150 Pathways to God: #14 Inviting God to dinner

When the scent of fennel seed fills the kitchen co-mingling in the air with basil-walnut pesto bean soup I feel the divine making itself known in the immediate. It is like knowing the smell of your beloved; you know when they are present. The aroma of very wholesome vegetables and herbs, beans and grains reminds me that we are bound to our food in a kind of sacred marriage. What we eat today becomes our blood within hours. We are interwoven with the whole of creation that is captured in plants. Grains and vegetables eaten together ground us and connect us with the whole cosmos in a way that no other food can.

Should you find yourself estranged from anything, including yourself, and feeling decidedly not in the flow of the universal river of life, find your center, or maybe just your feet, again in a bowl of rich pesto broth over pasta with an artichoke infused with fennel alongside. Don't be surprised when the whole angelic realm joins you for dinner. Here's how to make this simple meal:

Boil some organic white pasta in a little lightly salted water until just tender, drain, set aside.

The artichoke is a large flower bud. It's tender heart drizzled with olive oil and lemon with cracked pepper cannot be replicated in all of nature. Boil a pot of water with a teaspoon of fennel seeds and a lemon half, juiced squeezed in the water then throw in the rest, and a pinch of white sea salt. Allow the seasonings to flavor the water while you prepare the artichoke. With scissors trim the thorns from the leaves and remove about an inch of the top with a serrated knife. Trim the stem even with the bottom. Drop the artichoke in the boiling seasoned water and submerge for a few seconds; it will bob back up somewhat. Cover. Simmer at least thirty minutes. Test the bottom with a fork, continue cooking as necessary; drain and cool a bit when tender. Do not overcook or it will be mushy. Serve with a dipping bowl of high quality olive oil with a pinch of sea salt, fresh lemon juice and freshly cracked pepper. To eat: Peel each leaf off and dip the meaty part into the olive oil and scrape off with your upper teeth. Do not eat the leaf itself. When at the core remove the small leaves and the hairy covering of the heart. Divide the heart into smaller pieces and put into the olive oil; add more with lemon and pepper if too low (should be dripping off each morsel). Eat your way into heaven.

Make the pesto by processing one cup of basil and one cup of toasted walnuts, five tablespoons of olive oil, a clove of garlic and half teaspoon of white sea salt. Use three tablespoons pesto for the soup and store the rest in a jar with olive oil to cover; use within four days.

Make the soup by adding one cup of thinly sliced leeks, one stalk celery and one medium carrot chopped to two cups water and a pinch of white sea salt; simmer for ten minutes. Add a generous handful of green beans, trimmed and halved and one drained and rinsed can of organic white, kidney or pinto beans; cook an additional ten minutes. Add pesto and chopped parsley and salt to taste. Serve over pasta, but not too much as to maintain soup quality of the dish.

(Of course, all bean dishes are best the second day. At the second serving, skip the pasta and add a side of authentic sourdough bread for dipping into the broth.)

This meal begins with the artichoke followed by the soup.

Note: The pesto soup is from One Peaceful World Cookbook, Alex Jack and Sachi Kato. The artichoke is slightly adapted from my mother's kitchen; she cooked it with half an onion and half a lemon, a celery stalk cut into quarters, and one teaspoon whole coriander. Rowena Gibbons is a certified health coach, macrobiotic teacher and practitioner, and cooking instructor.

150 Pathways to God: #13 Fasting from thorns

Welcome Judith Sornberger, guest blogger, and author of Open Heart, Wal-Mart Orchid, Practicing the World, and The Accidental Pilgrim: Finding God and His Mother in Tuscany.

Below is one of several poems from a series called “Days of Ash and Wonder”—poems written during this Lenten season. Some are more personal than others, but, as with all so-called “personal” or “confessional” poems, the hope is that they will speak to others, nonetheless.  

If I were to fast this Lent,

it would be in solidarity

with deer in this season

over ever-deepening snow,

so famished for a taste

of green, they try the holly

bush beside my porch.

How can I fail to cringe,

watching them take in

the thorny leaves

on tender tongues?

Instead of chocolate or wine,

maybe for these few weeks

I can fast from thorny words

crossing my tongue.

If not love my enemies,

maybe refrain from hating

them aloud to my neighbor.

150 Pathways to God: #12 Scrubbing floors, part two

Scrubbing floors is not my favorite past time. In fact, I'm not much into scrubbing in general. But I live with a cat that makes scrubbing floors, doors, walls, cabinets, tub, toilets, furniture and anything else that is within his sneezing range a constant necessity.

When I picked up this cute little orange kitten some eight years ago I had no idea he had a hole in the roof of his mouth. It took five years and a special trip to a holistic vet in CT who solved the continual sneezing mystery. He added to his diagnosis: "You must really love this cat."

I am not totally sympathetic about the sneezing thing. This is because when he is irritated because he can't sit on my lap he begins to sneeze in quick succession in my direction. I don't think this is an accident. I'm happy in those moments he doesn't produce flames from his nostrils.

Oranjestad came by this name two ways. He began as Cinnamon, but that didn't stick so we just called him Orangie... because he was orange. More recently, when I messaged a friend about him along with a cute cat picture spellcheck renamed him Oranjestad, which is a city in Aruba by the way. We had a good laugh over that, but amazingly that name stuck too. For short I call him Oranjie.

Oranjie is a lover. He can't stand not to be touching me or sitting on me. When expelled from my lap (usually because I've been sneezed on and am irritated) he sits next to me and extends a paw which rests softly on my arm. Last year, when Ben, a Maine Coon, came to live with us Oranjie welcomed him easily into our abode and they became good friends. There is no one who comes to visit who is not equally adored and sneezed upon.

I think the creatures that come into our lives come for a reason and that at some point in the field of all possibilities we chose one another for our mutual growth and enjoyment.  All those years ago when Oranjestad introduced himself to me I greeted him as a long-lost friend, though he was clearly sickly and abandoned, and took him home without hesitation. I did not feel sorry for him. I felt I was his kin, reunited, though we had not known we had ever been parted until we met.

One day we feel this way about every living thing. Oranjestad is already there.