Potions

Have you noticed how SERIOUS this blog has been getting lately? I know. I must be in winter mode where I brood about the troubles of the world while drinking hot beverages in my dark apartment. But there are some light-hearted things happening around our house including POTION MAKING.

I may not have mentioned before on this blog my penchant for gin. (What?!?! A pastor who loves gin?!??! Yes. And give me a break. It's not like I'm Methodist or anything...though I do know some nice Methodists who ALSO love gin.) Anyway, the truth is I love it. I love gin. Sooooo much. Of all varieties. And I especially love it when it's mixed with tonic.  (At this moment I'd like to give a shout-out to my brother-in-law who first introduced me to this heavenly combination while on a family vacation. My life would never have been the same without this loving act of gin-vangelism. Also, I would have still been able to fit into my skinny jeans, but that's a story for another time. So thanks, Bro!). Now, back to the matter at hand.

Though you may not have known about my gin obsession, you certainly may have already deduced my tendency to get obsessed with things. And so it may not surprise you that when I found out several months ago that one could make one's own tonic, I was on a quest to do so. And so it began.

And it went something like this:

Step One: Procure illicit substances from abroad. 
So it turns out the main ingredient of tonic is quinine. In case you don't know what this is, I'll save you the trouble of searching Wikipedia and share with you what I've learned. Quinine is a chemical found in the bark of the Cinchona tree, a tree indigenous to South America where its medicinal qualities had been well known for some time.  In the 16th century, when malaria was a rising problem in Europe, a Jesuit missionary and apothecary in South America became aware of quinine and suggested it as a potential treatment. It worked and the demand for it in Europe skyrocketed (It's tough business colonizing the entire global south leaving behind centuries of unrest and paternalism....there are tons of mosquitos down there!)  The problem was (no it wasn't colonialism), it was that quinine had an extremely bitter taste (If you ask me, a small price to pay for not dying from malaria, but what do I know?). And so adding water, sugar and a bit of lime and some gin (you can always use a little gin!) to the concoction became the custom and the Gin and Tonic was born. (Yay!) Quinine is still used today to treat malaria, though other better treatments have since been developed. Unfortunately, the FDA thinks this is the only thing you should use it for.*  All this is a long way of saying: you can't buy quinine in the United States. Unless you have malaria and a prescription. So you have to search online and pay some sketchy website in Canada to send it to you. Which I had no qualms about doing, of course, unless the person reading this is from the FDA in which case, I'm so sorry, I had no idea.

After several weeks, my package arrived choc full of quinine! And I was ready to get started!

Step Two: Make a Syrup with a Lot of CRAZY Ingredients
The next step in making your own tonic is to brew up a special tonic syrup. It helps if you have a partner in crime (Mr. LIOLI), several hours, some wine and a good sense of humor.  We decided to make a half batch each of two different recipes, which can be found here and here. (We ended up liking the second much better).

The main ingredients are quinine powder, sugar (or agave if you are super hipster), lemongrass, citric acid and citrus zest.

You mix these together, add heat and boil away until all is well distilled.

Then you strain it. Many, many, many times. And then you strain it some more. We did this in several stages. Once through a regular metal strainer, several times through cheesecloth (which of course we had on hand already....such a small world!) and lastly through several coffee filters. We weren't really sure when it was strained enough so we just gave us when we got bored and tired. 

What we produced was thick brownish red potion about the consistency of maple syrup.


 Step Three: Make some carbonated water. Mix with syrup and gin. Enjoy!

The idea is that you will mix the syrup you just made with carbonated water (from the SodaStream machine I'm sure you already have) add gin and enjoy. We hit a bit of a snag here as when we did this for the first time, we managed to produce a beverage that somehow simultaneously tasted WAY too sweet and WAY too bitter at the same time and kind of made us want to die. Rather than melt into a puddle of emotional goo, which was my first response, Mr. LIOLI suggested that we postpone judgment until after we had a massive Tonic-concocting-taste-testing event in which we tried to carefully replicate the exact taste of Schweppes tonic water. We were able to several nights later and enjoyed our first homemade G&T. Yum! So good. So homemade. Cheers!

