In Keeping with the Situation

While the actual "holiday" of Christmas has passed, we are still in the Christmas season; for Christmas is the celebration of Christ's birth, and lasts until Epiphany, which is celebrated on January 6. (The Christmas song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas", is rooted in the celebration of Christmastime, from a time in England when Catholics were forced to disguise their beliefs. During the period of 1558 to 1829, Catholics were prohibited from practicing the faith by law. The twelve days of Christmas are actually December 25 through January 6, and not the 12 days before Christmas as many believe.)

After a viewing of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol this year, a question arose regarding the situation in which Scrooge found himself: "Why was it that the chance of reclamation was offered to Scrooge and not also to Marley? Was that "it" for Marley? Why was he not offered the same chance in life as was Scrooge? Did he spend the afterlife in hell, then, with no possibility of eternal salvation? A very interesting question indeed; and I have been thinking about it on and off since the question came to be asked.

First and foremost, I think we have to realize that Dickens was telling a story to offer hope and to teach. Interestingly, this is exactly how Christ taught--through parables. The stories Christ told were not of actual events, but a teaching tool of truths that could easily be understood by anyone (well, perhaps anyone but the ruling class of Israel!). In the same way, Dickens used A Christmas Carol as a teaching tool to explain the many lessons contained within. We sometimes have difficulty in understanding Truth unless hit in the face with it. Dickens did just that in A Christmas Carol. Dickens lived in Victorian England. It was not often a time that was as pretty as the scenes we see on Christmas cards. It was a time when orphan children roamed the streets and non-Christian society despised the poor and treated them atrociously. Living conditions were often unbearable. There were many social inequalities and injustices. There was much suffering and pain during this period in history. Dickens tried to bring all this to light, to expose the situation in his novella, and offer the solution. 

The other thing that came to my mind was that we are never really told, in A Christmas Carol, that "this was it" for Marley, that he had no chance for salvation, and he was stuck for all eternity in this thick fog of doom and pain, unable to free himself. In the big picture, things happen to us all in the ways that are most beneficial to each person, I believe. There is no formula, no blanket remedy that will heal all of us in the same way. And simply because we cannot understand this, or why one has to suffer more than another, does not make it wrong or unfair or unjust. We also need to remember that Dickens was telling the story of one man, Ebenezer Scrooge, and his "sins" and his reclamation, and not Jacob Marley's. Dickens was in actuality using a parable.

We all have the same chance Scrooge and Marley did, while we live on this earth. We have many "spirits" who visit us each day, in the form of friends and family, teachers, the Church, people who enter our lives for no good reason (or so we think), who try to open our minds to Truth, who bless us with their goodness, their knowledge, their kindness. We would be wise to learn from them, before it is too late. Each of us has a purpose, and what we do in life affects others:


"Spirit," said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, "tell me if Tiny Tim will live."

"I see a vacant seat," replied the Ghost, "in the poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die."

"No, no," said Scrooge. "Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he will be spared."

"If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race," returned the Ghost, "will find him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population." 

Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.

Christmas marks the celebration of Christ's birth, but it is not to be celebrated on only one day. We can change this world by changing ourselves. We can "live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!" We can allow "the Spirits of all Three [to] strive within...". And in so doing, we can say with Ebenezer Scrooge, "Christmas Time be praised for this! I say it on my knees, old Jacob; on my knees!"

A most blessed Christmas season to you all, and the happiest of New Years!

Peace,

Monica


Be Fruitful!

It has been an amazing summer growing season! The weather here in Ohio, while a bit uncomfortable for a period of time because of rain and high humidity, has been absolutely perfect for our garden. I'm finding we may have put a bit too many tomato plants in the small area we designated for our garden this year, for they are overtaking the entire garden. Live and learn.

