Reminders of Hutchmoot

This weekend was Hutchmoot, that most beloved of conferences I've been to that celebrates truth and beauty and how God works these out through all the craziness in our world. The conference emphasizes the arts, including meals--the past two times I've gone I actually went to help in the kitchen (and learn a little in the process).

Two years ago when we first moved to Guadalajara and I first did this challenge, I wrote about missing Hutchmoot and friends there. Last year I was able to go and work in the kitchen again thanks to my in-laws who lovingly timed their visit to Guadalajara so it would overlap my trip to Nashville. But when this year rolled around we knew it wouldn't be an option.

I was okay with that, and most of the weekend has been great despite the missing. There have been plenty of reminder moments. The topic of our Sunday school lesson was one of Jesus' parables about a banquet and I thought immediately of Andrew Peterson's introduction to this year's conference that thankfully he posted in The Rabbit Room. Every time I opened Facebook this weekend I saw pictures posted by friends who are there and "last year at this time" photos. My sister Carrie is there this weekend and co-led one of the sessions and I couldn't help but remember how great it's been to go with her. I listened to Andrew Osenga's Leonard the Lonely Astronaut after dropping the kids off at their Awana program, and of course we had Andrew Peterson playing over the weekend. The message this morning was about putting Christ at the center of your life so that everything flows out from Him, and I thought of how that idea is at the heart of The Rabbit Room and Hutchmoot.

The good news is I am not a basket case. I miss it--I have missed Hutchmoot 2016--but it's not the end of the world. It's been a good weekend with my family and satisfying in many ways. I can seek truth and beauty here in Longview just as much as I can in Nashville.

The Blessing of Totato Soup

It's Thanksgiving Day, and our hearts and minds fly to friends and family who are gathering today to feast and celebrate. I love Thanksgiving; even with all of the food prep it is essentially a lazy day. There is no big agenda. The goal is to be. And to be together.

Of course, here in Mexico it's a regular day. The kids are at school and Kraig is giving exams. I went grocery shopping this morning and the laundry is running. It's hard to believe it is Thanksgiving when one looks out on green trees and grass. There's a nip in the air, but that's as close as it will get to cold. I'm glad it's not blatantly obvious what we're missing, but at the same time, I am thankful that we're looking forward to a gathering on Saturday with our friends from Ajijic. There will be turkey and green beans, and I'm bringing pumpkin pie. I found real whipping cream this morning, which I would say is the icing on the cake, but that's a misplaced idiom for this. It's the whipped cream for the pie--literally and figuratively.

Yesterday my sister Jessie who lives in Singapore wrote about the joy of being invited. Even though in some ways it's easy to forget these American holidays when one is in another country, there is still a longing. It is a longing for place and family, but it is also a longing for gathering, particularly with like-minded folks. We can always reach out and bring them into our homes, and as Jess put it, we do that. We were raised to do that. But when someone else turns and says, "Please come, " it means a ton. So we were warmed when Blair and Barb said, "Would you like to come? We don't make a big deal about Thanksgiving, but we like to have something with friends."

When I think of the blessing of gathering it is always associated with food. The best gatherings have food that brightens the eye as well as feeds the stomach. Good food encourages conversation. It can also be said that good food is best when shared. Every time I tell the kids I'm making a certain family favorite, there first question is, "Is someone coming for dinner?" They've already made the association. I wish I answered in the affirmative more often.

There was no question, though, that the first time I was able to make Totato Soup* here in Guadalajara we were going to have guests. For one thing, one pot of Totato Soup can feed a small army (or in this case, our family of five and our Ajijic friends who have four kids, three of them teenagers). For another, it is a melding of flavors that accomplishes everything I have stated good food should do. It is a pleasure to share it.

chorizo
(yes, it really is that red)

