Welcome Ayla!

Congratulations to our dear friends, Ryan and Cassie, who welcomed Ayla Grace into the world on her due date, January 27th, 2008 at 7:15am (punctual!) weighing 7 pounds and 1 ounce and measuring 19 inches long!

Here is a lovely photo of Cassie's beautiful belly while I await photos of the newest little babe, perhaps to be taken in person this weekend!!

(And to those keeping track - this marks a second false reading of the spoon!)

A Thought From My Kitchen

The first time I set out oats over night to lacto-ferment, it felt very strange to leave food on the counter - especially food mixed with a dairy product - with the INTENTION of eating it later. Now, I have 6 fermenting projects going on in my kitchen at the same time (Kombucha, properly made rice milk, ginger beer, Latin American sauerkraut, salsa, and tomorrow's oats). With fermentation the nutrient count goes up along with digestibility and shelf life. I love the things I learn from preparing foods with traditional wisdom. I love learning to prepare food with forethought. I love having the time to sit and wait and anticipate while the food gains power and promises my body greater vitality.

Yet each thing has an appointed time. Most things cannot "stew" too long, or else they will spoil and become dangerous to eat (do not worry though, with properly fermented foods, if they go bad your nose would not let you put them in your mouth).

Tonight it occurred to me that when anger ferments, it does not become easier to digest. It is like a mold spore (not the good cheese kind of mold, rather the icky bitter kind you do not want to stick in your mouth). In fact, the longer you keep it, the more it grows and contaminates food that could have nourished. Mold needs to be dealt with at first sight, removed and discarded. Otherwise it will become a bigger and bigger chore that one will continue to put off because it is too gross (like the artichokes I cleaned out of one of my veggie drawers right before we moved. I knew they had been in there....molding....but I just could not bring myself to deal with them until I absolutely had to. It is as if I think they have not been wasted until I actually throw them out or something). Anger is like this. Pretty soon the good things in the refrigerator start to smell like the mold because there is just too much of it, and it could keep spreading.

"Do not let the sun go down on your anger."(Eph 4:26) It doesn't say, "do not get angry," anger seems like a helpful emotion to tell me things that help me make better rational decisions. It does say, "Be angry, but do not sin," and "do not let the sun go down on your anger." Note, "your" anger. It belongs to you and is rooted in you. You can decide what to do with it.

Portraits

For Christmas this year, for us and our family, we invested in a portrait session with the very talented Erin Julian. I anticipated being pleased with the photos, but I am REALLY pleased. It was so much fun, and so candid. A traditional setting would never have been able to capture my boys so well. We have not had professional pictures taken since our wedding (and the photographer's style and mine were VERY different, so we do not even display them). Erin captured exactly what I was hoping for. Perhaps we will have to do this again in a few years if/when we add another member. I have hesitated to share (should I say, over-share?) such a large and intimate amount of photos with the internet, but the pictures of the boys are too adorable for me to resist, and the talent of Erin too great not to praise. So for those who love photos of the boys, here you go, and for those who now want to hire Erin, here is Erin Julian Photography.

Thanks Erin!

Opposites Attract?

My husband read my last post and decided to write his own poetic paraphrase:

"It's pretty out,
but it's f-ing cold."

Nice huh? He has a unique style.

Deceptive Blue

The bright blue of the sky deceives. It knows what such colors tell the fading pages of my memory. It tells me that there are children playing, that there are beaches waiting. It beckons for me to come and play a while. It deceives me into thinking that with brightness comes warmth. The child beneath my motherly shell squirms in discomfort at being kept indoors in a sweater and socks. Yet the cool sinking air slipping in from the window speaks to me with a truth that the sky denies - it is freezing.

Food For Thought

I have several friends who have started talking about vegetarian leanings in the last few months. I feel compelled to at least share this resource on vegetarianism, so that they can equip themselves to make the best decision and choose the most healthful form of vegetarianism.

Happy Anniversary Blog!

