Radical Grace

"The word “sinner” really signifies not moral inferiors as much as people who do not know who they are and whose they are, people who have no connection to their inherent dignity and importance."


Friar Richard, Center for Action and Contemplation

'You can only stalk your friends on Facebook for so long but Pinterest goes on forever."

Aw hey y'all.

So this post has been bubbling beneath the surface for the past week. And don't be hatin' but I'm taking on Pinterest in this one. Now I am fully aware the the awe and fulfillment I initially felt from Pinterest was maybe a little idealistic (I did just use the word 'fulfillment') and I do still find it endlessly entertaining and disturbingly addictive. It is a repository for the creative, the inspiring and definitely worthy of exclaim. But just like the rest of the interest, it is also a repository for the vain, the self-involved and the insecure. For those of you unfamiliar with Pinterest, it is a public 'pinboard' where you can pin photos and links from all over the internet onto 'boards' that you create under a profile. "Pinners" as addicts of the site are known, can repin from the site onto their boards and follow other 'pinners' and with categories like 'travel', 'humour' and 'photography' it makes for an instantaneous (if maybe unproductive) hobby. I was introduced to the site by my lovely friend BJ (who I will forever be indebted to -Pinterest has introduced me to some amazing sites, blogs, and general aesthetics).

One category, however, on the site is 'fitness'. And the fitness boards leave me…in a bit of a state when I leave the site. There is much that is affirming. There are posts and boards that advocate for exercise, strength, and health. But there is one pin in particular that I see and it makes me borderline apoplectic. It reads 'Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels'. Peeps, this pin is EVERYWHERE. And it may seem innocuous to some of you but to me it lights a fire on a very hefty and sensitive issue. From someone coming from a background of eating disorders and from someone who still very much struggles with the mental and emotional repercussions of a struggle like that, I read something like that and I feel that people not only have their priorities so fucked up but also that our culture has harboured an environment where this is something to be viewed as integrity. Some of these fitness boards link to pro-ana-mia websites and very much discuss that mindset with advocacy. This is what I take issue with. That is a SICKNESS. The mindset that propagates an opinion that 'food is the enemy', 'if you eat you have failed', ET CETERA, suffer from a distorted view of their bodies, what true health looks like but also what true VALUE looks like. The whole 'nothing tastes as good as skinny feels' totally removes the 'real life' from the body living it. It's fakery.

I have been everything from 130 lbs, where I was bitching about a body that worked like a charm, to 90 lbs where I starved myself, shook constantly, ran until I passed out, and generally never enjoyed my life. Let me tell you, ANYTHING tastes better than skinny feels. SmartWater tastes better. What I am saying is nothing that hasn't been said before but the (predominantly) women that are pursuing this 'dream' of who they should be, who 'everyone else is wishing them to be', as whom they could 'be their best them' are chasing after a sad, shrivelled conception of what makes them valuable, what makes them desirable as company for the public at large. When you aren't eating, NOBODY WANTS TO BE AROUND YOU. All you do is weigh your barf and complain about how cold you are. Your blood sugar is low and so you are ornery all the time (and that takes years to fix). YOu want a great body? Get a life. Soon you will love your big thighs because you can run faster than you could last week. You will love your broad shoulders because they power you up a ROCK FACE. Take a dance class; You'll laugh. This is not me dogging eating healthy, trying to watch your weight. We have two converse obsessions occurring right now: obesity and the obsession with thin. Know yourself and take care of yourself.

This has been in no way articulate or well thought out but I broke today. Pinterest totally ruined my break at work. But then it showed a picture of a little boy playing with cows and that seemed playful enough that I forgot.

Pinterest

Turkey Day!!

It's been too long yet again. Let's post some pics up in here.

Moozh outdid himself once again and with the creative genius of our foodie friend Alan, T-Day became a thing of beauty. We will  be eating it for easily another three weeks and it will eventually feel like less of a thing of beauty but for today's purposes, we are going to look at the beauty.

Glassware is key. We used our tasting glasses from wine and beer class. 

There was a truly absurd amount of cheese in use. I thought it worth documenting. 

Our appies. Notice the cheese. 

This is my 'boule', sliced like a pumpkin, before baking. Cranberry Rosemary Artisan bread. 

And this is it after. 

Roasted Brussies. That is bacon. 

Dressing (by yours truly). Lots of dried fruit to combat the cheese. 

Beer and Pie. A winning combination. 

This is the only picture we have of the pig, which is amazing to me. It truly was impressive.

Duh boys, kickin' it in the kooknaya (kitchen). Red T-shirt was the uniform of choice.

The evening ended happily and after an excessively loud round of Cranium at 1130pm. 

It seriously was a day of so much fun and such great people. My only disappointment is that we didn't get any swinging pictures of our great guests. So much laughter and great stories. Our party was probably 50/50 Yanks to Canucks. They shared with us the Black Friday- Green Bean and Dirt Pudding American version of Thanksgiving. It made us so excited we're going to do it all again at the end of November. But then we'll let some others do the cooking too. You can't have a monopoly on good taste.

