Pecan Crescents

1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt (not in the original recipe)
2 cups sifted flour
2 cups pecans, ground.  (I used my immersion blender.  It was a bit of a process but it worked.  Grandma Jean had a little hand-cranked grinder that she used for the purpose.)

Form into crescents and bake at 325 for 25 minutes.  Dust with powdered sugar.

He and his wife had an air of taste and old money about them. When he talked with you, you had the sense that you were in the presence of an immensely talented person who was firing on all cylinders.  The only downside was that he reminded me of our oldest son–juggling so much mentally that it seemed hard for him at times to corral his mental activity and devote himself to the person in front of him.

Our new priest is rougher in appearance.  He is not urbane.  He does, however, have a large presence, both physically and otherwise.  When he’s talking with you, he is fully there.  He talks about God easily but not flippantly.  He is deeply faith-filled and gives the impression he’s had a “come to Jesus” experience and has determined he will follow.

One silent witness to the sort of priest he’s been is the steady stream of visitors to our church from his previous churches.

I had received the impression that he would put a high priority on pastoral care, and this proved true for us when our youngest son and his best friend were in a car accident earlier this month, resulting in the death of his friend, he made it very clear to me that he was completely available to our family, to talk with us or help in any other way possible, including reaching out to our son.

Settling into his office meant transforming it into a cozy place for conversation, eschewing the overhead fluorescents in favor of cozy lamps and comfortable chairs within an embrace of bookshelves and mementos.

He leads the service well, and his sermons are very good — but he reads them.  That is not my favorite way–it seems to me to introduce distance and can be harder to attend to.  However I totally understand why a person would do that, and a priest’s week is busy enough without having to memorize a sermon.

I’m looking forward to getting to know him and his family better.  I think his spiritual direction will be really helpful for me at this time, too.

I came to the Episcopal church having explored and been attracted to first Calvinistic and then Lutheran ways of connecting the theological and biblical dots.  Those were ports in a storm for me, and I looked for the comforting outlines of monergism, etc in my new environment.  But for the most part it was as if I had come to a place where “all that” was taken for granted and here the categories were different.

Today I came across a blog post that makes sense of the difference–and it is not an Episcopalian blogger; in fact he’s an evangelical.  I have followed his blog for a long time and even corresponded with him once.

On Tweaking the Soterian Gospel
(Soterian, by the way, is a theological term that refers to salvation.)
The Gospel Today

I’m convinced he’s onto it. In these two posts he works out the difference between my former theological dot-connecting, and where I’m at now.  It’s very interesting to see it in black and white.

Sun streaming through our stained glass windows

I drive a half an hour to my church, and half the time I go alone.  I go early because of choir rehearsal.  Of choir rehearsal, perhaps the less said the better.  As I drive there, I have to remind myself that Jesus didn’t gather the well-bred, well-mannered and healthy around him.  A Christian community worth its salt will have misfits and people whose disabilities are uncomfortable to be around at times.  Such is our small choir.  And yet I wouldn’t give it up, I love it.

And then there are days like today when every lyric we sang spoke to me.  Being in the choir and rehearsing gives me extra time with the music and lyrics, and they are usually worthwhile.

Today we also had a very fine sermon from our guest celebrant, the same retired priest who was with us for several months during our rector search.  (Our church is hard on priests, seemingly.  No sooner had our new rector, Father Matt, taken up the reins than he has had to go in for back surgery.)

The prayers, the liturgy, all of it was speaking to me today.  I am so glad to be able to have this experience.

An image from Walter the Lazy Mouse, by Marjorie Flack, brought to you by the Internet. I got to thinking about this book the other day and wondered if I could find any trace of it on the ‘net.  It was one of the favorite, read-over-and-over, pore-over-the-illustration, books from my childhood. We were poor and didn’t have a lot of toys, but my parents and other relatives would buy us nice books.

You can see that Lulu thinks Scott’s not as scary as he used to be.  They have gotten to be good, good buddies.

We also had a steak salad (Scott’s salad had salmon, he doesn’t like to eat red meat as much as the rest of us do).  The steak salad was delicious and I made the dressing using the immersion blender I got for mother’s day …. such a handy tool.

Here is the steak salad recipe.  I added artichoke hearts and fresh slices of red bell pepper.  Those were good additions.

Everyone loved it.

I really love when Middle son and his girlfriend come over because they are so appreciative of my cooking efforts and are enthusiastic about trying new things.

Here is the third teaser Sony has released. Turns out there are two vocals on the project, duets by Aoife O’Donovan (Crooked Still, Sometymes Why) and Chris Thile (Punch Brothers, Nickel Creek, etc.). Their voices blend really well:

This is a really exciting project.