Step Four: Get a second job. 
As it turns out, we didn't quite get the economies of scale down the first time around. I estimate that the entire endeavor cost about $61 which in retrospect was not a huge savings over bottles of tonic that cost $1.  But I will not give up hope. Next time, I think I'll buy more quinine in bulk and make it WORTH it. (This may remind you of the time I tried to make all my own jam and faced a similar economies of scale challenge. I'm working through it.)

Now, if you think it hasn't escaped my attention that it is actually possible to distill one's own gin, you've got another think coming and a need to keep your eye out for a future post about my secret plans for a foray into distillation!


*Other interesting things about quinine??? It glows in the dark under a black light. It is sometimes used to cut cocaine and other street drugs. It can cure restless leg syndrome (or you could just put a bar of soap under your sheet. Seriously) You could have read all this on Wikipedia....but isn't it more fun to read it here?

Tribute

The world and the church have suffered a great loss today. Peter J. Gomes, Minister of the Memorial Church at Harvard University and Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard Divinity School died last night. He was a truly unique individual and, in my estimation, one of the greatest prophetic voices of this generation.

Anyone who has known Professor Gomes is aware that calling him “a character” would have been an intolerable understatement. He was larger than life. His diminutive size was more than made up for by a big personality, a brilliant mind, a biting wit and a booming voice that was somehow a graceful symphony of southern drawl, British English and one of the Muppets. He was a world renowned teacher and writer, and was often acknowledged as one of the best preachers of our time. He was a tireless voice of reason for stemming the tide of religious fundamentalism and biblical literalism that threatened to undermine the true Christian gospel. As an out gay man, he was a constant advocate against bigotry and oppression. But most importantly, he was also my preaching professor.

Professor Gomes' preaching class was notorious for being both exclusive and intimidating. Only eight students a year were offered the opportunity to subject themselves to the formative guidance of Gomes' unique method of instruction, a process which involved preaching a number of sermons extemporaneously (without notes) and then allowing them to be heavily critiqued by one's classmates and professor. This was not the class one would apply to be in if one were concerned with building up one's self esteem in a direct way. But year after year, students showed up in droves for the unique privilege of trying out.

Naïve as I was, I tried out the first term of my first year in seminary (thinking if I was rejected, I'd still have a few more shots!). However, by some strange quirk of the selection process, I became one of those guinea pigs. I joined 7 of my colleagues on this journey: the eloquent and philosophical son of Puerto Rican Baptist preacher, a Jesuit priest, two candidates for ministry in the United Church of Christ, one of whom also happened to be a devout practitioner of Zen Buddhism, a African American Baptist, one methodist, another Presbyterian and me. Over the course of our term, we met each week for three hours in the basement conference room of the church, taking turns presenting our exegesis of the passages we had been assigned and, eventually and with much trepidation, offering our sermons on them from the hugely elevated pulpit in the chapel upstairs (about which Gomes loved to declare allowed one to be “15 feet above contradiction.”).

The stakes of each of these meetings were high (the adrenaline of the extemporaneous exercise, as it turns out, can make it very difficult to recall the exact details of one's carefully crafted sermon!) and the criticism was real. Critiques offered by Professor Gomes were rarely effusive but instead direct and critical almost always offered with great, maniacal joy on his part. In the course of our term, he likened various students' sermons to cars flying off cliffs and exploding, a peacock that couldn't fly, and (one which sent him into fits of hysterical laughter) a Star Wars ship jetting through a meteor belt with no idea what it would hit next. At various points, he told students he disliked their voice (mine!), that their illustrations bored him to tears and that they were fundamentally just not that interesting. He didn't feel badly about this, he told us, because, in his words, “this is the last time in your life someone will offer you honest feedback on your sermons.” He thought it would help us. And in a strange way, it did.

