ten good things

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because small things grow great:

01. dried hydrangeas on my desk.
02. anna g. and chocolate ice cream and anna-buns.
03. a small white room with a big window. when i couldn't pray last semester, i just prayed for that.
04. indian food and oak park and glittering snow with a friend last weekend.
05. professors who are willing to come help you letterpress at 7pm on a friday night.
06. my night reading lamp. so much joy from such a small thing.
07. so many loved people coming a long way to help me celebrate my senior art exhibition.
08. drawing class, which i think will prove to be my favorite class of all time ever.
09. the scent of homemade granola in my hair. actually, sometimes that's a bad thing. right now it's good.
10. when peace comes unexpectedly.

and this song!

[winter anna, last year]
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on being useless

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"It's hard to pay attention when there is so much nothing to take in, so much open land that evokes in many people a panicked desire to get through it as quickly as possible."
(Kathleen Norris, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography)

Sitting on a train for thirty-six hours certainly evoked in me a panicked desire to get through that endless North-Dakota-Montana-land as quickly as possible. But it also forced me to realize I had no power to make the train go any faster. I had thirty-six hours to be completely useless. For a task-driven person like myself, that's really hard.

"Everything you need to get done before you die isn't going to get done," or so says my drawing professor. Where did we get this idea that everything has to be useful? Drawing doesn't work like that. Sitting on a train doesn't work like that. Really spending time with people doesn't work like that. Loving someone doesn't work like that. A lot of things with value do not produce — and that's alright. Now just to actually believe that.

Other things today: this best restaurant in Lincoln Park and Angel Olsen.

[michael at glacier national park, montana]
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fear not

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These things today: A Christmas Eve cake recipe. This article. Iceland. And these words, which have been the words of these last months, again and again, spoken into the night air:

Fear not.
You have been redeemed.
He has called you by name,
and you are his.

Sweet Lemon Cake with Olive Oil and Greek Yogurt

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 

2 teaspoons baking powder 

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt 

1 cup plain Greek yogurt 

1 1/3 cups sugar, divided 

3 extra-large eggs 

3 teaspoons grated lemon zest (2 lemons) 

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 

1/2 cup olive oil 

1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

For the glaze: 

1 cup confectioners' sugar 

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice 

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9" cake pan. Line the bottom with parchment paper. Grease and flour the pan. 

Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt into 1 bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the yogurt, 1 cup sugar, the eggs, lemon zest, and vanilla. Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. With a rubber spatula, fold the oil into the batter, making sure it's all incorporated. 

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Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 27-30 minutes, or until a toothpick placed in the center of the cake comes out clean. Meanwhile, cook the 1/3 cup lemon juice and remaining 1/3 cup sugar in a small pan until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is clear. Set aside. 

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When the cake is done, allow it to cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Carefully place on a baking rack over a sheet pan. While the cake is still warm, pour the lemon-sugar mixture over the cake and allow it to soak in. Cool. For the glaze, combine the confectioners' sugar and lemon juice and drizzle over the cake.

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[pc: here]

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it was a tilting

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Annunciation by Marie Howe
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Even if I don’t see it again—nor ever feel it
I know it is—and that if once it hailed me
it ever does—
And so it is myself I want to turn in that direction
not as towards a place, but it was a tilting
within myself,
as one turns a mirror to flash the light to where
it isn’t—I was blinded like that—and swam
in what shone at me
only able to endure it by being no one and so
specifically myself I thought I’d die
from being loved like that.

[light in the attic, holga 120 with 135mm film, double exposure]
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heading home again

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These are the Ellie-days, when we talk about being scared, and being brave, and sit at a picnic table and use gel pens to draw pictures of leaves, and run as fast as we can (which is still not fast enough to beat the other kids, for both of us, and that's okay), and share tootsie rolls stashed in our pockets. They are the better days.

[all pictures from my holga]

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swung like laughing infants

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The Love of Morning

It is hard sometimes to drag ourselves
back to the love of morning
after we've lain in the dark crying out
O God, save us from the horror . . .

God has saved the world one more day
even with its leaden burden of human evil;
we wake to birdsong.
And if sunlight's gossamer lifts in its net
the weight of all that is solid,
our hearts, too, are lifted,
swung like laughing infants;

but on gray mornings,
all incident — our own hunger,
the dear tasks of continuance,
the footsteps before us in the earth's
beloved dust, leading the way — all,
is hard to love again
for we resent a summons
that disregards our sloth, and this
calls us, calls us.

[Denise Levertov]

on prayer | 12

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"The purpose of theology is to safeguard against misunderstandings that frustrate a Christian life of prayer."

(Maximus the Confessor)

yes&yes&yes.
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