Since my last post in April (!!) I’ve had some things going on in my life that have kept me preoccupied and not thinking about posting–surgery and a new job, to name two.

The new job is the “new beginning” I alluded to in the title of this post. I’m blessed to have finally landed a job “in my field,” but the past two weeks have been filled with adjusting to life at work and figuring out that balance between keeping our home in order and working to earn the money our family needs. I have not yet determined whether I will post about the work I’m doing or in a way connected to my career, which is actually somewhat related to the subject of this blog.

For now, I’m working on a series of posts on NFP, Catholicism and “natural living,” that I hope to finish “soon”. If you’re hankering for something more to read, head on over to my husband’s blog, Bonum Te Esse, where he is in the middle of a series of posts on how politics ought to be oriented towards “the good,” but how so often it falls far, far short.

God bless!

This post is linked to Kelly the Kitchen Kop‘s monthly kitchen goals post. It’s my first time participating (I dropped the ball on February and March…whoops!) Go check out what others are doing this month to make their kitchens more natural and nourishing!

My Goals

{from flickr user juhansonin}

1. Purchase all produce and meat from our local farmers markets; purchase organic, naturally raised whenever possible and practical. I’ve been doing this for awhile with the produce (95% of the time–I made an exception for my Cutie clementines), but have only tried the meat a handful of times.

My great local farmer’s market–Sappington Farmers Market–typically does $10 off $50 every Thursday and now their Facebook page often runs 10-15% off discounts for fans. They carry great local, mostly-natural meats: Missouri Ranchers beef, Heritage Acres pork (also Missouri), and Midwestern free-range/organic/antibiotic- and hormone-free chicken. The discounts really help make the meats affordable for an apartment-dweller who doesn’t have the space for a big old freezer for a side of beef and tons of chickens! We already get all of our milk and cream (a great Missouri rBST-free brand, sold in glass, called Heartland Creamery) and free-range eggs from this farmers market, and they really offer a variety of other great products and always seem to be adding more.

I can’t wait until the other seasonal markets open up!

{from flickr user dmje - I plan to post photos of my own garden later!}

2. Start our vegetable and herb garden. I’m probably a week or two late on this already, but it’s my first attempt, ok? Our apartment complex built a great community garden this year, with raised beds and composted soil and everything, and we have a 4.5′ x 8′ plot. In the garden I plan to do roma tomatoes, two varieties of bell peppers, carrots, marigolds (to fend off pests!) and perhaps cucumbers. On our shady porch that gets a little bit of sun every day, I will do pots of herbs (basil–which I might try in the sunnier raised bed as well, depending on space; rosemary; thyme; parsley; and cilantro) and am trying a variety of romaine lettuce in a larger pot as well. I’m also going to try some flowers out there, to brighten up our patch of concrete!

This weekend we got the container soil, seeds, pots (at the dollar store! can’t beat medium-sized pots for $1 each!), peat pots for starting the seeds, gardening gloves and some bamboo stakes for the tomatoes and cukes. I might start planting later tonight or tomorrow, when it’s supposed to cool off. It’s been in the 80s here in our part of the Midwest!

Did I mention that the apartment complex, in addition to providing the raised beds in a lovely fenced area for free, is also providing all of the gardening tools, a workbench, hoses nearby, and compost bins? Awesome! If you’re in the south St. Louis County/City area and are looking for a well-managed, updated, “green” (valet recycling and a garden–doesn’t get much better than that!) apartment complex, comment or send me an email. I’ll be happy to recommend where I live privately!

3. Reexamine our use of plastics and stop using them in the microwave. Katie over at Kitchen Stewardship is hosting an eye-opening and challenging series called “Get the Junk Out!” and this week’s focus is on plastics. I’ve known for awhile that certain plastics are not good for us because they are guilty of leaching endocrine disruptors into our food and drinks (BPA has gotten a bad rap lately, and that plastic is in lots of things, from baby bottles and Nalgenes to the linings of canned foods), but I’ve honestly been nonchalant and lazy about them. Plastics are just so integrated into how I buy and store food that it’s been hard for me to imagine how I can get rid of them. This month I’m going to try.

