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I remember a couple of years ago, when I was summertime lunch-packing every day & I wondered, yk, why I was spending all my time turning beans into burgers when my kids were perfectly happy to eat beans with a little oil & vinegar?  Yes.

Garcon & Fifille, left to their own devices, will tear into an emergency package of Trader Joe's Steamed Lentils & eat it with little more than salt.  Maybe a dab of butter.  Hyenas.  Anyhow.  I know that packaged food is more exciting than home-made food, but I suspect a lot of that lies in the having of another to do it for you.

I was rushing around last week for a pre-fencing supper & there it was.  Lentils, water, garlic.  It takes 25 minutes. 

 

Speaking of food, maybe of feeding children lentils -- we four delved deeply last week into this reading and this watching.  Lot of family discussion. (This, children, is why healthy eating is a core value for this family.  I mean, they know, but still.) It was good to pair the two, thematically, but also illustratively.  I was able to tell the children, yk, by the way, if you doubted the evil of these corporations, you should know that in the reading where the fired-Coca-Cola executive was talking about trying to market in Brazil, how the poor people in the favelas caused him to have a conversion like Saul on the road to Damascus: they were not in this documentary.  There were poor people in this documentary, and absolutely by American standards, and that was the point -- there are people who are even poorer than the poor people we saw here (Fifille glazed over, like she does when the Little Flower can't take it any more) & all the Coca-Cola Company can think of is going down there like Satan's missionaries to get them hooked on their poison.  

 

If your kids can read a feature-length movie, I would highly recommend a screening.  Unless you don't care about any of that & then, obviously, you can do what you like.  The infographics are truly adorable.  I mean, you are really delighted to watch a animated slide tell you that U.S. government agencies spend a total of $51 million every year developing & disseminating the value of healthy food & activities to children in America while Aggregated Big Food spends $1.6 billion every year, advertising junk food to the same market, relentlessly. Adorable!  Like if Miffy whispered that in your ear! You would be less likely to punch in that case, right?  Miffy?

 

In other news from the Socratic Method: I read this story on Monday, lying in bed with a pot of tea & a smoothie, and when I was finished, I snapped the A-section shut & said to myself, When next time that Celeste comes, I have some questions for her!  Hmph!

Celeste is my indefatigable Jehovah's Witness, you know.  For 10 years now, she comes, with another woman every time, it seems.  I like Celeste a lot, because what is not to like?  The one thing that is always super-entertaining is that most doors upon which they knock, I'm sure, are not opened by people ready to discuss The Bible. 

I'm like Martin Sheen in his Josiah Bartlett role in here, just minding my business, and then at intervals I open the door to an elderly lady in a cloth coat wants to know, for example, if I think about what Scripture says about the role of fathers in rearing children & I said, "Well, I was just thinking yesterday of how I am like Jonah's storm with the mariners and [Mari] is a big fish, but we all are tools to the same end.  Also, if I need to throw him into the sea, well ... His will be done."

They lap it up.  And, really, it lets me take control of the conversation and control it, so they don't talk about their religion I do not want to practice, ever.  You want to talk about The Bible, I'm all in!, yk?  Then they leave.

 

Wednesday was different.  Celeste came at a really good time!  Both kids had gone down for a nap, I was replying to some emails and had a kettle on the stove to make a pot of tea.  (Harney's Hot Cinnamon Spice, if you're so nosy.) 

"I'm really glad to see you.  I have a lot of questions.  Please, come in."

For ten years, Celeste has been perfectly happy to sit on the porch and/or stand in my vestibule, and I have been unconflicted about the same arrangement.  It puts a girlfriend-y, one-foot-out-the-door, oh-just-one-more-thing, air-kissing flavor to our ecumenical encounters.  The woman who was with her (Doris) seemed to think this reception was something odd, but you already know I did not care.  I had questions, and I knew they had answers. 

 

What is with the Yes, you can transplant an organ and No, you can not transplant blood?  Lay it on me! 

 

You guys!  It's all about the blood!  It doesn't have anything to do with the boundaries of our God-given corporeality!  Say what?!

 

We got arranged at the dining-room table, everyone had tea, the children were still asleep, they got out their little pocket-dictionary Bibles.  When I excused myself to get mine, I realized it was right on the sideboard under ther stairs, which was funny (hahaha!) because that made it look like I am always holding my New American Bible & reading deeply, every day.  It's only about once each week!  Ahahaha!

They invited me to read with them from Genesis (9), Leviticus (17), and Acts (15, which was funny because when Celeste said, "Turn to Acts," I had a lot of glittery, over-the-top words for Luke), and we did.  The takeaway was Blahblahblah, bloodbloodblood, blahblahblah.  Reading it over with them, I was satisfied abt the incongruence -- they believe, as it is written, that blood is the source of life, it is yours, you can not drain it nor give it, nor have blood switcharoonies!  I mean, if you're going to have a literal reading, keep it one-note!  Don't complicate!

 

You know, it's fine.  I can think of 10 religious prohibitions off the top of my head that make less sense than the Jehovah's Witnesses' prohibition against blood transfusing, although maybe they have it a little mixed up with how God killed Onan, but that's not my business!  I also resisted the temptation to question them about umbilical blood, because I did not ask them in to argue with them and they answered my question (Why an organ but not the blood?).  So it was good, I proclaimed myself satisfied, and then they confessed to having a question for me:

What are these red shoes the Pope wears that are in the news?

Say what?  I had not heard this news, nor ever of red shoes (I have since), so I told them I had no idea.  They seemed disappointed.  I explained, helpfully, that vestments are based in a complex hierarchy stretching back centuries, and I think people have to really be specialists.  Also, that I was not into the office of the papacy in general, nor any fan of this one in particular, but I encouraged them to feel free forever and ever to ask me anything about the Mother of God or St Francis, or really almost anything about actual theology and/or doctrine.  Then I zipped my lips because I am a perfect hostess!  Yes! 

 

You should come on over!  I think we still have hamantaschen!  À très bientôt! xoxoxox 

Comments

[Sailor Jerry]

I find I must comment upon how very kind of you it is that you allowed them the simulation of visiting. They could have simply been able to ball-call chapter and verse numbers to you for the same ending.

[lala]

Behave.

[unlove]

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