Still, they are in a good, sunny location and are providing a great amount of tomatoes. I see new baby tomatoes and new flowers each day. Among the varieties (six plants) are several heirlooms (including Cherokee Purple and a striped orange variety), a  Better Boy, Goliath Hybrid and an Early Girl--from what I remember. Unfortunately, the foliage is so thick I can't see the little name tags I placed by each plant, and don't remember all the varieties this late into the season! I am truly salivating at the thought of my first tomato and mayo sandwich (on soft Italian bread, of course) of the season.

 

For the first time this year, we planted garlic! One of my favorite accomplishments in the 25+ years we have lived on this tiny farm. I am one of those people who cannot cook without garlic, and it would be a disaster indeed if I were ever out of it. My husband planted 13 little cloves this past October. Every one of those little cloves grew and survived during the extremely harsh Ohio winter of 2014, which included mounds of snow and days--even weeks of sub-zero temperatures. They not only survived, they flourished; and so, today, we are rewarded with 13 heads of garlic which we harvested this morning. And the extent of our work was to put them in the ground and then forget about them. Each of those little heads of garlic contains about 13 to 15 individual perfect little cloves! And so, today my husband gathered them up, I braided them and we hung them in the barn for a month or so to dry. I am most proud of this endeavor. I will bring them into the kitchen when they are dried, to hang there, to use and share with family and to decorate my humble little farm kitchen--and to keep the vampires away, of course :).

 

This year's weather has also been perfect for our Greek Columnar Basil and Italian Flat Leaf Parsley. I love parsley as much as I do garlic, and must always have the flat leaf variety around for cooking and salads. I think it is much more flavorful than the curly kind. I am expanding my horizons. I used to think one could only cook with parsley or use it as a garnish, and not usually eat it right out of the garden. It took a magical Christmastime visit to London, England in 2012 to change my mind about that. The night before we left for home, we had dinner at Rules Restaurant in Covent Garden. Rules is the oldest and most famous restaurant in London, and one which none other than Charles Dickens himself frequented. We were truly blessed to have secured a reservation there the day before, as most often reservations require weeks in advance to obtain. We ordered two  salads for the table to share with our meal, and one of them was strictly an herb salad, with flat leaf parsley being the main ingredient. No salad has ever been paired more perfectly with the roasted game entrées we enjoyed that evening. Since then, I have also been making parsley salads for our dinners at home, as well as cooking with it as always.

 

The basil is also quite nice. I don't like a very strong, harsh basil flavor, and this Greek Columnar Basil really fills the bill. It is a delicate basil flavor and has smaller leaves. I love it. I cannot wait for my own tomatoes to ripen so that I can make a wonderful caprese salad! It has started growing fast, faster than I can use it fresh; so I am drying a few stems of it so that I can harvest it before it flowers, and not waste a leaf.

 

We normally grow only bell peppers. I'm not a fan of the more bitter green ones, but love the sweet red, yellow and orange varieties. This year we have added a Carmen red sweet pepper and pimiento. They are all doing well. Do you remember that wonderful pinkish pimiento cheese spread in a jar from when you were a kid? I do. It was one of my sister's, brother's and my favorite snack on crackers. I cannot wait to make a homemade pimiento-cream cheese spread from my own peppers.

It doesn't take a lot to grow a garden. And the rewards are so sweet--and savory. It's such a creative endeavor, and always reinforces my belief that we (should) work hand-in-hand with God to create, to share the yield, to be fruitful, to make good of the gifts we have been given. How can a world go hungry, when even the smallest garden space is so fruitful and multiplies to such an enormous yield? I don't think I could enjoy nourishing myself with food I had helped to grow if I did not share it: "...it is not only from eating, but in the breaking of bread with another that we receive our comfort and satisfaction in the gift of food." (From Thy Bounty by Monica E. Smith). There simply is no greater feeling than to be aware we have been creative and fruitful at base level. Enjoy your summer.

