Christmas Cake in the Oven

Christmas cake in the oven now. And breathe.

Last day of October – that should be enough time to mature I hope. This is a tradition I didn’t grow up with but have adopted and though fruitcake is not my favourite edible over Christmas, there is something about the making of it that I love.

I think it’s because most things, including baking, are done in a hurry these days, and there is no hurrying the Christmas cake. First there is the boiling of the fruit with the liquor. Then as it cools, there is the rather tricky business of lining the pan inside and out. Normally I would be fed up doing something like that, but with the Christmas cake there is something rather pleasing about taking the time to do it right. 

Then it has to bake for hours, and finally, for nearly two months it will be regularly fed with whisky or brandy or something. Finally, just before Christmas, there will be the fun of marzipan and icing and decorating.

Maybe as we approach advent, it just reminds me that this year I don’t want to get caught up in the rush and tumble but instead, I want to be meditative and filled with the peace that passes all understanding, given to us by our Prince of Peace. Whose birthday cake it is, after all.

Do Not Enter

Chatting to a new acquaintance at a supper party over the holidays, she asked me why I hadn’t pursued some of my writing ambitions. I floundered. I prevaricated. I stammered out that there were so many distractions, so much to do.

Lame.

This morning therefore I took a walk with the Lord, and asked him to identify the blockages. I quickly understood that it isn’t so much the physical distractions which I allow to eat up the time. It’s the mental distractions. The concerns which I meditate on rather than meditating on God. The anxieties for those I love which pop back into my head over and over again until I am ruminating on them. 

At least when a cow ruminates on her cud, it becomes digestible and does her body some good. When I ruminate on worries, they expand and I dig deeper ruts to ensnare my thoughts.

Each concern becomes a cul de sac which leads me back to where I started from and accomplishes nothing. 

God directed my thinking that if I will only take these concerns to God once and leave them with him, trusting that he does have the answer and is actually working in the situations, I can put up a Do Not Enter sign at the opening to the cul de sac of thoughts and then obey that sign.

Hard to do. I found that as I continued my walk my thoughts kept zeroing in on those old familiar cul de sacs, so I had to admit defeat – ‘I can’t do it, Lord. I need your help. Please remind me every time I start to head into a cul de sac that the Do Not Enter sign is still there and relevant. 

Once I’ve asked you to do something, I can just skim over it in prayer – hey, don’t forget about that situation, Lord, lying down that cul de sac in X’s life. 

Then eventually my brain will be freed up to think creatively again, to focus on the writing ambitions I’ve still got. 

I can head down a road less travelled rather than encircling my familiar mental suburbs again and again. 2015, here I come!

Feeding

Patrolling the four trees we call the orchard today, I see that they are much healthier looking than they have been for the last few years. Although the plum doesn’t show any sign of blossom – therefore no plums – its leaves look fresh and whole, unmarked by brown scabs, and the branches also look better than previous years. The apple trees are beginning to blossom, as is the little pear tree, which has so far never borne fruit.

They all look healthier than I remember in the past. 

A couple of months ago, I scattered food pellets around their bases and roughly scraped them in. Perhaps for years now the poor trees have been starving, lacking some necessary vitamin. The apples have fruited, but small apples, and the plum has produced a dozen or so delicious specimens.

Now I don’t know – watch this space – our weather is so unseasonably, unreasonably cold (I heard the highest road in the UK, not far from here, was closed last night due to snow!) we may yet have no harvest from those trees. But today, I think they are looking good.

There’s a line in the Episcopal service of communion in which is prayed that we would feed on Jesus in our hearts, by faith, with thanksgiving. Jesus called himself the bread of life. When we are nurtured and fed by him, we bear good fruit, full-sized, free of scabs and disease. 

I’m sure much of the fruit I may have borne in my life has been mis-shapen and small. I’ve not fed as much as I should have. Feeding on Jesus is a bit like the way a cow feeds (I’ve just walked past a pasture of cows and calves). They take a long time over their eating, chewing, digesting, ruminating, ‘chewing the cud’. 

I’m going to go do that now. Read some of Jesus’ words, and then chew over them throughout the day. Today I want the fruit I bear to be healthy and free from disease.

Always Good

Productivity isn’t necessarily measured in the ticks beside jobs on a to-do list.

It’s possible to be productive while sitting still on the couch. Mentally productive. Spiritually productive. 

The protestant work ethic is deeply engrained in me, and I know that buzzing round the house or garden, accomplishing definite tasks, somehow seems better than sitting still exercising my mind or my spirit. And yet I know it isn’t.

I know that when I sit and meditate on Scripture, or sit silently in prayer or companionably in prayer with a partner, I am refreshed. But more than the refreshment I feel deep in my soul, I know that I am productive.

It is impossible to pray a prayer and have nothing happen. 

Something happens in response to our prayers. God is listening, even when it seems we go on praying the same prayer for years. Things are happening. Unseen things perhaps. Imperceptibly perhaps. Maybe they are happening in the way we are asking. Or maybe he is working in our own hearts to widen our vision and deepen our perception.

The important thing to remember is that God is love, and he can’t be anything other than love. His love took Jesus all the way to the cross. He is always listening when we speak; he even hears our prayers before a word is on our lips. 

I want to be productive today, and not particularly in the way of ticking off jobs on a to-do list.

Spiritual MOT - Day Two

The fuel system – am I filling up with the right fuel – and enough of it?

It’s nearly cold enough to snow here this morning so my walk was very brisk, but not so brisk I didn’t admire the stunning sky, which was splodged with salmon-pink blotches and yellow smears. There’s been a lot in the news about Van Gogh – did he commit suicide or was he shot by a teenager? Did suicide enhance his tortured-soul persona, or does it matter? God’s artistry far surpasses that of any human painter, so what does it reveal about his character? Have I even thought about that?

Scripture encourages us to meditate on God even through the night, but frankly, my mind spends more time entertaining anxious thoughts about various people who are dear to me, or situations that I’m responsible for, or health issues, etc etc. With anxiety fuelling my thoughts, I am not purring along sweetly, as my Maker intended. Instead, my engine is probably clanking and banging and not getting the optimum results. If I attract any attention, it’s probably for the wrong reasons, not because I’m transparently glowing with the glory of God.

So, I’m going to stop here and go sit in my prayer window, look to the stormy skies and pray – ‘fill ‘er up, Lord!’

It may take some time.