I’m especially guilty of storing leftovers in those cheap “disposable” plastic containers and then sticking them in the microwave for lunch. But the endocrine disruption thing is really on my radar lately, as I’ve become keenly aware of how sensitive our hormones and endocrine systems are. I need to stop with the microwaving thing and make it a habit to store food in glass. I’m really at a loss as to what to do about ziploc bags, though! We use those for *everything*!

More info about why I’d do such a crazy thing as try to get rid of plastics:

Donielle @ Naturally Knocked Up: Toss the Plastic, Save Your Fertility

Katie @ Kitchen Stewardship: Food for Thought: Plastic Safety for People and the Earth

Another kitchen-related goal is to finish off my reading pile. I love our library and I love being able to log on and send a request for a book I’ve just read about online. Here’s what I have been working on and what I have lined up for the rest of the month:

• Ratio by Michael Ruhlman. A culinary school grad, Ruhlman writes about the theory behind cooking. His goal is to “free the home cook from being chained to recipes” and he walks the reader through the ratios behind everything from breads to sauces to cookies to stocks.
• Real Food: What to Eat and Why by Nina Planck. I’m working through this one at the moment. Planck grew up eating ‘real food’ (which she defines as “old and traditional”) on her parents’ vegetable farm, where her chores involved milking the family’s cow, Mabel, and selling their produce at farmers markets in their area. Later she ventured into low-fat and vegetarian/vegan diets, which did not treat her body well, and she chronicles her journey back into ‘real food’ as she opened farmers markets in England and New York. It’s basically her food biography with a lot of research to explain the choices she made and the context in which she made them.
• The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. Haven’t started this one yet. The tagline is “A Natural History of Four Meals,” and I’m anticipating that it will look into the history of a variety of traditional (and not-so-traditional) meals, how we came to eat them, and what impact eating these kinds of foods has on our bodies and our environment. It’s a bit intimidating and looks longer than I anticipated!
• Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes. I’ve heard this one cited by a lot of low-carb types, and I’m thinking it will be a good complement to what Planck writes about cholesterol, heart disease, and their potential dietary causes. I snagged this one after a conversation with a friend in which I stated that I tended not to think that saturated fat consumption alone causes heart disease, and that not all calories are created equal (since, you know, people were eating butter and other animal fats for millennia before the first case of heart disease was reported in 1912.)

What are your kitchen goals?

{photo credit: italian-food-lovers.com}

Mondays can be so tough for my husband at law school, and I just love making a yummy Monday night dinner. I’m not sure why, but I really think it helps to get the week started off on the right foot. Quicker dinners are for later in the week, when you’re tired and hoping that the weekend comes soon. But on Monday I find that I have renewed energy for the week ahead, and just love cooking a yummy meal!

Unfortunately, you’re going to have to take my word for it that this was a delicious dinner, as I have no photographic evidence. I know that if I have any hope of blogging about food, I really do need to get into the habit of taking photos of the beautiful meals I occasionally produce in my kitchen. Alas, I only thought about this while taking my last bite of dinner last night. I guess I’ll just have to make it again so that I can share a photo here!

This is my take on classic chicken parmesan–a fun, tasty, Italian comfort dish that I love making when I find a good deal on fresh boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Last night I knew I didn’t want to do the classic Chicken Parmesan, served with pasta sauce and noodles…I wanted something a little more creative (and besides, I didn’t have any Prego in my pantry!). I ended up serving this with roasted broccoli and the last box of parmesan and romano cheese rice-a-roni I had in my pantry (trying to be low-carb, I only had a little rice. It’s really not that good…) The best part is that we had a couple of leftover chicken breasts from this meal which are being recreated tonight on top of a salad, and maybe with a side of baked potatoes. I love reincarnating leftovers!

So here it is, my recipe for Balsamic Chicken Parmesan.