Hope you all had a beautiful and tasty Thanksgiving dinner. I realized in the midst of it all I don't really know what Canadian Thanksgiving is all about. I wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with wanting to do it because the Americans do it but needing to do it a month earlier. I did hear a story somewhere that it had something to do with the King being sick and when he recovered they decided to celebrate the harvest. In Canada it's always about a monarch. Half of us don't even vote properly.
But a day where you are supposed to (even if it is only subconsciously) made to think about what you are thankful for. It made me thankful for my husband, who loves me when I suck'; who 'holds me close at night and thanks God for me'; who goofs around on Saturday and dreams about our future with me. I am thankful for my parents, who are broken and real. I am thankful for my sisters, who are the most beautiful and creative women I have ever know. I am thankful for the awesome guys who love them and hold them close and thank God for them. I'm thankful for my bestie in Cowtown who leads such a beautiful life and always inspires me. I'm thankful for all of the incredible people and friends that God introduced us to in Bankybear. I am thankful for my in-laws because they make me laugh and love me even though I am flaky. And I am thankful for those who love them. I am thankful for carbs and for jersey knit sheets. I am thankful a body that constantly impresses me and feet that run like the wind. I am thankful for the freedom of speech and the chance to have all my needs met in one day. I am thankful that I know God and that my life is His. I am thankful that he has planned for me beyond what I can hope or imagine (Eph 3:20 NIV). There are many things unmentioned here which I am thankful for as well, and so much for because they are still there even when I forget them. Like running water. And Skype.

Three cheers (and leg kicks) for chunky scarves and soup weather! In Bankybear the weather has been so Fall it had made me smile. What are you thankful for? 

"Sometimes you ask yourself…should I have tattooed my forehead?"

I don't know if any of you do this too but one of Moozh and I's favourite things to do is cuddle in bed at night and watch movie trailers. In most cases, it exonerates me from feeling like I have to see the movie because often the trailer is better than the movie. But sometimes I'm surprised. I just had one of those moments.

I just watched the trailer for The Other F-Word. Immediately it made me think of my sister who just got married because her journey into parenthood is likely going to be turbulent and beautiful and she and her husband are going to be those parents on the playground that none of the other parents understand. My sister is an ass kicker and she and her husband have a unique and dynamic view of life. Which means they are also going to be those parents on the playground that all the other parents wish they were as cool as. As I watched the trailer, which I suggest that all of you do, I had a serious moment of realization. A realization that what the Lord has prepared for our lives will drastically surprise and change us. Life is meant to teach us and through the process of giving your life to various things (marriage, parenthood, career) you become better, you become more. Inherently parenthood teaches wisdom, grace, patience, selflessness because those are the things that are required when you are responsible for a small, dependant being. The movie profiles all of these punk rock icons, from Mark Hoppus of Blink-182, Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers and Tony Hawk, through their processing of their fatherhood; from "the ultimate anti-authoritarians become societies ultimate authorities".

I had coffee today with a lovely good friend who is due in December. She had moved through the various baby showers, through buying a stroller and putting a car seat in her car. But the part of our conversation that had me thinking all day long, was when she spoke of becoming pregnancy, of moving through pregnancy and thinking through the permanence of having a child, and how it drastically changes how you think about your own development. You don't think about your family of origin, about conflict, about your marriage in at all the same way anymore. You have to filter it through the lens of this person who is brand new and strange to the world. Even in marriage you can remain in certain levels of selfishness (though it is hard) but in parenthood you can't. The paradigm can't survive beneath that. Yes we all know people who are selfish and act for themselves. But I don't find I ever look to those people and validate their parenting, or think of them as parents at all. Parenthood seems to be a specially designed racetrack that manages to drastically change the way we think about our world, ourselves, our life.  Because we have what feels like many friends right now that are expecting, I find myself musing often on how not ready I am for that commitment. I also think about little people running around my house one day with Moozh's mannerisms and looks of his fitted into the puzzle of their faces but I realize that there is a desire of preparation for that. The independence I struggle so hard to reconcile. My introspection. My sleep schedule. These are not things very accommodating to children. At the end of the day, Moozh can put himself to bed, he can feed himself and occupy himself while I put on makeup and surf pinterest.

But what this movie helped me to see (and did it in such a breathtaking way) is that parenthood changes people in spite of themselves. It helps to wear away at your selfishness and your personal gain slowly and discreetly. Flea has this amazing quote in it. "My children gave me life, you know. They gave me a reason." Friggin' Flea! But what I also like about the film is that it displays that the parents in it didn't just blend and bleed into this banal, khaki parent figure. They still have passions, opinions, things that set them apart. Their children will grow up understanding that their parents' life goes beyond their children.

I also find it infinitely quotable:
"Maybe punk rock was never meant to grow up. But it did."
"There's nothing in the punk rock ethos that prepares you for children."
"Maybe the way we're going to change the world is by raising better kids."

I think parenthood will also, as much as we may not want it to, help us to understand our parents even better. Undoubtedly, we will see and maybe even understand why they made certain decisions and why they thought certain things were right. Ultimately though, it will unify generations of people that have all made the same discoveries and thought the same things through the journey through becoming at times what you've despised. It's a good journey.

As promised...

Hmmmmm.

The goal:

via Smitten Kitchen. 

 The result: 

I would not put cream cheese on that. 

So the artisan bagels haven't kicked ass like the artisan bread has. They came out looking a little, dare I say, flat. And they were still doughy in the middle. I should have listened to myself the three times that I looked at the dough and said "That looks a little wet." Having wet dough and then boiling it in water doesn't foretell anything that contains the adjectives, "light", "airy" or "cooked" really. Unless you're cooking spaetzle I guess. I am determined the find a good bagel recipe. Man, it is an involved process to make bagels but I have a deep appreciation for freshly baked bagels and I am not hindered by these things that more resembled a toddler's teething ring. The above picture is Smitten Kitchen's bagel recipe and they look definitely worth a shot. 

I really want to continue with yeast breads. My friend Beej made an impressive looking challah from Smitten Kitchen. I don't' know why I had this ridiculous perception of challah that it was a ridiculous recipe and required almost a full day. Smitten's looks approachable enough. I'm going to give it a shot before Yom Kippur is over.

Maybe not hilarious as the "Cookie Monster Cupcakes" but still a good exercise in humility. Ha!