food, food, and more food.

Does anyone else ever feel like all you do at Christmas is eat? I had such great food, but between driving to get the food, preparing the food, driving to go out to eat, driving home and then ordering more food, that is really all I did over Christmas. I am most certainly not complaining. My brother-in-law is an amazing cook, so he gets stuck with making us Christmas dinner every year. He has the distinct honor of making the second and third best steakes I have ever had in my life. This year's menu included pork roast, mushroom risotto, and homemade mac n cheese. Awesome. Heavy. (Marty, is there a problem with gravity in the future? I knew it!)

So, this inspires me to think about healthy winter foods; things that are much, much better for me, but still comforting and hearty. Here are just some of the things I have found around the web. I have tried some of them and want to try others.

1. Salmon with lemon and capers. It is some kind of understatement to say that this was amazing. It was easy, fast, worry free, and best of all, it is cooked in foil, so there is little to no clean up. Do it.

2. Butternut Squash with Gnocchi and Kale. One pot. Many flavors. It is lighter than it sounds and kale is a super healthy veggie- quickly becoming one of my favorites. Unlike my co-worker Jordan who gained a distaste for it because he grew up eating kale chips, I discovered kale later in life and I am in love. Check out this rice recipe. Awesome.

3. Spanish Chicken with Chorizo and Potatoes. I pulled this off a blog called foodgawker.com, and she in-turn pulled it off of someone else's blog, I think. I have posted the link to the original bog here. In any case, I have been obsessed with foodgawker. Go there. Amazing and tasty things await you. This also only takes one pan, and I am anxious to try it.People are coming to my house for NYE weekend, and perchance I shall force them to try it.  I am sensing a theme here of one-pan meals. That was not my purpose, but now that it is here, I will just run with it. Doesn't that just make you so happy? One-pan meals? Handy.

4. Quinoa and Black Beans with Salsa. This was a suggestion from my friend, Annie; and it was a very good call. A great call. Almost the kind of right-on-the-money-game-winning-in-the-end-zone-by-an-inch call, except that Annie does not love football, she is really more of a basketball, baseball fan. The problem being that I don't know those sports well enough to use a really great analogy, so football is it, baby. This is not the point. Annie gave me a recipe very similar to this one. Here are the modifications on the recipe listed above:

start with 2 tsp cumin seeds (or 1tsp cumin). heat with oil for 2 min to bring out the flavor.

add in:

1 can black bean soup

1 c. salsa

1 can drained and rinsed black beans

2 Tbs (less or more to taste) of pickled jalapenos (yes, that is right, but they are super tasty and really needed in this recipe and easy to find in Hispanic foods section)

water and quinoa.

Cook everything else as directed.

5. Pan Roasted Salmon and Bread Salad. I have not tried this, but it looks amazing and easy. I am on a bit of a Salmon kick.

6. Mocha Peppermint Cookies. Okay, I am cheating a little bit, this is not healthy nor one pan, but it was darn tasty. Try them.

This is all. Happy cooking to us all and to all a good night.

Knocked Down: Ambition

In my last post I mentioned dinner with the Rozkos and Annie. During this dinner, J.R. asked a very Spirit-inspired question: Am I able to discern the difference between holy ambition and ambition for personal gain. No. I am not. I am not able to do that at all. I am not even sure that I intellectually know the difference. It is easier to see the difference when I am in a situation, but still fuzzy most of the time. 

The thing that I find the most challenging in this is that my motives are mixed all of the time. I would like to be in a situation, know that it is all holy ambition or ambition for personal gain and then be able to reject the unhealthy ambition, pull myself out of the situation, submit it to the Lord, or in some other way take appropriate action. But it is not that simple.I have so much pride in me. Even now as I type this, I am writing for you, my audience. I want to know what you will think. Do you find me witty? Entertaining? smart? helpful? an expert in my subject? And I can see that this is exactly what the Spirit was after in that comment, but I can’t let it go. I want this. I want it badly. I want it so badly that at times I feel blinded to all other things. It is a good and noble and worthwhile goal – to serve those in youth ministry and to help impact the way that people do youth ministry. But even that sounds prideful. That is prideful.

Each situation is so muddled. I want to do something both because it is my calling, because it is serving the Lord, because it glorifies Him to use my gifts, AND because it comes with the spotlight, because I have a goal that I want to pursue, and because it feeds the people-pleasing, fame-seeking part of me. I cannot just throw my motives out of the window or withdraw from the task at hand.