Everyone, it seems, suggests menu planning each week. It prevents wasting groceries, wasting time, ordering pizza, and that dreaded question that hits along with the hunger pangs at 4-5pm: “What’s for dinner?”

I’ve done different kinds of menu planning, and since it’s just the two of us and I like to be flexible, I typically have just made a list of dinners I feel like making that week, posted it on the fridge, and then shopped according to the list. This week I decided to do a little bit more extensive planning as I made my grocery list, so that I’d know exactly what I need. I like having fun new recipes to try on the agenda–AND the assurance that I have everything I’ll need to make them.

I’ve started shopping at two places for our food: the farmer’s market nearby (for milk/cream, eggs, fruits and veggies, cheese, and some other odds and ends that we can get locally grown, like brown rice; occasionally we’ll get meat there, but it’s just too pricey for us to use regularly) and the supermarket (I choose one of the three we have in our area based on which has the best sales on meat or other big-ticket ingredients). I’ll include recipes based on the best value items I am able to get. This week, pork tenderloin was on sale for a good price, and since two tenderloins come in one package, we’ll have it for two meals.

Basically I’ve broken it down so that I know exactly what I’m making for dinner each day, and have several options for breakfasts and lunches. I pack my husband’s lunch a few times a week, and usually only eat one other meal besides dinner myself each day, so what I have listed here is plenty for us.  And of course I have a short list of items I plan to bake–my stand mixer makes baking WAY too easy! Some days we might swap meals, just in case we’re feeling like something different. We’ll see how this goes.

Planning our meals should also be a good way to gradually make some nutritious dietary changes. Sometimes it’s too easy to just forget about veggies or a salad, but if it’s on the plan I’ll be more likely to make it! We’re far from perfect in our meals, but I’m trying to be more balanced and ‘colorful’ on the plate (i.e., we don’t often eat monster piles of spaghetti with bolognese sauce like you might think from the photo!), and just generally making small changes in the types of ingredients used.

Enough of an introduction…here’s what we’ll be eating this week. I’m linking to the recipes I use, if they are available online.

Dinners

• Monday – Pork Tenderloin with Grainy Mustard Pan Sauce, Roasted Broccoli, Rice
• Tuesday – Indian Chicken Curry, Brown Rice
• Wednesday - Greek Pork Tenderloin Medallions, Roasted Carrots , Salad (w/ Balsamic Vinaigrette)
• Thursday - Crescent Chicken Squares, Corn, Salad (w/ Balsamic Vinaigrette)
• Friday [meatless] - Pasta with Caramelized Onions & Kalamata Olives, Caesar Salad

Breakfasts & Lunches

• breakfast sandwiches (fried egg, ham/bacon, white cheddar cheese on whole wheat toast)
• scrambled or fried eggs
• oatmeal
• granola + frozen fruit + plain yogurt (new one!)
• scones
• PB&J
• oranges, bananas

Baking

• bread (I’m working my way through Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day; I’ll probably just make the plain boule dough. Not sure about subbing white whole wheat flour for the all-purpose or how that might affect my bread-baking experiments at this point!)
• dark chocolate chip scones
• granola (I’m excited to try making my own!)

That’s all for me. Do you menu plan? How do you do it? Any tips for making the planning-shopping process go smoothly?

photo credit: Felix Carroll / thedivinemercy.org

I just had to post this interview I found yesterday for a self-directed Lenten retreat, written by Brother Michael Gaitley, MIC. It’s called Consoling the Heart of Jesus: A Do-it-Yourself Lenten Retreat. The selling point of this retreat, well, speaks to me:

Why not give up chocolate, and why take on Consoling the Heart of Jesus?
Giving up chocolate is easy. My retreat is even easier. OK, seriously, as soon as Ash Wednesday pops up on our radar screens, we’re all starting to feel a bit guilty because we still haven’t decided what our Lenten sacrifice is going to be. And, if you’re like me, you’ll probably still be deliberating about what you’re going to give up come Holy Week. (Laughs). So, last year, when I was pounding out one of the many “final drafts” of my book, I had the bright idea of asking my friends and family to read the retreat as their Lenten sacrifice. They loved it. They were off the hook. And they gorged themselves with chocolate all Lent long. Actually, I needed their help, because I wanted to find out if the retreat really worked.

