Entertaining Vegan Style

One of the things about entertaining vegan-style is that some of the pre-packaged options that used to make my life easier simply aren't available or are too expensive in large quantities, so creating menus that taste good and require minimal preparation requires some thought.

This weekend was RDFL (Rent's Due Free Lunch). The guest list can be anywhere from 10 to 25 so making something scalable is always a good thing. This time I wanted to share the Southwestern Corn Pudding (also known as cornpone in the South) from the Veganomicon and designed a southern-style meal to go around it.

This was the menu:

• Roasted Vegetable Soup
• Southwestern Corn Pudding 
• Pinto Beans - cooked overnight in a crock pot with a piece of wakame and a carrot (which were later tossed).  I also added some amazing pepper that can be ordered online.
• Roasted broccoli - just put in the oven with some olive oil and salt
• Smoky Collards from the Veganomicon  
• Cobbler

Yes, it took a lot of time to make, but the reception was pretty good and my guess is that the more I do this the more I will be able to do it quickly. Most of all, I really enjoy sharing vegan cooking with my friends. 

Praying in Color

I went to a contemplative prayer retreat this weekend led by David-the-Artist-Pastor.  One of the exercises that we did was "Praying in Color."


Ever since David gave me the book by Sybil MacBeth this has become by far my favorite way to pray for people. 

The concept is simple.  You simply draw a shape, write the name and embellish it as you think about that person.  It can be a wordless prayer.  You simply focus your attention on the person and lift them up to God, then the act of coloring helps you stay focused. I find this especially helpful when I don't have any details about why my friend needs help..  Or sometimes I do know details, but the situation seems so overwhelming that I don't know how to pray.  The coloring isn't in trying to create something, it is more reflexive...something your hands do to hold your attention.

I love it that I have people in my life who don't see faith as a box whose boundaries are to be learned, but as an adventure to be explored. Adventures can lead you to really interesting places...even praying with boxes of crayons.

Update on the weight loss

Well, I've lost 14 lbs since the "Weight Game" post, and while I wish I could tell you that "all I used was this one simple trick," that isn't the case.

I've used a layered strategy that includes:

- a vegan diet with nutrient-dense foods (low calorie, but high nutrition)
- the Livestrong app to track everything I eat daily (even if I have a chocolate breakdown).
- yoga focused on energetics and relaxation.
- some (could use more) cardio
- intention to really live out the health strategies I believe in

This is as low as I was in the days when I first completed Marilu Henner's The 30-Day Total Health Makeover. However, I'm curious if I can't get down closer to college weight and have some ideas about that based on two books I've read in the past few weeks, but more on that later.

Filling up

I have a persistent need for love.

And so, every morning, I go to fill up.

What that looks like has changed over the years. As a teenager, I read my Bible.  As a young mom, I grabbed a couple of quiet moments holding a small child. As a thirty-something working mom, I got up early to pray--often in my literal closet. In my forties I discovered contemplative prayer--the act of sitting with God in His presence without allowing myself to be distracted by random thoughts about the day.

By far the latter requires the most discipline...and yet, it seems to fill my tank fuller and deeper than any of the spiritual disciplines I've known before.

How do you fill up?

Judgment

I've come to believe that humans are much harsher judges than God is.

In fact, most of us spend our lives living an episode of Seinfeld where we are quickly labeled as low-talker, man-hands, re-gifter, double dipper... With acumen, we are found lacking, labeled and set aside.  And though people are likely not to tell us this to our face, we know.

Worse, we operate on the same continuum.  Parsing people and throwing them into bins as worth (or more often not worth) our time and attention.

It occurs to me that God doesn't do this. There is no game of "one of these things is not like the other." Just love. A love that transforms us...and helps us see that there is so much more to us than the stupid labels humans chose.

There are reasons Jesus said, "Judge not."  I think the primary one being we simply suck at it. 

On disappointment with God...

The blogger, Happy, wrote a post that hung with me. She quotes Dan Allender who used this phrase in his book, Sabbath: The Ancient Practices :

We have learned to manage our disappointment with God...

That thought cloaked me like some dark gray blanket as it captured a truth that I'd never really owned before.  


There is so much I don't understand.  Why do we suffer? Why do I look up to people, then find out they do stupid things?  Why doesn't the whole thing work as advertised? 


