you have to step forth

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Things lately:

Lent has been a reminder of how little I actually live the way I profess to want to live. Mainly, that I want to live simpler, less attached to things. I want to be more generous, to give more away, to have fewer clothes in my closet, to be less concerned about cleanliness, more concerned about the way my actions effect the earth, most of all concerned about love. I want to want the pearl of great price.

If I had a kitchen, I would make this today. 

The most important thing is to show up. You have to step forth. Being an artist is not about the perfect environment or inspiration, it is about showing up.

Best combination: good bread, fig jam, goat's cheese, prosciutto, thyme, and ground pepper.

This article about photography in the digital age.

Poet of the week: Susanna Childress. (Might have been reading Jagged With Love during chapel every day this week. Also, her husband's music.)

Photographer of the week: Sophie Calle. 

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it. (Matthew 13:45-46)
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ten good things

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February is for some reason (uh, winter) always a hard month. But here's to attention to grace:

01. sunday afternoons at this coffeeshop in geneva
02. words as instruments of thinking
03. my gracious and forgiving physics professor
04. the baby white orchid on my desk reminding me that spring will (must) come
05. scottcairnsscottcairnsscottcairns (might have just ordered every interlibrary loan poetry book by him)
06. coming back to my room yesterday and finding a vintage thermos on my desk from a dear friend
07. saturday morning prayer with brie on the white couch
08. things to look forward to, like california in a month (oh my soul)
09. that conversation with sally the other day
10. these words: "the law of the lord is perfect, reviving the soul" (psalm 19.7)
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many other things

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Now there were also
many other things that Jesus did.
Were every one of them to be written
I suppose that the world itself could not
contain the books that would be written.
[John 21:25]
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swings upon the hours

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Last month Derek and I went to NYC for the day and visited Ann Hamilton's installation The Event of a Thread at the Park Avenue Armory. It was like an indoor playground for both children and child-like adults, the type of place where there is no guilt for being happy. And it reminded me that this is the kind of art I want to make: art that presents strange new worlds.

"The Soul has moments of escape--
When bursting all the doors--
She dances like a Bomb, abroad,
And swings upon the Hours."
[Emily Dickinson]

[pictures from the armory, last one by derek]
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he made the dust live

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Things lately:

This interview with the poet Christian Wiman. So many wise and humble words.

More wise words from a woman I deeply respect, on compassion and suffering with others.

Recent kitchen experiments: pumpkin black bean burgers and multigrain maple muffins.

This painting of the mocking of Christ by Heironymus Bosch.

Best way to recycle used coffee grounds: mix with a bit of olive oil, vanilla extract, and turbinado sugar and use as a rub on hands or feet. My hands feel so wonderful right now.

These words from W. Berry: "God did not make a body and put a soul into it, like a letter into an envelope. He formed man of dust; then, by breathing his breath into it, he made the dust live. The dust, formed as man and made to live, did not embody a soul; it became a soul."

And, goals for twenty-thirteen:
01. Read more fiction.
02. Go surfing.
03. Memorize this prayer and say it every day.

[holga 120 again, yellow wall at the gryphon]
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hope is one of our duties

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"When art tries to speak of the new world, the final world, in terms of only the present world, it collapses into sentimentality; when it speaks of the present world only in terms of its shame and horror, it collapses into brutalism. The vocation of the artist is to speak of the present as beautiful in itself but as pointing beyond itself, to enable us to see both the glory that already fills the earth and the glory that shall fill it to overflowing; to speak, within that, of the shame without ignoring the promise, to speak of the promise without forgetting the shame."

(N.T. Wright, Apocalyptic and the Beauty of God)

[all film from holga 120 with 135mm film]
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cardamom please

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Today, just a new project and a cake I made for Christmas Eve. I didn't have the full recipe written down, so thus I record it here. It sounds like a lot of different flavors, I know (my family was quite skeptical), but it really is delicious. Just look at how much butter is in it, after all.

Brown Butter Lemon Spice Cake with Black Tea & Cardamom Frosting
inspired mostly by Torunn, but also Food & Wine

for the cake:
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour (or spelt flour)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons ground Earl Gray tea leaves
3/4 cup sugar
1 vanilla bean, or 2 teaspoons extract
1 tablespoon lemon zest
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 egg yolks
1 egg
2/3 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 325. Grease and flour a small bundt cake pan or a 9 inch circular cake pan. In a small sauce pan, melt the butter. Cook over low heat until frothy and brown and the butter has a nutty scent. Set the pan in an ice water bath until the butter sets again, probably 8-10 minutes. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients except sugar. Once the butter is set, beat the butter in a mixer until creamy and light. Add in the sugar. Add in the eggs, one at a time. Add lemon juice and vanilla extract, if using. Then add in the flour mixture and the milk in alternation, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 40 minutes.

for the icing:
1 stick unsalted butter, soft
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons very black steeped Earl Gray tea
1/2 teaspoon cardamom
1/4 teaspoon salt

Beat together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add in remaining ingredients, adding more or less tea until the frosting reaches desired consistency.