So did it?
It did, and does. More on that later. But almost all of them wrote back to me that making the retreat was so much more effective for their spiritual growth than some arbitrary sacrifice, like giving up chocolate. With this in mind, I decided to make the release date of my book just in time for Lent, 2010, although — and this is important — this retreat is not just for Lent. It’s for anytime.

First off, Br. Michael seems to underestimate the difficulty level of giving up chocolate. EASY? Uh, someone hasn’t seen my secret stashes of chocolate in the freezer, nor have they consulted me on the main qualification of all desserts (hint: it’s dark, cacao-based, and delicious), nor have they consulted St. Teresa of Avila on the matter! I’m not sure I’m down with gorging myself all Lent long, but the concept of a more meaningful Lenten sacrifice really speaks to me. And hey, God AND chocolate is better than just God–even during Lent–right?

I’ll let Br. Michael continue.

Well, let’s stick with Lent for now since Lent is a time when we’re especially called to focus on our relationship with the Lord. So, how, exactly does your retreat work as a Lenten sacrifice?
Traditionally, Catholics make a three-fold Lenten sacrifice: (1) prayer, (2) fasting, (3) almsgiving. People who purchase this retreat and make it during Lent would fulfill their Lenten sacrifice completely. It works like this:

Prayer: My book is a do-it-yourself retreat. A retreat is time of more intensified prayer. Bingo. People who make this retreat, have fulfilled that part of their Lenten sacrifice.

Fasting: We often think of fasting in terms of bread and water, and that’s all well and good. (So long as we’re not talking chocolate.) However, fasting can also be from things like television, Internet, or whatever else we may be tempted to waste time with. So, those who make this retreat — I suggest — would “fast” from routine recreations and devote their time to the spiritual reading of the retreat.

Almsgiving: Of course, during this time of economic crisis, money is tight for most people. In fact, actually going on a real retreat — that is to say, a retreat that requires travel and accommodations — might break the bank. While my retreat is only $14.95, that’s still a sacrifice for a lot of people. But that’s kind of the point. By purchasing Consoling the Heart of Jesus, people give up money to help support the Marians in our efforts to spread the message of The Divine Mercy. So, almsgiving is covered, too — and one will even have a little money left over for jelly beans … er, I mean chocolate.

That works. Especially noting that this book is no slim volume (it’s 430 pages!), I can see the sacrificial aspect starting to come in.

Finally, Br. Michael says that his retreat blends Ignatian spirituality with the image of the Divine Mercy presented most forcefully by St. Faustina Kowalska, St. Therese of Lisieux, and, apparently Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.

What does all that have to do with the title Consoling the Heart of Jesus?
Well, it’s like this: Ignatian spirituality is all about finding a most essential principle for the spiritual life, and then directing all one’s energies toward living out that principle. For the Jesuits, the congregation founded by St. Ignatius, that “most essential principle” was the greater glory of God. In other words, a Jesuit strives to direct all of his thoughts, words, and actions toward increasing the glory of God. It’s a bit different in my retreat. I adopt as the most essential principle for my retreat the same principle adopted by St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Faustina Kowalska, and Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, to name a few. What did they see as the “most essential principle” of the spiritual life? Consoling Jesus. In other words, they directed all of their energies to delighting the Lord, giving Him joy, and consoling His broken Heart. Perhaps, Blessed Teresa expressed this idea most poignantly with her laser beam focus on the “thirst” of Jesus on the Cross. In other words, her most essential principle was to hear the thirst of Jesus on the Cross — not a thirst for water but a thirst for love — and to strive with all her might to “quench His thirst” by giving Him her love. Now, St. Faustina and St. Therese express the most essential principle in the same way, namely, the thirst of Jesus, but they understood quenching Jesus’ thirst, or consoling Him, to be the same as trusting Him. That’s the line my retreat follows. It focuses on consoling the Heart of Jesus by living a radical trust in His mercy. In a sense, the image of The Divine Mercy says it all with its rays of mercy and the prayer at the bottom, “Jesus, I trust in You!”