Today is my 1-year anniversary of blogging. What a strange thing blogging is. I have given thought over the year to what a strange phenomena blogging is, and why I do it. I don't have any great time to socially critique blogging and examine its potential function in creating community (or possibly creating faux-community). For me the community has been real, in part because I know personally almost everyone who follows my blog, but I have made new and sincere friendships as well.

It has been interesting to track how many people see my blog each day, and where they are coming from. Especially fun are the google searches that turn up this blog. I thought I might share some fun Ancora Imparo blog stats with you on this my 1st blog anniversary.

Most of the google search hits that produce my blog are related to the blog title "Ancora Imparo" This comes in many variations, including searches for "meaning", "jewelry", "shirt", "necklace", and especially "tattoos". So much so that I almost feel compelled to provide a little link to some such thing (if there are any) on the web, just so that I am not wasting anyone's valuable web-time.

There have been some other fun searches as well, like "Orangatangs" and "silver determining baby gender" and "hippie homeschooling" and "v-cut hair cut". There have also been some disturbing ones, like "f-a-t n-a-k-e-d g-i-r-l p-i-c-s" (I have spelled it out so that it won't send any other strange perverts to my site). Today's unusual one was "recipes with yogurt".

I also get to see how many people check my site each day. I think my current "record" is 29 or 30, with a current average of 15. Given this information, it is easy for me to see what topics are of greater interest to my readers. If I was interested in selling ad space, or gathering the most readers possible, I could probably cater to these areas.

What I have realized, though, is that I started blogging for myself for several reasons. One, it is a great place to process and vent and get things out of me and recorded elsewhere for my own benefit to come back and engage with later when I have more objectivity. Two, I wanted to foster the practice of writing often so that if I ever decide to write more seriously, it will not take a grand effort to sit and write each day. Three, it is a great journal of my life. It remains a place for me to write and share what I want to, with very little regard to what the rest of the world might like to hear (though, of course, I do delight when those two things overlap and we end up with fantastic conversations about the nature of marriage, or say the mysterious workings of a certain silver spoon =))

While I am obviously aware of my readers, I write not for my actual audience, but more for an imagined audience. I think this imagined audience is best described as my future adult children. For my 20th birthday my mother gave me her journal from when she was pregnant with me through my first year or two of life. This was a precious gift, and I was much better able to see my mom as a person and see how she has grown and how she has become the person she is now. So, this blog can be that record for my boys.

For the sake of all of our entertainment, I thought it might be fun to look back over the last year and pick out the post for each month that got the most comments (or was my favorite, in case of ties). Here is the year in review:

January: Fog
February: Winter in Seattle
March: Liking and Loving
April: True Confessions
May: Thoughts Amidst Busyness
June: The Wisdom of Birthing
July: A Blog-Hopping Dialog on Divorce
August: Early August Pictures
September: Christian-Fundamentalist, Hippie-Homeschooling, Health Freak
October: In the Kitchen with Meg and Marianne
November: Sanctification for Today
December: Madonna

So, there you go. I do hope you will join me for another year. Though I did just say that I write for myself, you, my readers, have really become a genuine community for me, as well as have helped to challenge and confirm my musings and help assure me that I am not too strange and unusual =).

Warning Labels

I finally caved and bought Elliot two more binks. He was still using the original pair we got when he was born. I had this idea that I wouldn't buy more, I would just wean him off the bink before that happened so that we didn't have an ordeal like we did when we removed it from Søren (at 20 months). Alas, I am still putting that off, though Elliot already uses it much less than Søren did.

Anyhow, I share this because I was reading the "caution" section (this is one of my little quirky habits, I have a tendency to read EVERYTHING on a package. All instructions, warnings, etc. It is not from any fear or confusion over instructions or warnings, it is just a strange habit), and found the following amusing:

"Do not leave baby unattended with a pacifier in his/her mouth.
Do not let baby sleep with a pacifier in his/her mouth unattended"

Are you kidding me?! What do you think I bought it for?! Sometimes I think that the people who make baby products must not have children. I know that most of these labels are just security measures to protect the companies from lawsuits. Come on though. When we were sleep training Søren, our pediatrician suggested leaving him in the crib at night to learn to self sooth with 10 or more pacifiers in the crib with him so that he would have no trouble finding one (no, we did not do this - perhaps because 10 binks seemed too expensive, I am not sure). I guess she hasn't read the warning yet.