John and I were talking the other night about the apostles and John made the comment that you couldn't "sell Christianity" with "those guys." No one wants to give up everything for faith to get those types of outcomes. The heroes of the faith weren't showered with wealth and comfort. 


Have we turned the Gospel into some wonder drug that you can buy for $19.95? Because if so, of course we are disappointed. Is our faith so layered with cultural expectations, consumerism, buildings, doctrines and rules that we get disappointed over stuff that isn't even real? 


What would happen if we stripped away to just the idea that God--who by the very definition owns and runs it all--humbled Himself to live as a man and suffer, just to buy us back so that we could be in relationship with Him? 


Is a God like that worth following? Would we really give up everything--even our expectations--to pursue Him?  


What if our disappointment with God lies in the gap between what He wants for us and what we want for ourselves? Could we trust Him enough to acknowledge that what He wants is higher? That the shaping of our souls is more desirable than the comfort of our selves? 


I confess.  I have been bitterly disappointed in many of the things that God has chosen for me. I don't want to paint a bleak picture.  I'm happy.  I have a really beautiful life.  But there are scars and confusions. Everything from deep pain to shallow grievances.

Perhaps the art of faith is to actually believe God is One who loves us...and that the things He works are good--not just in the grand scheme of things--but good on a personal level.

Learn through joy

I have a deck of flash cards created by Mikelle Terson so I can learn the yoga asanas by their Sanskrit names. For example,

Adho Mukha Svanasana = Downward Facing Dog
Urdhva Mukha Svanasana = Upward Facing Dog
(Though in classes they are shortened to updog and downdog.) 

The last card in Mikelle's flash card deck says...

"Learn through joy."

And it always makes me smile when I flip past that one.  Learning things that don't interest you sucks.  You have no retention for it. But learning things that give you joy provides endless capacity to retain, to explore, to go further...  It would seem that joy may be the biggest clue in what it is that we should follow after.

It's all a big experiment

In a lab, you can try things. And if they blow up?  Oh well, log that as one more thing NOT to do.

And the results of these experiments?  They produce innovation.  They produce breakthroughs.  Every major thing that makes our lives better happened because someone was willing to try something that had never been tried before.

We need to create more room in our own personal worlds for experimentation. We should test-drive more.

The thing is that experiments go better when they are done in conditions that help protect when things go wrong...like say, vented hoods to suck out the noxious smoke. I'm pretty sure we could better structure our lives to be able to experiment.

May have to play with what that looks like.

It's just juice...

My yoga teacher used to work for one of the major juice brands.  She relayed the story of her office being caught up in all of the "juice emergencies" that would happen.  She said many times the thought would hit her...

People.  It's just juice.

I've thought about that phrase a lot lately.  We all have our own work dramas that can feel very life or death. But in the end, "it's just juice."  We can get overly passionate about things that don't matter in the long run. The important stuff isn't the "juice emergencies." It is about who we are.  How we treat the people we work with.

Developing the capacity to not let the "juice emergencies" distract us from what is truly important takes discernment.  Because in the end, there is an awful lot that is "just juice." 

On magic in the world...

Something inside of us wants to believe that there is magic in the world.  Why else would we love the epic stories like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter?

We've experienced good vs. evil.  Doesn't something inside of us believe it is possible for us to play a role in tipping the scales? Isn't there something that wonders if there is more than we see with our eyes?

But we get busy.  We go to work. We buy groceries. We watch TV. All the while ignoring that there are comrades falling, arrows flying and fortresses around our hearts that are dying to be scaled.

What if all we have to do to see the essential invisible is to close our eyes and become aware? Would we see the deeper that goes on all around us if we weren't so blinded by the input given to us by our eyes?

I believe it is worth trying.

Simply Vegan | Transitioning

When I made the switch to vegan last summer, I'd actually tried it before--without very good results. Apparently when transitioning from something as daily as eating habits, you have to have a clear idea of "what you are moving to" before you can "break away from."

John and I wound up hiring Christy Morgan (aka "The Blissful Chef") to help us learn how to think about cooking vegan. In her blog this week, she has a post on transitioning with a list of "go to meals."  For me, it was a great reminder that I need to cook more.  Too often, my default is to eat out--which though still vegan--is too expensive as a lifestyle. Thanks for the reminder, Christy. 

Simply interesting...

In my day job, I spend a lot of time exploring digital culture and the impact of the web on communication. I found this 5 minute video fascinating.