Brother Mike, I trust in Jesus, and I trust you, too. However, all of our readers might not know you. So, why should they listen to you? I mean, do you have any famous people who endorse your book?
Sure do. Do you like apples? How do you like these apples: Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, Fr. Benedict Groeschel, Fr. Mitch Pacwa, Ralph Martin, and more [see the full list].

… Oh, and my mom.

The most attractive aspect of all of this, to me at least, is that it sounds really accessible and helpful for the spiritual growth of anyone who reads it, from the poorly catechized right on up through the theologians. With a theology background myself I can often get ‘bogged down’ in theological texts–I mean to say that I too often read them through my theology lenses and don’t let it fully hit home or just be a space for reflection and growth.

I have to say, the chocolate sales pitch is an effective one. He just might get me with it. Anyone else considering making this a part of their Lenten sacrifice?

I haven’t posted yet about some of the changes to the way we eat that we are trying to make. I say “trying” because, well, it’s easier said than done: there is a ton of information out there, a lot of it contradictory, and we just don’t have the financial resources to start spending boatloads of money on grass-fed beef and free range eggs and organic produce and good milk. (Plus, it’s not even clear to me what the best course of action is for each of these groups, so I’m doing research online and in grocery stores and farmer’s markets to see what is healthy and doable for us.)

So basically, I can’t yet articulate a full-fledged nutritional philosophy for you. My husband and I have started with what we call “The Cheeto Principle”: if none of the substances composing a so-called food bear any resemblance to something that occurs in nature or a food that has been traditionally eaten by people, it’s not worth eating. A corn puff fried in vegetable oil and coated with a powdered cheese product is not food; don’t eat it.

Getting started living by the Cheeto Principle (or, if you will, more of a “real food” lifestyle–though I clearly don’t qualify for that moniker just yet!) required the itty-bitty baby steps of looking at the ingredients lists of foods we eat and using that information to make informed judgments about what is OK to eat (for now, at least) and what we should avoid.

A lot of ‘real foodies’ suggest going through the pantry and fridge and tossing, willy-nilly, the foods with unpronounceable ingredients and other sketchy stuff like high fructose corn syrup and soy products. Some even say to ditch anything with more than FIVE ingredients listed on the label. As convinced as I may be that these highly-processed industrial food products are not good for me, I can’t bring myself to just pitch groceries. There are starving children in India, and I’m going to throw away that box of cake mix or rice-a-roni out of fear of hydrolyzed whatchamacallit and ___ corn ___? I don’t think so.

So my method has been a bit different. Criticize it if you will, but here’s what I’ve been doing for a few months:

1. Staying away from the grocery store aisles. Produce, meat, milk, bread, butter–all of these things are found on the outside walls of the grocery story. The processed crap is all in the middle, tempting you with the tunnels of carbs. I just avoid the temptation, unless I have an express reason to be in the aisle (like walnuts, or canned tomatoes, or spices, or yeast). If I do have something that is packaged that I still eat, I just pay more attention to labels and try to buy what seems better, whether or not it’s called ‘natural’ or ‘organic’ or whatever other marketing ploys they’re using these days.

2. Attacking my pantry with a red sharpie. Yup. Like I said, I don’t want to throw away the food, but I do want to be mindful about what we’re eating. So I went through and put a line through all of the weird ingredients in the pre-packaged foods we have in our pantry and fridge. Based on my totally non-scientific gut reaction to the ingredients, I then marked the package with ‘X,’ ‘OK,’ or ‘?’.