Brewing **updated with recipes**

My husband has decided to take the month of January off from all alcohol. He does this from time to time with almost all his foods. I have taken this opportunity to experiment making our own beverages. Right now I have a triple-batch of Kombucha fermenting (though this is a staple for us as Soren can't get enough of it), some real ginger ale fermenting, and a ginger beer bug started so that Andrew can enjoy a real small ginger beer as a treat in February.

It is so easy to make these things that I find myself wanting to make up a batch of all the other little beverage recipes in Nourishing Traditions! I am reeling myself in, in part, because I do not have the canning supplies to jug them all, but I did just discover someone recycling old canning supplies on Craigslist here in Portland! Of course, we do not have room in the budget at the moment for me to develop any new hobbies, but that is now on the back burner of my wish list along with several other things (like easels for me and the boys, a hand-held blender, textiles to make my own stationary (thanks Denee for getting my wheels spinning), fabric to start making my own clothes, and of course, more yarn and needles and time to knit! - Yes, I am aware of my own delusions).

At the same time, we have been spending quite a bit of time evaluating where our money goes and where it should, and how to best use it to the glory of God in light of the fact that we are among the richest people on the planet. Somehow my consumerist desires always flare up during the times that I am most philosophical about shedding them. Action is the real test of philosophical commitments.


Ginger Ale
Makes 2 Quarts

3/4 cup ginger, peeled and finely chopped or grated
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
1/4 - 1/2 cup Rapadura (see below)
2 teaspoons sea salt
1/4 cup whey (see below)
2 quarts filtered water

This is a most refreshing drink, taken in small amounts with meals and as a pick-me-up after outside work in the sun.
Place all ingredients in a 2-quart jug. Stir well and cover tightly. Leave at room temperature for 2-3 days before transferring to the refrigerator. This will keep several months well chilled.
To serve, strain into a glass. Ginger ale may be mixed with carbonated water and is best sipped warm rather than gulped down cold.

*Rapadura is whole, unrefined, cane juice. It is the only name it goes by, and I only know of one brand (Rapunzel's). You should be able to find this at a natural grocer, and it is available on line.

*Whey is easiest when made from yogurt, you just line a strainer with a tea towel or cheese cloth, place it in a bowl, and then put the yogurt in the lined strainer and let the whey seperate. Once it has seperated for a couple hours, loosely tie the towel or cloth onto a wooden spoon (or something similar) and let it continue to drip. It is done when it stops dripping. The end product is whey and cream cheese. I like to use Nancy's whole yogurt for this.

Ginger Beer
Makes about 8 quarts

14 teaspoons ground ginger
14 teaspoons white sugar (yes - you read that correctly)
filtered water
3 cups Rapadura (see above note under Ginger Ale)
juice of 4 lemons

Genuine ginger beer begins with a "bug" made by feeding 2 teaspoons ground ginger and 2 teaspoons white sugar to a culture for seven days. White sugar is used for the small quantity needed to make the "bug," but Rapadura is used for the larger quantity that goes into the beer.

Place 1 1/2 cups water, 2 teaspoons ground ginger and 2 teaspoons white sugar in a jar. Cover, shake well and leave at room temperature for 24 hours. Feed the culture with 2 teaspoons each of sugar and ground ginger every day for 7 days, leaving the culture at room temperature. On the seventh day, it should produce bubbles. If not, throw it away and start again.

Dissolve Rapadura in 10 cups boiling water. Place in a very large bowl or stainless steel pan. Add lemon juice and 20 more cups water. Carefully pour off the liquid from the "bug" and add to the bowl, reserving the sediment. Mix well, cover the bowl tightly and leave for about 7 days. Transfer to 8 quart-sized bottles with wire-held corks or stoppers. Let stand 14 days at room temperature before drinking.