I had to wait for our shipment to make the soup because my big pot was in the shipment. In the waiting time I scoped out stores to be sure I had all of the ingredients. Some items were easy to come by: a chicken, carrots, celery, onions, garlic and canned tomatoes. I had a rosemary plant and thyme, so no need to search for those herbs. Small white potatoes are a staple here; almost as flavorful as Yukon golds. Other ingredients were a little trickier to come by. Sausage here, chorizo, has little variation. In the States I use breakfast sausage with sage for the soup, but here there is basically one kind of sausage and it all has red coloring so cooks up to look rather fiery. It's flavor is not unpleasant, but it is distinctive. I found decent frozen corn at Costco (a lot of corn here is field corn, so tough). I haven't discovered chicken stock or broth in cartons (I expect if I did it would be too expensive), and I didn't have time to make some, so I went with dry bouillon which is available here by the bag.

powdered chicken bouillon

Once I got my pot it was a matter of putting the ingredients together and setting a date for the feast. I was a little apprehensive that it wouldn't taste right--I hadn't been able to find loose sage ahead of time, and I just wasn't sure whether the sausage would be right. But the magic of the recipe worked. The aroma of the bubbling soup filled the apartment and taste-tests freed me from anxiety. I shared some with Rosa our cleaning lady because I couldn't wait to spread its wealth. Our friends came and by the time they left the pot was lightened considerably. And best of all, it had been enjoyed along with good conversation.




I'm already plotting my next pot and am figuring out with whom we will share it. The blessing of Totato Soup has come to Guadalajara.

"papas blancas cambray"

*My Michigan friends can attest to the power of Totato Soup which originated, of course, with the Rabbit Room. They have tolerated my love of all things Rabbit because of blessings like Totato Soup. I can't take any credit for creating it. Hutchmoot chef, Lewis Graham, got the idea for it after reading the first book of The Wingfeather Saga, by Andrew Peterson. Lewis made the soup, and knew it was made to be given to others, so he shared the recipe:

Ingredients:

I cooked the chicken in my crockpot this time

One 3 to 5 lb. bag of the small Yukon gold potatoes, sometimes called butter potatoes.

Two boxes of Kitchen Basics chicken stock.

One package Jimmy Dean sausage with sage.

One whole chicken, already roasted at your local store (or baked at home).

Three ears fresh corn (or one bag frozen corn), two whole carrots, three stalks celery, two medium yellow onions.

One large can of whole, peeled tomatoes (or two small cans diced tomatoes).

Fresh garlic, dried thyme, sprig of fresh Rosemary, two dried bay leaves, kosher salt, cracked black pepper, and a healthy pinch of red pepper flakes.

Directions (in Lewis Graham's words):

1. Two or three glugs of good olive oil in Dutch oven. Make warm, add sausage. When the sausage is done, remove from pan but save the grease.

2. Cut potatoes in half, and rub well with sea salt (About one tablespoon is plenty for the batch). Heat the saved grease up in the pot, add potatoes. Let them sit awhile, frying the skins a little.

3. When potato skins have browned a little, add fresh veggies, chopped up of course. Cook them a little; when the onions are translucent and celery pliable, add chicken stock.

4. Add chicken, pulled from bones, sausage, tomatoes, and everything else.

5. Let that bad boy cook awhile. When it boils, reduce the heat and let it simmer.

Lewis concludes: "The rule with soup is the longer it sits, the better it gets. Mind it occasionally, stirring to keep anything from burning in the bottom. Fresh bread is always good. Be sure, absolutely sure, to do a little celebration dance after each taste, each seasoning."

The Bane and Blessing of Technology

When I was little and we lived in the Philippines, I believe we had a telephone in our home for maybe a year. We shared it, if I remember right, with our next door neighbors. I think we could make international calls from it, but if so they cost a fortune. Kraig tells stories of his family flying from their remote village in Africa to the capital of Central African Republic in order for his parents to make a five-minute call overseas on one of the two trans-Atlantic lines available there. Even as late as our college years when we were dating long distance Kraig and I relied on posted letters and expensive phone calls. Email was just getting off the ground.

