessary speech. I have been a teacher and trainer, a tutor, a lecturer and in several roles done a heap of public speaking.
But somehow preaching seems different. (My reluctance to say that I preach probably stems from the past where I was taught that only men preach. I have wrestled with that and the place of women in ministry, and so came to the point where I could stand up in church and talk a bit!)
But when I first had this opportunity I surely felt like an impostor. Who am I to speak for God, to share insights from the teaching of the Bible? Surely faking it isn't the deal here. Then I came to the conclusion that it's really an awesome thing but on the other hand it's a matter of sharing what I know of the One I speak of. Telling friends about my understandings, but also my doubts and the days when I feel I am an impostor even to claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ.
Last Sunday again I was the impostor preaching before the masses (well, before a small congregation, actually)  but I was also the recipient of the message.  2 Cor 3 17-18 reminds us that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom, and that we all reflect God's glory as we encounter that very glory of God. So not impostors at all.

Life goes swimmingly

The eagerly awaited summer swimming season in Lake Bonney has begun.
Last week the sky was blue and the water was sparkling and calm - and cold. I did my usual leisurely swim for an hour or so watching the pelicans, enjoying the long view and  feeling meditative and refreshed.

Today with weather coming in I decided to head for the lake in the morning. It was already tempestuous with white caps and foam on the shore. The waves crashed and the water was cold. (Yes, I know it's a like but there's wind!)

I waded in and tried to swim. No hope of that. The waves were relentless and battering. I need the exercise so I did my usual hour - waving my arms around in their usual stroke while hopping and jumping over the waves as they rolled in. Not quiet, not meditative. I went home battered and tired.

Sometimes life's like that...

Food for thought

Osso Bucco. That's what it said on the label of the meat I pulled from the freezer. I had a vague idea it should be cooked slowly as it was from the shin with a lump of marrow bone in the middle. (Osso bucco = bone marrow.)

The obvious thing is to look up a recipe on the internet but then my eyes will glaze over with a zillion recipe options. So my next choice is to turn to  my old faithful Margaret Fulton Recipe book (1968 edition) - which taught me so much when I was first married, although not enough to know that sardines on a pizza were not the same thing as anchovies. Oop! Hadn't ever heard of anchovies in 1971.
So I looked up the index in the beef section. No osso bucco. I'm sure I remembered seeing it here years ago.
A moment of inspiration and I head to the International  section which includes Chicken Chow Mien, sweet and sour pork, pizza (yes, with anchovies), Swiss cheese fondue and amongst 'Dishes from the Great Pacific' - pavlova. How exotic can you get!
And there I found it Osso Bucco (hollowbone) Milanese. No worries. Although on the same page was a recipe for Lobster Newburg which suggested I need two small lobsters. Sure!
What really indicated how things have changed was when the recipe suggested serving the Osso Bucco with Saffron rice. No problems there until I came to the helpful suggestion as to how to reheat rice -  simmer over water in a colander or in the oven with some milk and butter. No just bunging it in the microwave in those days.
Then I looked more closely at the Osso Bucco recipe. It lists two anchovy fillets, chopped. Yep, I can do that. Got some in the pantry ready to go.
How times change...

What a wonderful world??

Often, after singing practice, a song gets stuck in my head. Today it was 'What a Wonderful World' which I heard playing in either the dulcet tones of my Sing Australia Riverland friends or the gravelly voice of Satchmo.
And I thought to myself 'What a wonderful world? Really?? The world is a horrific place with sadness and violence and anger and suffering.'

Then I took myself off to deal with some roses. One of my favourite bakeries sits in grounds with many rosebushes which look beautiful. But yesterday when I visited (playing hooky with grandson Jack, but that's another story) I noticed that amongst the lovely blooms were lots of dead heads, and my Dad's voice reminded me they need trimming to ensure another burst of flowers for autumn.
So off I went with my snippers and bucket and water bottle and sunhat. (It's OK, folks. I did it last year with permission. I'm not just going to see your roses and come start snipping.)

As I worked I was intrigued by the number of vehicles that pulled in for a quick morning tea snack and were on their way. As it's on the highway there were a few large trucks and their drivers. And each of them greeted me on the way in and wished me well on the way out.

Later a little school girl and her Mum sat outside for a snack before going to an appointment and I spoke to them about how I'd done similar with my boy yesterday. Then I went back to the increasingly hot and backbreaking work, loving how the bushes looked with their fresh blooms highlighted with the dead ones removed.

Suddenly I was aware that the little girl was stranding in front of me. 'Excuse me', she said shyly, ' I just want to tell you that you are doing a good job.'

What a wonderful world!

Lala Land

On our recent trip I clearly heard the cabin crew member  tell us that the lavatories were located at the rear of the aircraft cabin. Lavatories. Really? I hadn't heard or used that word since I was about five. My family were familiar with the word lavatory but were more likely to shorten it to lavvy or lav and Mum called it the la-la.

Much later it was called the toilet - perhaps it was thought more polite. I was born too late for the outside dunny (the outhouse?) although the house we live in now has a lane down the back where the dunny man came to empty the dunny can.

Then of course there were rest rooms and even last week in Brisbane I came across the use of the term washrooms.
I learnt the word 'loo' in my twenties from a colleague and it seemed to have taken off. Don't even get me started on euphemism. eg needing to go and 'powder my nose' from my strapping son in law, or needing to go and see a man about a dog.

But what really gets me is when people ask to use the bathroom. Sure. I can point them in the direction of the bathroom but they won't find the necessary flushing receptacle there....
They really are in la-la land - or perhpas not.