To make a new "bug," throw half of the ginger-sugar sediment away and reserve the rest. Add 1 1/2 cups water and feed with 2 teaspoons each sugar and ginger for 7 days, as before.

The recipe doesn't specifically say this, but I assume you can give away the other half of the sediment as a "bug" starter as well, but you don't need the "bug" to start your own.


***Ginger Beer and Ginger Ale Recipes from Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon***

Dear Søren...

You are a month shy of being 2 1/2 years old. It is hard for me to fathom that you have grown into a boy so soon. It is also hard for me to fathom that you have not always been a part of my life. You like to dig out all of my photo albums and flip through finding pictures of momma and asking where Daddy and you are. It is a good question, because sometimes I, too, forget you have not always been there. I have actually finally come to view and understand myself as your mother, and so my history is now seen through the lenses of me as your mother, but the pictures prove there was a time when I was unfamiliar with the aches and joys of motherhood.

Life marches on and new things are happening here at the house. You and Elliot are developing a very sweet brotherhood. He delights to watch ANYTHING you do. He wants to imitate all that he sees you accomplish. He does not yet understand the make-believe symphony and why we all play at strange gestures with plastic spatulas (while you and I both know they are really violins and oboes and such).

You have become a very capable and thoughtful helper. You like to help me unload the dishwasher, hand wash dishes, load and sort the laundry, pick up the toys before Daddy comes home (i.e. walks upstairs) from work, set the silverware on the table, bring me Elliot's bink for safe keeping, help bring toys to Elliot, and so many other things. I am delighted to know you and get to be your mother.

As of late you are sensitively insistent on doing things yourself (like putting your shoes on, climbing into your big-guy bed, putting things back in their places, adjusting your hat, walking without holding our hands, and various other self-management tasks). You are learning to politely ask me to play with you ("momma, play with you?") or give you attention ("momma, attention please?!") with out whining, and this is quite pleasing for me, and easy to acquiesce to seeing how you are gaining your independence so quickly that I am happy for the times you do need/want my company. You are on the brink of correcting your you/me reversals, and sometimes you ramble off such complex statements and ideas that Daddy and I can hardly keep track of what you have said. I am excited to explore the world of ideas together very soon.

Toddler-proofing never ends! We recently bought door nob protectors because you are fully capable of opening any unlocked door...and well, you even can reach the bolt, so we are taking no more chances there. But Laurie would be happy to know that there are no door-nob protectors on the inside of your bedroom because you are a good listener when momma tells you to stay in bed (though you have been a bit stubborn in the last week with your naps, probably because we need new black-out curtains that our long enough to cover the windows!). You are strong enough now to pull all of our chairs anywhere you want with record speed. Gratefully, you are a wise and cautious boy because I have slipped away for 3 minutes to check on Elliot and come down to find you on my counter washing dishes with knives and oven knobs easily within reach! There have been a couple injuries of late (like touching a cooling stove) that have helped you to understand that momma makes rules for good reasons, and thus you are learning to fight my authority less and less (yes I know, this is temporary, but it is also a nice break).

After church today you were singing, "The B-I-B-L-E, yes that's the book for MOMMY!" with a big grin that was naturally contagious. I hope that as you grow and watch Daddy and me that you will see from our life what is important to us and be able to understand and know us better. I also hope that you will be able to examine Daddy and I and take the good things and leave the bad. We pray each day for help being good parents for you and Elliot, and thank God that we all have each other, and thank God for all the things he brings into each day.

You are full of life and love and adventure and I cannot wait to see all the things that capture you as you grow. I adore you for exactly who you are, and I pray that I never confuse that with being in love with who I think you could be. You belong to God, not to us. Let none of us forget that!

With love like you will not imagine until you have your own children,
Your momma

Soren's New Ambition

Here is one of the perks of being self-employed; Andrew had to go to the fire department yesterday to chat about a field plan for our summer festival, and we decided it should be a whole family affair. I very nice fireman gave us a 45 minute tour of the station only cut short because Soren was asking to go home for a nap (yes, that's right, he ASKED for a nap). Here are some of the fun pictures. The truck was HUGE.