Times have changed, that's for sure. I realize there are parts of the world where communication is still difficult and costly, but it is amazing how easy it is in so many places. Of the frustrations we've faced in our move here to Guadalajara, technological communication has not been one of them. Our apartment had a strong internet connection in place when we came and within minutes of arriving we could Skype and FaceTime family and friends. Face-to-face, instantaneous communication. For free. We now have a web-based US phone number so if we do need to make a phone call we just pick up the phone and call. Crazy. Absolutely crazy.

Since arriving, my kids have been able to have "play dates" with friends back home. I can have regular conversations with family and friends. Kraig's folks can contact us easily if there are business details back in Michigan we need to take care of. My mom and sisters and I have held four-way text messaging conversations--one of us in Michigan, one in Mexico, one in Singapore, and one in North Carolina. Yesterday my sister Carrie called me on FaceTime and carried me around Hutchmoot so I could say hi to friends there. Can you imagine? I mean, it's positively sci fi!

And yet today I was griping. Something went wrong in the power cord for my computer and while Kraig fixed it I was limited (limited!) to my iPad. I'm writing on it now, because though the cord is fixed, the glue on the case needs to set. This means I can't upload pictures or check my email or access this, that and the other thing. Horrors. And it will be fine by tomorrow. Oh no, one day lost.

I find myself lamenting things I'm missing, too. Hutchmoot is definitely one of those things right now. It has been absolutely wonderful to see updates and photos and video clips as the conference progresses. In some ways I feel like I have almost been there. And I can honestly say I am thrilled with the joy and beauty my friends there are experiencing. It's just I'm really not there. Then there is Fall in Michigan--oh, the photos! Such beauty. I love it. I can almost smell it. I love seeing my friends and their kids carving pumpkins and eating donuts and drinking apple cider. But I miss it. I am missing it. I will never have experienced this particular October in that part of the world.

This back and forth of joy and sorrow has made me wonder if the easy accessibility to "home" makes it better or worse for adjusting to a new home. I certainly don't have an answer to this because I live in a time and place where I do have this access. I'd love to hear from family and friends who made this kind of move back when there weren't these options. I can imagine that that would have had its own set of pain and pleasure. Is one better? What was it like? I would love to hear your stories.

In the meantime I will continue to figure out how to make these worlds meet and see how God will make it beautiful.

And maybe sometime soon someone will invent teleportation.
.

Missing Home...One of Them

"...[I]t is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly." ~Mr. Rochester to Jane Eyre

I believe in collecting homes. Not houses or places. Homes. For me, a place becomes home when I have deeply connected with people in that place. Relationships are the key to my homes. Michigan, southeast Michigan in particular, has been home for some 30+ years. Friendships have waxed and waned, but the past ten years have been particularly rich so when we moved here in July it was painful to say good-bye. Another home is one I carry with me whenever I have my core family; Kraig and the kids are home no matter where we are. Here in Guadalajara we have each other, so we have a home, even when there aren't pictures on the walls and I don't have all my comfort-tools to work with in the kitchen. We are starting to put down little tendrils as we meet people here, and I pray that there will come a day when I can say that Guadalajara itself is one of my homes.

Last year at Hutchmoot each person was given block to color
with specific color instructions. Then all the pieces were
compiled to create this beauty, which captures the many
personalities of the Rabbit Room.

Another home I have had since 2012 is physically located at a small church in Nashville, Tennessee, where every Fall a group of about 200 meets for Hutchmoot. I could spend a blog (in fact I have) trying to explain Hutchmoot, but in essence it is a gathering of people from all walks of life who love to look at how God works through His creation, particularly through the arts. Most of us connected through The Rabbit Room, a blog started by author and singer/songwriter Andrew Peterson, but in the past few years the online connection has become a vibrant community that often "meets in real life" whether at the annual Nashville conference or anywhere two or more "Rabbits" are gathered.

I went to the conference with my sister Carrie in 2012, and while we both attended again last year, I chose to go as a volunteer to work in the kitchen (because food is one of the arts of the conference, too--yummmm). Between those years we got more involved in the online group, deepening friendships, and it's been amazing to watch where it has led. Carrie is now in North Carolina because of connections made. I sometimes wonder where I would be if I hadn't stumbled on The Rabbit Room a year after Keren died. The connections I made through this group have helped me grow spiritually, and have helped me put words to thoughts and feelings I couldn't express before.

