Soup and Psalmody

Acedia might be the monk's noontime demon - the desert heat baking the life of out his prayers, the day now stretching emptily before him, moving with syrupy slowness - but in my life sloth's succubus stamps in the door in February, and is nowise as gentle. It's cold, dark and damp in the world. The end of the term is far off, and the crisp breezes of energy and hope that swept through my office in September have become a howling blizzard of committments and complications. I despair of finding my desk again, it seems pointless to grade one more paper, consult the dean yet again, review the next article. My perfectionist alter ego shuffles papers in the corner, muttering about the quality of the work, good enough isn't good enough, trying to goad me into polishing this task, to the detriment of those in the ever growing queue. I hoard time - and weep when it slides through my fingers regardless. I long for a desert hermitage, preferably occupied by someone else's demons.

Instead, on a bitter cold Lenten Friday, in the depths of February acedia, I found myself making soup. A vibrant orange melange of winter vegetables took shape on my stove, its steam easing the dryness of my kitchen, the familiar practice grounding my soul. It's a process that demanded I be fully present - or the onions would burn. Perfection had to take a back seat to completion. Each addition to the pot was prepped as the previous one cooked, a heap of roughly cut vegetables grew to its proper size on the cutting board, then was cast into the kettle. The tinny sizzling of vegetables provided a counterpoint to the bass thunk of the knife on wood. One layer followed the next, in precise order, the flavors intensifying in the confines of the pot, the aroma growing in complexity. The individual chunks finally surrendered their individuality to the blender, and what had thirty minutes previously been unscrubbed carrots buried in the vegetable crisper and onions perhaps a bit past their prime was gloriously whole and sustaining. I filled my bowl, to find I was no longer hungry. The mere act of making the soup had left me fed.

A few days after my contemplative experience with the soup, I was sitting in my parish chapel, waiting as the Augustinian community gathered for morning prayer. Breviary pages rustling, the leader for the day tossed out the order, "we're on Wednesday Week III", and our assignments, "Frank, will you do the antiphons and Lois, the reading", and slid without a breath into the opening invocation, "O Sacrament of love...". The psalms began, each side's words piling up until they slid into the silence and the other side took up its work, layering on top of the previous strophe. The intensity gradually built, even spoken our voices created a complex harmony. We followed the antiphonarian into depths of the Benedictus, suddenly whole. There we all were, like my soup, the ingredients ordinary (some of us may even be past our prime), perfection a hope not an expectation, gradually cooking down into a fragrant and complex whole. Once again, in less than half an hour I am fed not by the result of our work, but by the work itself.

In her essay, The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and "Women's" Work, Kathleen Norris points out Amma Syncletica prescription for acedia's demons: psalmody. Psalm soup?

(The Norris essay is lovely...I found it via reverendmother)

Carthusian Echoes

Being far too tired to write anything more tonight (1.5 hour drive, lecture, seminar, 2 hour meeting...), I'll let these speak for me....




My room at the Jesuit Center (a Jesuit Center mug on the sill - I left mine in the car and didn't want to trek through the sleet to fetch it).




The library was three doors down the hall, the peak of the vaulted ceiling has been replaced by a skylight, the sound of the rain and sleet on it yesterday afternoon was quite soothing. As the day progressed, the mist closed in, until I couldn't even see out my window. A mystical mist? It certainly contributed to my sense of enclosure.

Penitential Rites

I'm spending the night at the old Jesuit novitiate. I had a good salad with eggs and cheese for dinner, with an eye to a piece of chocolate cake for dessert. As I bussed my dinner plate I watched the last piece of an amazing chocolate cake walk away with a high school student here on retreat (I'm wondering how silent the 40 of them are going to be tonight...)

Sometimes you're asked to surrender a bit than you might have wanted to...

(and yes, I'm blogging from the Jesuit computer...)

Preaching with your hands

The Carthusians are an order of hermits - if that's not an oxymoron - founded almost 1000 years ago. Their monasteries, or charterhouses, are closed to visitors. Neither hospitality nor preaching are their charisms. Books, however, are a treasured resource for the Carthusians. One prior, as his monastery burned (yet again) exhorted the monks, "my fathers, my fathers, ad libros, ad libros; let the rest burn, but save the books!" Writing anonymously (like many bloggers!) and prolifically through the centuries, Carthusian authors preached "with their hands."

Tomorrow, I'm "preaching with my hands", or at least conversing with them, at the RevGalBlogPals Monday book discussion: on the DVD Into Great Silence (filmed inside a Carthusian charterhouse) and the book An Infinity of Little Hours (a chronicle of five novices who try the Carthusian life in the 1960s).

When it's all over and done with - I'm going to practice what I preached and take a evening trip up to see my spiritual director and sit in the stillness.

A second helping of roast chicken

Yes, I really did give up meat for Lent and no, I didn't have chicken for dinner tonight (breaded shrimp with cocktail sauce - definitely a retro Lenten meal). Second Helpings of Roast Chicken is the sequel to British chef Simon Hopkinson's first collection of food tales: Roast Chicken and Other Stories. I read a review of the latter, which lamented that the former was not yet available in the US. I bought them both for my dad from Amazon in the UK -- with a Second Helping for myself.

Second Helpings is a passionate memoir of food. My favorite chapters are "Butter" and "Rhubarb", but each of the entries in this ecletic encylopedia of essays and recipes is a delight. We had a snow day today (at least the kids did, I taught class with their invaluable help), so for dessert tonight I made pain perdu aux pommes - a recipe I've been dreaming about since I found it sandwiched between almonds and beans. 6 egg yolks, 110 g of sugar and 90 ml of heavy cream are certain to offset any of the the health benefits of my day-old oatmeal bread and apples. Think French Toast with vanilla custard, caramel and apples....

---

Pain perdu (lost bread) is a dish from my New Orleans roots, but the earliest version of the recipe is from a Roman cookbook of the 4th or 5th century:

Aliter dulcia: siligineos rasos frangis, et buccellas maiores facies. in lacte infundis, frigis et in oleo, mel superfundis et inferes.

Another dessert: Break up bread and make larger bites. Soak in milk, fry in oil, drizzle in honey and serve.