 

 Tomatoes

 

Italian Flat Leaf Parsley / Greek Columnar Basil

 

                                                       Carmen Sweet Pepper / Orange Bell / Pimiento

Drying Basil (above); Garlic Braided and Hanging to Dry in the Barn (below)

 

 Monica and Daughter, Veronica Browsing the Amazing Menu at Rules / Parsley Salad

 



My Husband, Scott and Son, Jeremy Anticipating Our Meal at Rules with Great Delight

 

Peace,

Monica

 

 

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas...

I know you have experienced it, upon waking from a wonderful dream, the feeling that you did not want to wake up yet. And have you kept your eyes tightly closed, willing the dream to continue, willing yourself to remain asleep, willing that life created within your mind to continue? Have you tried with all your might to let it be so?

It is already the twelfth day of Christmas, and the final hours of the spirit of Christmas Present are upon us. I no longer find the winter wind invigorating and tolerable, merely uncomfortable, the once picturesque snowy hillsides simply cold and bleak; and I have spent the last week trying to remain asleep, trying my best to allow the warmth of Christmas to continue, trying not to awaken from the most wonderful Christmas I have experienced in many years—perhaps even since my (now grown) children were little, or maybe even since I was a child myself.

There have been years when Christmas came and went without much ado, when I seemed to simply go through the motions of preparation without much expectation or meaning, and was just as happy to pack away the season with its glittery accoutrement and forget about it for another year. There have been, sadly, Christmases past when I saw only the extra work mounted upon me. Not often, but there were times...

I don't know what changed this year that caused such joy in my heart during the season, and this great sadness that it is now over. Perhaps, as we age and come to a more profound belief of mortality, things we often have taken for granted—or in which we have shown little interest—become ever more consequential. Did I give the season a more spiritual significance? Perhaps. But, for me, honoring God and celebrating His Son's birth (and, thereby, our reclamation) have always been "the reason for the season". Without that, all the little things we do in preparation to make Christmas sparkle with excitement are simply things we do. They have no significance or impact.

I prepared for the holiday and celebrated with family as always. We ate and laughed and played as always, "for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself..." (from "A Christmas Carol"). But perhaps there was one small difference which transformed everything for me this year.

I have always been enamored with, and have always made it a point to watch at least one of the "A Christmas Carol" productions each year. In the few weeks before Christmas, I kept hearing over and over in my head the words of Ebenezer Scrooge, upon his realization of what the gift of life really means, and what our response to, and responsibility in life is:

I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. 

So I set out to give life to his pledge, thereby making it my own. There is a saying of St. John of the Cross that I have long loved and which has always resonated within me: "Where there is no love, put love -- and you will find love." This is not so different from Scrooge's declaration, is it? And, perhaps, that is how this Christmas was transformed for me, where this Christmas differed for me, where Christmas—or any day of the year—can differ for us all. I approached the season with love from beginning to end, in the decorations, the food I prepared, arranging special "events" and activities to share with others to mark the season, to elevate it from the ordinary. I put so much love into the things I did and experienced that I could hardly contain myself. And so, now that it is over—for this year— I am so filled that it has no place to spill over but in tears, as I think fondly of how we laughed and loved this Christmas.

I am not ready to awaken from the dream, or give up the ghost—of Christmas Past or otherwise—but I must be fully awake and aware of all the gifts of Christmas in order to let the dream live on. To ignore these gifts and lessons of Christmas would be much too costly.  I think this is the way we should—must—approach not only Christmas, but every day on this earth, fully awake and aware,  living (as I was recently reminded) each day truly as if it were our last, in full realization of the magnitude of the gift of life...

Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!...It is required of every man..."that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world -- oh, woe is me! -- and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!

Let it never be said of us that we did not know Christmas or the gifts it brings to us which live through the year. We can then begin to understand each other, who we are, where we are going, who God is. We are here for a purpose. Let us strive, with 'ol Ebenezer, to wake up and find that purpose, with each other...

 

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more...He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world...and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us!

Peace, Merry Christmas and the Happiest of New Years!