January 23, 2024 When someone is hurting, or celebrating, or the source of help or hope in your life, don’t you feel the urge to do something about it? Words like “I’m sorry,” “hooray,” or “thanks a ton” float up naturally like bubbles, but as quickly can burst with hollowness, as you push up against their limits. Don’t you ever just feel the...
January 17, 2024 Photo by Curtis Yee, @supercurtisman A friend offered to bring cake to our weekly small group meeting, but held off when she heard I was planning to bake a cake. “My dessert can wait til next week. I can’t say no to a Jeannie Rose cake!” I replied, “It’s mostly an excuse to use up some clementines that had gotten too hard to peel. Cake is like the...
February 6, 2022 It would have been my dad’s birthday. His nickname was “Burr,” and my family celebrates “Burr Day” every year with something he loved: sweet treats. When he was sick, but could still enjoy them, we would gather the best pastries from three or four specialty bakeries in driving distance and assemble a massive platter of flakey, gooey goodness. It is our family’s way to...
January 24, 2022 Today’s cake begins last fall, with pancakes. More precisely, our five year old son’s desire to share the joy of pancakes with his soccer team. Our pre-soccer Saturday morning tradition, in addition to those glorious morning snuggles, is sourdough discard pancakes, made from the gloppy, sour mash leftover from feeding my sourdough starter. Yet another beautiful thing from...
January 7, 2022 My spiritual director tells me she thinks God is inviting me to make a cake. At the end of our session, we sit in silence together. You think that sounds awkward, try sitting in silence with someone over Zoom. But it doesn’t feel awkward to me, it feels like a reprieve: permission to stop taking care of people, to pause the inner swirl of problem-solving and risk-mitigating and...