The X group: Hungry Jack syrup, Ken's salad dressing, Betty Crocker frosting and cake mix, Ritz crackers, Nature's Way Rice-a-Roni (Italian Cheese & Herb flavor), International Delight non-dairy creamer, Maull's BBQ sauce.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot, trying to pray as much, and reflecting on what I’ve learned in marriage and what I continue to learn from my friends in all walks of life. Seeing the humble faith and quiet witness of so many of you has made me realize so many things, and taught me so much about vocation. Below are a few of those reflections.

I wrote an alumni column that was printed in the latest edition of the Irish Rover. Reprinted here for your reading pleasure…
—
The Virtue of Ordinary Life

Students of Notre Dame, we are told, are high achievers. They work hard, and rumor has it, they play hard too. They conduct independent, groundbreaking research across all fields. They excel in rigorous classes and gain entrance to prestigious graduate and professional schools. On Facebook, they proclaim “I’m kind of a big deal…” and at Commencement exercises they congratulate themselves, wishing one another the best as they move on, of course, to bigger and better things.

Graduates of Notre Dame, we are told, are Heisman Trophy winners, Olympians, and professional athletes and coaches. They are governors, congressmen, ambassadors and cabinet members who shape American and international politics. They are writers and actors and movie makers. They are renowned academics, Nobel laureates, and researchers whose findings change the world and how we live in it. They are business executives and co-owners of professional athletic teams. They are noteworthy writers, actors, musicians, journalists, and TV personalities.

But other graduates of Notre Dame, shaped as they were by the Notre Dame educational experience, go on to simpler things. They are teachers and volunteers and housewives. They are accountants, IT professionals, and engineers. They are priests and seminarians, consecrated religious sisters and brothers. They commute long distances to a job that is far from their dream, perhaps to one for which they are over-educated and underpaid. They work in cubicles, file TPS reports, pay their taxes and raise their children. They are good parents and hard workers, but their accomplishments are not known by all and history does not record their significant deeds.

It is all too easy to look at these two groups of individuals and label one “success stories” and the other “not so much”. It is all too easy to say of this second group that they might in some way be “wasting their degrees”. It is all too easy, especially as seniors edge towards graduation, to think that upon leaving Notre Dame they will take the world by storm, change it, and make it better, thus proving to everyone else their own worth as well as the real world cash value of a degree from Our Lady’s University.

Any graduate of Notre Dame should be proud of their accomplishments. But does this admittedly caricatured attitude reveal more of a tendency to sinful pride than healthy self-respect? Might it betray a preference for prestige over life in the truth at one of America’s top academic research institutions (which, it so happens, is also Catholic)?

There are two ways one can view life in the “real world” outside of Notre Dame, particularly the world of the great recession of the 21st century. According to the first, reality is grim, harsh, and stifling. It prevents the full expression of each person’s extraordinarily unique gifts by forcing them to be less than they could be. In the real world, employees are squeezed into cubicles, genius is underappreciated, and everything stands in the way of personal self-discovery and fulfillment. According to the second, reality is an opportunity for each person to discover and to fulfill the purpose for their lives in each and every moment of each and every day. Reality is right now, this minute, as I discern my vocation, but do not determine it. In the real world, some are intended for greatness, though none seeks it; men and women pray and work, and work and pray, whether their workplace is McDonald’s or a monastery.

Our culture views life in the first way. Our Church views life in the second. Believe me when I say, from the other side, that the only way to survive is to live according to the second way, the little way, the way of ordinary life.

Instead, we all tend to measure ourselves by what we do, to try to make our lives clear “success stories” that stack up against the world’s (or Notre Dame’s) measuring stick. This tendency fits us; it lies in our hearts. It is pride, and ultimately, it always causes us to fall. Many seniors are filled with anxiety as they prepare for graduation not only because they worry about the next steps on their journey, but also because they wonder if others might judge their journey and find it lacking. I know that I was.

But this type of anxiety is misplaced. We all know in our heart of hearts that peer pressure and the judgments of others are by no means the way we can live our lives. We know that there is always going to be someone casting judgment on us and on our decisions. We know that it is just no use to worry about these things, but we are not always able to say why.