It is a group of folks who share honestly about wounds, lift each other up in prayer, and encourage with ridiculously hilarious conversations and wit. It's the kind of nerdy place where people start off with a comment thread of introductions that somehow devolves into an intense discussion on Meyer-Briggs personality traits and how we remember who we are based on what Star Wars or Harry Potter character our traits tied us to. It is the kind of community where you long to see each other in person, but find your heart beating and knees knocking every time you are about to meet because a part of you fears that this time the connection won't be there. But it always is. Every Hutchmoot brings refreshment, and while it is always sad to leave it, there is a renewed energy to take the riches found and spread them to other friends and family. I've been able to do this in Michigan (Totato Soup anyone? Slugs & Bugs?), and I'm looking forward to spreading the wealth here in Guadalajara.

Gathering in the sanctuary at Church of the Redeemer

I am missing the personal connection as many of my fellow Rabbits gather this weekend for Hutchmoot 2014. It's a physical pain--I can feel the cord stretching between me and my friends there and I can't help but fear that it might snap. I skipped the final line of the quote from Mr. Rochester, "As for you,--you'd forget me," because I refuse to be forgotten or to think that I will be. It is a home that I don't want to forget, and a home in which I always want to have some part. I see, too, it is home because it is a taste of my future permanent home. And knowing that, I realize I have nothing to fear. The cord will stay strong and I will never be forgotten.

The Magic Life

I spent the last four days in a place of magic. It was a place where song and laughter flowed as freely as spring rain, where words and wit flipped and tripped and eyes sparkled, where food was art that enriched all the senses. It was a place where the Spirit of the Great Magician hovered, warming us with His presence.

It was a place I entered with trepidation. The dark magic of fear and self-focus taunted me with lies: "You won't fit in like you think you will. That anticipation you feel now? It's just headed for a crash." I had to draw the Sword of Truth to fight off this darkness and to remember that I was loved by the Great Magician no matter what I discovered in this place. I knew that most of all I wanted to experience the magic the He had for me, not concoct some mediocre potion of my own dreams. And Truth won, and dark magic was defeated, and joy reigned.

And then it was time to come home.

But the magic did not disappear.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. Why do I think the Great Magician only holds sway in one lovely corner of the world? There is magic wherever I go. There was magic in the conversation I had with a college student on the plane ride home—a fellow Truth-follower who saw with clarity the joy of trusting the Great Magician. There was magic in the simple joy of opening the back of our minivan and seeing the glowing smiles and golden hair of my daughters, in the thrill of my son’s squeal of delight, and in the richness of my husband’s kiss. There was magic when I learned that though my sister’s flight home was delayed she dined with new friends, and didn't sit alone for all of those hours.

This morning I still saw the magic. I could see the Magician’s touch in my response to a cranky son who didn’t know what to do with Mommy now that she had come home. I relished the beauty of our walk to school with the windswept sky that stretched wide over a green field, and I reveled in the brisk air that tickled my nose. The magic of a tractor mower enchanted my son, while my girls and I breathed deep the scent of mown grass. There were friends to greet, and the world was overflowing.

It was harder to find the magic this evening. Tempers flared—including mine—but I was still able to step back and remember. The Great Magician hadn’t left. I could still see His work if I looked. I held out my hand to my kids and asked, “What is this made of?” Distraction, wonder. The Magician was still speaking and we lived and breathed.

I am sure that in the days to come I will have many moments when I forget that I live amidst this good, good magic. I hope that in those moments I will take the time to step back and look and really see.

And if all else fails, my children will remind me that a dinosaur named Henley lives in the creek by the school, the evil giant Chompchucks lurks in our neighborhood, and if I’m not careful, the lava between the sidewalk cracks may explode on me.

After the magic I saw last weekend I wouldn’t be surprised if even this were true.