Here Soren got to sit in Brent's (the fireman) jump seat.

There was no way to fit the whole truck in the picture, but here is my best effort at showing Soren's relative size.

Andrew was showing Soren the dirty helmet.

Here is Soren getting a chance in the driver's seat. He spent most of his time here until we left.

Oh, yes, he has a new goal for growing up. Last night it was, "eat big guy meat. Grow up big fireman?"

Sorry Daddy, your are temporarily replaced as his hero.

Photo Update!

Elliot playing with Noah's Ark

Spending Some Time with Daddy

So Happy to be Mobile

Søren spending a sweet moment with Aunt Mimi before we left. Then she came and spent a week with us in our new house before she went back to school.

The joy of moving...box forts.

Also, for those who know and love and miss us, I am posting little video's on You Tube, poor quality and all.

Pausing...

As I began my studying and reflecting on the issues raised in the last posts and the blogs Sara Kay wrote in response to my posts, I kept thinking "weep with those who weep" and decided that I was not being sensitive to the fact that this might not be the time yet to move to philosophical dialog.

So, I will hold my thoughts and save my posts for another time in a few months when we can discuss without brushing fresh wounds.

Sara Kay, I apologize for not thinking to check with you before I began!

Small Disclaimer

I think my previous post might have made it sound like I am a pacifist. As far as I know, I am not. I am in the process of studying what I think is biblical concerning this subject and will post a more thorough defense of my position soon. I cannot read the bible and really think that God is always non-violent. But, I think that I might be a pacifist as concerns an individual believer engaging the world. I do not know whether, as Christians, we are to personally use violence. I do not yet know what my thoughts are about Christians in the military, somehow that seems different.

I am not suggesting that I think all war is wrong. Well, even if I thought all war was wrong, I would not expect any of it to stop, because if it is a biblical command to pursue peaceful resolutions, then the only way a country could do that was if they were Christian. I do not believe we live in a Christian country, nor that there will ever be a Christian country until Israel recognizes their Messiah. Then, the biblical prophecies seem quite violent in destroying those who will threaten to destroy Israel...so...still hard for me to think they will defend themselves non-violently.

So, again, my previous post was more concerned about the Church's response to the violent world. It was my discomfort with the idea of weapons in the church and of church members elected to kill if necessary to protect the other church members. This was one incident with one attacker, what if it were 5? What if 10? What if it were the rest of the nation attacking the Church? What is the Church's response supposed to be to persecution? I guess that is the heart of my questions in the previous post. So, I would like to steer the conversation, if I could, towards that question of non-violence in the life of individual believers more than national pacifism or just war, unless they are inextricably tied.

I am very excited about opening the discussion though. Thank you everyone for your thoughtful comments so far. I hope to write two more posts soon, first "Why I am a pacifist," then "Why I am not a pacifist". I have much thinking to do on this, I hope you will join me and we can sort it out together.

To Die Is Gain

I know I have not posted anything much for quite some time. This move and holiday season have been quite busy for us, and we are still getting settled into our new home (which we love!). I know that Christmas and the New Year ought to give me ample springboards for sharing thoughts and experiences, but rather than write about any of that, I am going to skip right to something that has been on my mind lately due to current and not-so-current events.

Several weeks ago there were two shootings at Christian facilities in Colorado. These were on par with some of the school shootings that have taken place over the last decade or so, and from what I understand, these two in Colorado were related. I happen to read the blog of a woman who attends the church that this happened at with her family. I was, of course, relieved to hear that she and her family were safe, and deeply saddened that she and her church family have to deal with such tragic, violent behavior.

That said, I have been wrestling with several factors in these incidents for weeks now. As I understand it, the church had their own armed security guard to protect the pastor, and trained for incidents like this (since it is a high-profile mega-church). This security guard killed the assassin to protect the rest of the members of their church. I have had a very hard time reconciling this with my understanding of what it means to follow Jesus.