The truth is that pride blinds us to the truth that the vocation of all people is to follow God’s will, while the vocation of most people is to a quiet and simple life lived trusting in Love Himself. After all, the future is not in our hands, but in God’s. The true success stories, whatever their time and place, are always characterized by the fiat: “May it be done to me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38). A life lived for one’s own gain and one’s own glory is always a failure.

The lesson here is not that students and alumni should be content to hide their light under a bushel basket. Instead, it is a reminder that their light is never their own, but is instead a reflection of Him who is the source of all light. We are not God’s gift to this earth, but rather everything and everyone, from the greatest to the least, are His gift to us.

The virtue of ordinary life is that it is filled with opportunities to do little things with great love, opportunities for giving of ourselves while expecting nothing in return. Every moment of every day can be a sacramental occasion—an instant in which our doing reflects God’s doing so closely that we become signs and instruments of His grace. Success in this life is not measured by worldly accolades, fame or fortune; it is measured by our openness to divine providence. If we are accustomed to only looking for divine providence at work in popular, memorable, or extravagant ways, we have prepared ourselves to miss those frequent moments in ordinary life when the extraordinary grace of God reaches in and transforms us.

This transformation is always happening, in the most ordinary moments and seasons of life. I have learned this because I have seen it with my own eyes in my life and in the lives of my friends. Grace reaches us, in the prayer whispered while stirring the simmering pot on the stove; in changing a diaper; in reading that article now instead of putting it off for later; in praying faithfully the liturgy of the hours; in gently dealing with an angry friend, or classmate, or customer; in openness to pregnancy at the beginning of a marriage; in doing honest work, even at a hated job. God teaches us and transforms us through these seemingly small things, each and every day. After all, if we fail at even the smallest acts of obedience, how can our lives ever be judged a success?

Have no fear!

On the “chocolate” (FOOD!) side of things, I have plenty of good things in store. Another category here on G+C will include “Rachel’s Recipes”. I’m no chef or culinary expert, but I have tested (and perfected!) a recipe or two in my short homemaking career. I like to share home-cooked and home-baked goodness with family and friends. Periodically I will share some of my favorites–family recipes, things I’ve somehow devised myself, and (perhaps more often than anything else) my renditions of others’ delicious inventions. Check out my “Chocolate” links for my online inspirations!

It might take a little while to get to the chocolate, actually (how lame is that? I know…), but here’s what I have in the works in the realm of “chocolate”:

• Experiments with other bloggers’ recipes: Starting off with the Pioneer Woman’s Chicken Salad and Pastor Ryan’s Pasta Bolognese Sauce.
• Moist and delicious individual chocolate “lava” cakes–super easy!
• My own take on classic beef chili: Man-tested, husband-approved. And there’s even a bit of chocolate in it!

What I am most excited about sharing are my ongoing experiments with home-baked bread. There is nothing–really, nothing!–on this earth so saliva-inducing as the aroma of baking bread. I mean, who doesn’t start drooling upon pulling into the parking lot of St. Louis Bread Co. [Panera]? That’s just me? Well then.

BREAD. Most people just assume that since it involves yeast and complicated things like rising and (typically) kneading, it’s impossible to master. But it’s not. I promise. I have a secret to share–bread is easy. And deliciously rewarding. Your tummy and periodic carb cravings (wait, that’s just me again?) will thank you…if you stick around to learn with me as I master making bread at home!

I baked this. It came out of my kitchen. It can come out of yours, too. I promise!

The Ecstasy of St. Teresa of Avila - Gianlorenzo Bernini

Realizing that I know little to nothing about St. Teresa of Avila, apart from a few readily-available facts and a class or two discussing her understanding of prayer back at the alma mater, I’ve resolved to dive a little deeper.