I don't know that I would say Professor Gomes taught me how to preach exactly (I rarely use the extemporaneous method he used, though it is nice to know I could in a pinch!), but he was most certainly a teacher to me. Though he wouldn't have even known who I was after that term ended (and there was some question as to whether or not he knew me during it, as he periodically called me Jennifer.), he had a profound effect on my theological education and my vocation as a pastor. Because what I took away from that class was a respect for the office of preaching that I will carry with me forever. In his criticisms, suggestions, jibes and jokes, what I believe he taught me was how the job of preaching was to be taken seriously. If he thought our sermon was a theological “salad” (as opposed to the theological “meat and potatoes” he was expecting), there was always an underlying sense that he was saying so because he wanted us to know that as preachers more was expected of us. This was the WORD, and it was to be treated with dignity, especially by us as its stewards.

It was a grueling 15 weeks, but we all made it through, most of us better for it, I believe. We celebrated the end of our term as guests at a four course dinner at Gomes' home. It was, to this day, the most pretentious experience I've ever had, and I mean that in a good way. No expense was spared as we sipped sherry, enjoyed terraines, drank too much good wine, and toasted (and roasted) each other and our Professor.

Some might have looked in on this as a demonstration of arrogance. But I don't see it (or him) that way.

What was so special about Gomes was that he brought to his offices of teaching and preaching the pomp and circumstance which he believed it necessitated.. He taught us, in a very small way, to do the same by honoring us with his instruction and his hospitality.

One of the last times I heard Professor Gomes' preach was on the radio as I was on the way home from my own church where I was by that time a pastor. It was the occasion of the 25^th anniversary of his ordination. His sermon was about his gratitude for God's grace in the face of all the ways he had failed to live up to the vows he took at his ordination. Even he world famous advocate and preacher of the gospel, carried a humility about God's grace to the end. He did it with integrity and incredible theological depth to the end. Hearing his voice on the radio that day made me cry. As did the news today of his passing.

So, here's to you, Professor. I know you are now at peace with the One whose Word you taught us to proclaim. God bless you for all that you were and all you leave behind.

Your student,

LL

Here is a somewhat awkward photo of our class at the dinner described above. It certainly doesn't do justice to Professor Gomes or the event, but it is a good memory for me, so I thought I'd share: 

Responsibility, What's Your Policy?

I started writing this post two weeks ago (when this was actually a current event!) and then got overwhelmed with other life stuff that is less fun but more imminent than blogging. But I figured it was still relevant, so why not post? 

Image courtesy of Agence France Presse/Getty Images via the Wall Street Journal. Available here.

I was very moved by coverage of the recent events in Egypt, moreso than other world events have effected me recently. I think it was something about witnessing the passion with which the citizens of Egpyt, especially the young citizens, demonstrated with such integrity their values and ideals. What I observed in them, though the words and images I was able to access, was the tangible sense of responsibility they felt for the future and well-being of their nation. What brought it all home for me were actually not images from the protests themselves, but images of the days after, in which thousands of Egyptians, young and old, men and women, Chritians and Mulsim, many of who had turned out en force to call for the end of the regime, made their way back to Tahrir Square bearing not arms or signs, but brooms and trash bags.  That the protestors returned to the site of their victory to clean it up indicates something very subtle, yet very important about the nature of that community: a serious sense of corporate responsibility, a palpable demonstration of ownership. Almost to say, "Yes, of course, it matters who is in power, and to care for your country is to dedicate oneself to that process.  But that dedication would be meaningless if we did not also care enough to be good stewards of what we are fighting for."

