in praise of homemade soup

I don't often make soup, but when I do, it is glorious. It's not that difficult--cut up a bunch of stuff, put it in liquid, add spices, cook until tender--but the result exceeds the effort. The root vegetable soup I made this afternoon [while waiting for more information on the flat tire that became a $1000 repair--long story] has parsnips, rutabegas, carrots, leeks, potatoes, onions, turnips, fennel, celery, brussel sprouts, garlic, and butternut squash in a base of chicken stock and chardonnay. But it tastes deeper than that. It tastes of comfort, of breathing out, of earth. Mostly, it tastes of hibernation and of curling up in the warmth of a loved one.

It's interesting how such ordinary things can have such resonances. A certain pillow or the way someone styles their hair, or even a mangled autumn leaf can create a whirlwind of emotions. What is that? Is it the primeval chaos hiding just under the surface of things, poised to pounce? Is it our own willingness to cling to what we know? Is it the presence of the holy in the universe, revealed in glimpses?

When Philip Newell talks about the "glory of God" I believe he means this resonance. All things were not just created by God but contain the residue of the Creator. The simple stuff of our lives, both natural and human-made, is filled brim-full with our memories, with challenge, with beauty and pain, with connection to everything else. Even the blasted, broken car reminds me of laughing with band members, road trips with Loving Husband, and the smell of rain in a sculpture garden. Soup, made of plants taken from the dirt, is glorious because of its connection with God.

A New Start

I've had this blog for nine months and originally set it up so that I would be allowed to post on my father's blog. Until now, I've only posted once. But that's all about to change, my friends!

The world we live in is a complicated place. The decisions we face every day, the relationships we form, our feelings and reactions to just about everything that happens--all complicated. We have mixed motivations for what we do. We're not rational. We're sinful creatures. Yes, I said sinful. That's kind of a bad word these days. Sin implies judgment and unpleasantness. It suggests that the things we do are not as good as we try to convince ourselves. We intentionally and unintentionally hurt those around us. And yet, in the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the plants and animals and the light and the dark and us--when God created the world, God looked at it all and said "Indeed, it is very good." We are, at the most basic part of our natures, good. Yet we sin. We are saved and judged. Saint and sinner. Simul justus et peccator.

My brain works overtime thinking about this kind of stuff. Theology, spiritual journey, liturgy, how we live in the world--it's all going to come out here. Sometimes it'll be draft versions of newsletter articles, sometimes rambles on a theme, sometimes short posts about books I've read. I will probably cross-post some old entries from my livejournal blog, too.

Peace to you and all in your house.

Hallelujah

Listen to this:

Maybe there's a God above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya
And it's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken "Hallelujah."

This is the last verse of Jeff Buckley's song "Hallelujah." He sings with only his guitar for accompaniment into an empty and echoing room. His voice is haunting, thin in places, as though he's about to give up on singing entirely, and powerful with anger in others. You feel rather than hear his despair—it washes over you in waves. His song ends, dejected and hopeless—love is a cold and broken "Hallelujah."

Leonard Cohen actually wrote the song and when he sings it, he ends with this verse:

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but "Hallelujah."

I've got a live recording of Cohen singing it and his voice is deep and rich and...perplexed. It's as though he doesn't really understand what he's singing but he's singing it anyway. He's trying to puzzle it out, trying to make some sense of his life. I can relate—youth ministry can be frustrating and overwhelming. There are times when I know I've done everything I can and a conversation simply doesn't work. I tell myself that it is God who turns folk's hearts and God who is in charge, not me. It doesn't always work.

It is frustrating to me that I can't find the definitive version of this song—it seems that everyone who records it, including Cohen himself, picks and chooses the verses they'd like to sing. The verses in some ways contradict one another: some seem to be more Bible-story-oriented—David, Bathsheba, Samson and Delilah—and some which are introspective and seem to be based on the singer's own history in love. How do they fit?

In the young adult Bible 101 group at my church, we've been talking about the book of Genesis and its two Creation stories. How do they fit together? Can we make them agree with each other so that it makes sense to us? Should we just take the one that makes sense to us this moment and sing its "Hallelujah"? What's the real story? What are they saying to us: are they short histories of what happened back in The Day, are they political machinations to uplift a downtrodden tribe, or are they poetic versions of a people's experience of their relationship with God?

The answer seems to be "yes"—that is, yes, they're political, yes, they're historical, and yes, they're a people's experience. I'm not saying I like that answer or even that I understand it. I do know that God's creation is so much more complicated than we can imagine and we can find God where things are the most frustrating.

Many days I feel like ending the song where Jeff Buckley does. More often I sing with Leonard Cohen who senses his sinfulness and his salvation in every breath, who sings:

…even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but 'Hallelujah.'"