In no particular order, here is a brainstorm of the questions I hope to answer and topics I plan to cover:

The Story of St. Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church: biography, and her significance for the Church

• Teresa’s early life and vocation
• The reform of the Carmelites and her relationship with St. John of the Cross
• Her mystical theology and spiritual life

Reading the works of St. Teresa of Avila

• The Interior Castle (also known as The Mansions) – regarded as accessible for any Catholic hoping to understand her mystical theology and to grow in prayer
• The Way of Perfection
• The Life of Teresa of Avila (Autobiography)

Would anyone like to join me? We can walk together through the works of St. Teresa and learn a little (or a lot!) about the Christian life.

St. Teresa of Avila

“God and chocolate is better than just God.” What are we to make of this quote? Is it blasphemy? An amusing and irreverent truism? A deeply theological point? All of the above?

To be honest, I don’t know much about St. Teresa of Avila (but I do plan on learning!). Nor do I really remember where I ever heard this saying attributed to Teresa, the saying which has inspired this blog. (I can’t find any sources on the web that provide any more historical evidence than hearsay–can you?)

On the surface, it’s easy to side with the blasphemous and amusing truism camp when it comes to God and chocolate. “Nothing on earth is better than God,” the pious objector says. “God is heavenly, supernatural–far beyond creation in glory and power and goodness. Please don’t allow your tastebuds and cocoa cravings bring you to blasphemy!”

Allow me to explain. A Doctor of the Church said this, so don’t throw those anathemas at me just yet for repeating her wisdom!

Nothing on earth, apart from God, is better than “just God”. No created thing can be better than its Creator, nor can any of God’s creations stand apart from their Creator. That’s not what Teresa is saying.

The central truth here is this: the Creator and His “very good” creation, together, are better than the Creator alone. Our proof of this is, well, everything. God, eternally existing as He is, has no need of us. But apparently He does have great love for us. After all, “God is love” (1 John 4:8). God’s perfect plan of salvation involves creation–creation which can only have taken place out of gratuitous, overflowing love. Creation–all parts of creation, including the most delicious–are good, simply by virtue of being created by God. We know this because God says so: “God looked at everything he had made, and he found it very good” (Gen 1:31).

What’s more, God comes to meet us through creation.

From our human perspective, this simple statement about my favorite food gets to the heart of the Christian life, and accesses the central mystery of orthodox Christian faith: the Incarnation. The eternal Word of God, through whom and in whose image we were created, entered into His creation by becoming human. I have heard it said by a good and holy priest that in the Incarnation we see that God has come from heaven and “kissed” the earth–but even this falls short of capturing what has taken place.

“Marvel at the fact that by so ordinary a means as the body have immortality and incorruption been manifested to us, and that by death immortality has reached to all, and that by the Word becoming man, the universal providence has been known, and its giver and artificer the very Word of God.”

{St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word}

Marvel at it! The eternal, invisible, perfect, incomprehensible God has manifested Himself to us, not only through a burning bush and a voice from above, but as a man and with a human body. Put into Incarnational/Christological terms, then, “God made man is better than just God.” Obviously God thought so, or else He wouldn’t have been born in Bethlehem all those years ago. For every person, God becoming human is the decisive point around which our human existence turns. It is the source of our very life, our reconciliation with the Father, our re-creation in the image of God, our clear way to the Father. Again, from Athanasius:

The Word of God came in His own Person, because it was He alone, the Image of the Father, Who could recreate man made after the Image.

{St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word}

The Incarnation has bridged the once incommensurable gap between man and God, natural and supernatural, ordinary and extraordinary. The world we can see is not hiding the more important, invisible things from us, but is the medium through which they are revealed to us.

Even chocolate, that delicious gift from above (okay, okay, from the cacao bean), can reveal the beauty and goodness of God. And for me, at least, it reveals His love.

More:

• Be sure to check out “What are you talking about?”– the equivalent of the About page for G+C!
• Mark Shea, in an old Catholic Exchange “Rock Solid with Mark Shea” podcast from 2007, is also inspired by the wisdom of St. Teresa of Avila. Listen here: “God and Chocolate is better than just God.”
• Dominican Robert King reflects on this quote and a similar theme. “God’s Will and Murphy’s Pub”

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