I often worry that my generation of Americans doesn't feel that way about anything. I look at the movements of my parents' generation: the Women's Rights movement, the Civil Rights movement, the Anti-Vietnam protests, etc. and I see something that I find inspiring but that (in all honesty) I cannot really identify with. Of course I feel strongly about many things and am dedicated to them, but not in that same public, self-sacrificial, passionate way. Current studies of trends in this generation suggest that we are more committed to local, organic movements. We're more likely to commit small, local acts of volunteerism related to things we care about and to which we are personally connected. It's not that we're doing less, some will say, it's that we're doing it differently. But I still worry something might be missing.

And so I want to thank our Egyptian brothers and sisters for really motivating me to think about this and to considering taking more responsibility for my own community and our political process. I hope we here in the states can live up to your great example of what it means to pursue democracy.

I Love You, Tim McGraw, but Seriously......

So I've been doing a lot of thinking and reading about dying recently.* (Don't worry, nothing is wrong, it's just that I've been realizing what a relevant topic this is to my work as a minister, and though I did do a chaplaincy internship in which I attended to many dying people, I thought some more in-depth thinking about this topic couldn't hurt.) So I picked up On Death and Dying by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, one of the classic treatises on the spiritual and emotional condition of the terminally ill. She talks about the various stages of grief and shares interviews with patients she encountered who were actively dying. What an eyeopener it is. Through this and my many experiences with death both personal and professional, I've come to a conclusion which millions of people have probably come to before me but that seemed profound enough to share here: Dying, in reality, isn't anything like it is in country music. And it would be great it we could stop pretending it is.

There are just SO many songs out there (in pop music too, I shouldn't limit my criticism to the country world but it is the easiest to make fun of, so watch out Kris Allen, you're not off the hook) about living like you're going to die. There is always talk of the influx of courage and compassion, of doing everything you've ever wanted to do (skydiving, bullriding, trips to Europe, and so on and so on) of offering forgiveness and love previously denied, and basically wrapping all the loose ends of your life up in a nice beautiful bow. Perhaps the most gregious offernder in this category is the beloved Tim McGraw. I hate to have to say it, as he is one of my favorites, but his song "Live Like You Were Dying" (above), which I LOVE to sing in the car, is, I've concluded now, totally irresponsible. Because dying is not like that. It's actually, mostly, scary as S**T for everyone involved. And there is no skydiving.

From what I know, approaching death in many (most?) cases, involves pain and suffering, anger and despair, denial and frustration and terrible inconveniences like chemo and dialysis and hospitalization and weakness and incontinence and fatigue.....none of which lend themselves to activities like bullriding. In fact, dying is hard and messy work, sometimes done over the long term, sometimes suddenly, but rarely with the reckless abandon the music world seems to associate with this inevitable human condition. Sure, we're all dying. And we should be appreciative of the time we have, and not live in fear or take our lives for granted. But maybe we should be a little more careful about how we characterize death, in sentitivity to those facing it. Sorry, Tim.  (But you do look very good in that video, I will say.)



*Periodically, in the course of my busy work week, I'll think of an idea for a blog post, but do not have time to sit down and work on it that minute. So I write it on a scrap of paper or on my "list" of items to attend to when time is available. I thought nothing of it, then, when last week I wrote "DYING" in capital letters on my to do list which I left next to the computer as a reminder. In his classicly mellow fashion, Mr. L, several days later while we were making dinner, said out of the blue, "So, I saw you were planning on dying." and then continued to stir the risotto. Gotta love that guy.

Happiness

So, as you may have read in the news, New England (and pretty much everywhere else in the Northern Hemisphere) has been inundated with snow for the last two months. Which hasn't made me want to blog. In fact, it hasn't made me want to do anything, other that stay in bed and eat brownies, that is. But we are at long last emerging from the snowpocalypse. And so here I am.

In my emerging from the pit of despair that is called "winter" around here, I've been keeping my eye out for really happy and awesome things. Mr.L sent me a link to these images which really fit the bill. It's a ski tournament of Polish Catholic priests. In a word: awesome. Don't they just look so happy? And who says priests shouldn't get to have a little fun after all that being over worked and under paid ( or, more literally, not paid at all)? You can see all of the pics here, but for now, here's one to help you keep hope alive.