It seems to me that the pastor ought to be willing to die for his cause. Having a personal, armed, security guard seems to miss the point of Jesus reprimanding Peter for cutting off the ear of the soldier who came to arrest Jesus.

The bible says we will suffer. Jesus told his followers not to expect different treatment than how the world treated him. We are to go and meet Jesus outside the gate...outside the gate where they crucify.

This was all brought even more to the forefront of my mind as my husband and I recently watched the 1983 "Gandhi". We have been reflecting on how actively he pursued peaceful solutions to aggressive and violent attack. He was always willing to die and be imprisoned, even if it was just to strike a chord in the humanity of a single individual. And so, as I watched the reenactment of one of the massacres that took place because the hoards of people were unwilling to violently protect themselves from a small number of armed English soldiers, I began to think about the life of this young man who was killed in Colorado, by a church member. I began to play a mental game about how he might have responded had the church members all faced into his gun and implored him to stop and consider what he was doing. Even if he continued to shoot them, if they continued to implore him to stop while they walked up to disarm him non-violently. What if they all demonstrated by their action that his salvation was of greater importance than the rest of their lives here on earth.

Of course, they would have to believe that this was the right response to have. They would have to believe that this was the truth of how one human pursuing God ought to respond to another human created by God. They would have to know they were risking their life for the sake of this truth, and to truly be willing to die for truth- and if they did, then they would truly be martyrs.

This brings me to my second difficulty. I have a hard time considering the people who did die to be martyrs. Not that they were not sincere believers, but this man was killing people - random people - because he was upset at how he had been rejected by the church culture around him. Did he really hate Christianity? Or did he just hate the superficiality and rejection he had received from Christians (in which case, were the injured suffering for the offense of the gospel, or just for being offensive - again, not themselves personally, but for many "Christians " who engage in elitism and neglect the message of the gospel that there is no partiality with God.)

He just walked into a church and started shooting. I am not sure that being in a church building makes you a believer. They were not dying for their faith - unless faith is only equivalent with being found in a church on Sunday. He was angry at the superficial and unchristian behavior of many church cultures. So, the people who died, died because he correlated their presence in the church with their allegiance to that sort of church culture. I doubt he was actually persecuting them for their faith. (Note: I do not have all the details to these events, and I do not know his actual motives.)

It seems to me that you have to be willing to die for your faith, and actually die for your faith, to earn the title of martyr. For example, in one of the aforementioned school shootings the shooter walked into the library, asked any Christians to stand up (which one girl did), and then shot her. I imagine she knew what she was risking, and then she paid the price. I think she was probably a martyr.

Being panicked in a church corridor and accidentally getting shot and killed does not seem the same. It could have been anyone. It could have been an atheist who was visiting to appease his relatives, or a pedophile whose cover was the guise of a good church go-er, or just a normal person who attends church because that is what good Americans do, but has no sincere faith. It seems there was no intentionality in who he shot. The man did not grab people and say - "Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the risen son of God sent to save men from their sins? Do you worship and follow him as your King? Are you willing to die for Him?" and then shoot them if they answered yes.

I am struck that the pastor himself was unwilling to risk his life for his beliefs as he had his own armed security guard to protect him. What about the notion that we are to turn the other cheek if struck by our enemy? Does being shot have some alternate significance to being struck? What about thou shall not kill? What about "to die is gain"? What about respecting the dignity of another human life - even when they themselves do not respect that dignity? What about finding another non-violent way of disarming him?

Of course, he was a sinner. So am I. So are you. Of course, he was mentally unstable. Even so, what would it have taken to reach into his humanity and implore him to conqueror himself? Is one individual worth dying for? Not to mention the message this would have sent to everyone who heard of the incident. Talk about martyrs!

Perhaps I am just reacting passionately because of the emotions the movie roused in me. So, once again, I have to ask your pardon if you think I am a little overboard, but is my confusion in this really out of place? Help me work this out.