More Baguettes

Baguette blog part 2. Between three of us, we managed to eat 3 out of 4 baguettes at dinner and breakfast. Somehow, when baked as a standard loaf, that amount of bread would last at least two or three days, but when sausage shaped and crunchy, we gobbled it up in half the time and I’ve got more bread in the machine for today!

Was it worth the hours of fussing around timing risings and reshaping, resting, punching down, and so on? Yes. Change is good. It may be the same recipe, yet it tasted different.

Taste and see that the Lord is good. This is the day that the Lord has made.

These days of lock down can be Groundhog Days. Monday can be the same as Friday or Sunday. With a bit of effort, though, the days, like bread dough, can be reshaped and then, somehow, taste different. Present a different experience.

We have introduced one night a week as a sharing night. One week we each chose a favourite piece of music, listened to it and then explained why it was special to us. One week we shared a poem, again expanding on it to relive our first encounter with it, telling what it spoke to us maybe at a past point in our lives, maybe even now. This week we hope to have a trip down memory lane with some home movies (if the old projector still works). I’ve heard of others who are dressing up for a meal once a week or so and having a date night in.

Obviously this is no good if you are locked down alone, but Zoom encounters and skype calls can also reshape time so that our days have variety and interest, re-shaping a day and expanding horizons.

Jesus came to give us life in all its fullness. In our normal, unlocked-in world, that fullness can look like a busy schedule of work and relationships and sporting activities and concerts or plays.

How often in the past I have wished that the world would stop for a day so I could catch up with things! It has stopped now for two months, and I am realising that I don’t want to just get all the jobs done. I also want to enjoy every day.

We still have the same gift of life, the same amount of time, but it sits like a ball waiting for us to choose how to shape it today. Will your day be a plain loaf or a braided brioche or a simple baguette?