Image from Pawel Ulatowski / AFP - Getty Images and MSNBC.

Too Cool for Rules

See me coming? You can purchase one of these signs, which I'll ingnore, here.

There are particularly ironies in life that are sometimes difficult to escape, no matter how we may try, and one of them for me is that despite the fact that I'm a minister and am supposed to be all holy and stuff, it is actually my spouse, Mr. LIOLI, who usually wins the "generally being a good person" award in our household most of the time. This is because Mr. LIOLI is a really good person, he doesn't just play one on TV (and by that I mean, "On Sundays."). He is compassionate and generous, rarely judgmental or resentful, does not gossip or swear, and has a work ethic that outlasts me on my most productive and focused of days. On top of all this (and the thing which usually gets to me) is that he follows the rules.

I never thought of myself as someone who doesn't follow the rules until I got married to someone who does and who regularly calls me on my rule-breaking tendencies, by saying, in an exasperated tone, "Why don't you think any of the rules apply to you?"

But that's just it, isn't it? I really don't. When I see a sign, for instance, that says, "All dogs must be on a leash at all times." My thought process goes something (or exactly) like this: Well, they're obviously not talking about people like me and my dog. They're talking about those other irresponsible dog owners, whose dogs might, say, charge at other dogs or people or run out into the street or whatever. (Insert sound of dog leash unclicking and giant dog charging another dog in the immediate vicinity and then running out into the street, something which happens on a very regular basis but never phases me.) Or maybe I might find another equally irrational excuse such as: Well, that obviously doesn't apply "fill in excuse category here" (at night or in the winter or when it rains or if there are no other dogs in sight).  

Having been forced to think about this, I realize that this stuff happens to me all the time (think the seatbelt light on the plane, no trespassing signs, school requirements, entrance fees, no left turn signs, I could go on). However, it only seems ridiculous when I am forced to articulate my disregard for the rules to Mr. LIOLI whose inclination is to put the dog on the leash, pay the fee, stay out of forbidden areas, buckle his seatbelt when told to do so by a crew member and go around the block for Christ's sake.

All this is not to say Mr. LIOLI never breaks the rules or that I never follow them, but is simply an opportunity for self-reflection. Where did I get this subversive tendency? Is it indicative of some deeper sense of entitlement that I should investigate? Are they really talking about "people like me"? Do you think any of the rules apply to you?

Improve-isational

But seriously though, about the nutrition thing, I have actually figured out why I can never eat healthily. It's because I'm an improver. That is what I do, I improve things. So whenever I eat anything really healthy (read: Tasteless.) all I can think of is how to make it better. It's who I am, and you wouldn't want to change that would you?

Take plain yogurt for instance, a favorite of health nuts everywhere. And it is good, isn't it? We even make our own. But do you know what makes it even BETTER? Topping. I've just recently honed in on the perfect blend of walnuts, hazelnuts, sunflower seeds, raisins, craisins, and flax seeds (for my health, you know) which when consumed in nearly direct proportion to the yogurt makes it unbelievably delicious.

Or how about eggs? High protein, relatively low fat, a standard snack. Good right? Yes. Especially when you mix them with other stuff such as cheese and cream and delicious roasted vegetables and form them into quiches and souffles. Delicious!

Or peanut butter? A little on the fatty side, but still okay right. No....better than okay, WONDERFUL, especially if you mix it with Nutella and Bananas and some form of probably-not-whole-wheat-bread. A revelation!

I could go on and on, but what I'm actually saying is that I don't feel that leaving the world without improvement is a very fair or just thing to do. So I'm sorry I can't help you with that. But I did just pull a delicious Mushroom-Gruyere quiche out of the oven if you're in the neighborhood......