Instead I am left to sift through the internal mess. What is the difference between these ambitions? I do think there is such a thing as godly ambition. All kinds of things that come from God are gutsy- when was the last time God balked at say, reaching people from every tribe and nation, or saving the souls of humans, or at defeating Satan, or at creating a universe? How many men and women have been lead into incredibly ambitious tasks? It seems in line with asking us to cultivate our talents and spiritual gifts, and with participating in God's actions in the world. I think that I have godly ambitions, they are just intertwined with ungodly ones so that any given task or opportunity comes from both places in me. I have no idea how God is going to redeem this in me, but I know that He will. Oh, will He! About this, I have no doubts. This sin and mixing of motives was brought to the surface for one reason- to take care of it. It's the process that is a bear.

Knocked Down

Two things have knocked me on my ass this week: a personal psalm by my friend Sam and dinner with the Rozkos. Sam is a long-time friend of mine who shared a modern psalm on Sunday. It was incredibly moving to watch him read what he had written and bring it before the Lord and our church. The psalm was vulnerable, honest, gritty, moving, and very much a suprise to me. I did not expect to be so moved by his story, his cry to the Lord. But I am, and I am having a hard time facing that internally. His vulerability before our church and before the Lord are quite a challenge- that is church, and he did it well. I feel unequal to the task. Sharing like he did means that I have to let people into my crap and there is a very real possibility that I will be rejected, and, it feels,  rightfully so. It means that I have to fully bring myself before others and risk their suprise at my inner world. That means also that I have to let go of my dreams of being a famous youth minsitry thinker.

That is where dinner with the Rozkos comes in. In order to better start out on the road to becomming a famous youth ministry thinker, I met with two people from Life on the Vine that are mutual friends with Annie. I am terrible at seeing the first few steps to any very long journey, especially if they are at all practical. I wanted help thinking through changes I can make in my life now that will set me up for success later. That was the conversation I expected to have over dinner. I came out with a very different set of steps to take: almost all of which were internal and corrective. Corrective is putting it midly. The Spirit was there at Noodles and Company, cutting into the crap that lives in my soul, exposing it in great detail. I am ambitious, and not in a way that honors the Lord or serves others. I am insecure. I am egotistical. The Rozkos did not say these things, Annie did not, and I did not, but the Spirit laid them bare in me.

I hate them. They drive me crazy because they are ugly and do not honor the Lord or love others. I would like to tell you that I am submitting to the Lord in this and letting Him work it out in me, but that is not the case. I am holding onto these ugly things in me with all my might. I feel entitled to my ambition. I feel capable of affecting the change I want to see. I feel stubborn. And I can see that feeling these things is not really okay and not really what I want in the long run. I can see that I am facing off with God, and that I am going to loose. And yet, here I am, at the line anyway. I wish that I could say I am happy about it, and I wish that I could say that I am learning and growing and how glorious that is. But I can't at the moment, I am just on my ass. I feel like this guy.

Obsessive TV Watching

I have been watching many, many episodes of the West Wing. In fact, I think that I have given eight hours in the past two days to this endeavor. It is one of the few times that I can turn my mind off. This is a much-needed break. One of my favorite characters, Sam Seaborn, is a speechwriter for the President. What a job, huh? When someone asked him why he had not taken credit for ghostwriting for Governors, Congressmen, Presidents, and Kings he said "Because that is not what speech writers do."

My friend, Annie, who is generously feeding my addition, says that Sam is too good. And that may be true, his character always seems to do the right thing, even when he is angry. Sometimes especially when he is angry. And I think that this is what I like about him. I like that no matter what, when the chips are down, Sam will follow his conscience. Always. Idealised character traits are one of the great gifts of fiction. No one can behave like Sam, but it is encouraging to see it played out. It is inspiring to watch him encourage the downtrodden, fight for what he believes in, go toe to toe with the President, and to confront those that he believes to be wrong. Sam encourages me to do the right thing, even when I am tired.

We all need breaks. There is always the pressure in a blog entry to say something pithy, to make a point, or to generally write an entry with at least one message. I don't have that. But I wanted to put it out there in the world that sometimes I get postive, encouraging things out of obessively watching TV.