learning how to celebrate

Eat, drink, and be merry, says Qohelet.*
And yet—
I have spent a lifetime avoiding excess, choosing moderation, working weekends, and feeling guilty when I'm unproductive.
Qohelet would have words with me.

It's not that our work doesn't matter, but he urges us to slow down, to stop taking ourselves so seriously, to spend time enjoying the fruits of our labor.
Eat, drink, and be merry.
Celebrate together.
Don't store it all up for "Someday." You may die before you can enjoy what you've earned.

This is not what I expected.
I would rather hear him say, "Give it away. Be generous with those in need. Save for the future." (Other parts of the Bible say these things. And we should listen to them, too. I'm most comfortable with these parts.)
But Qohelet says, Loosen your belt buckle and eat another helping of dessert. 
Relish what God has given.
Life.
Work—this, too, is a gift.

Do what you love and love what you do. But then stop and play. Work isn't everything.

Recognize that God has things in hand. He's in charge. You are not.
Rest in that.

Life won't always make sense. It will feel like things go round and round without progress, or those who don't deserve it get the lucky break and those who do lose everything. But don't panic.
As meaningless as it seems, God hasn't stopped ruling the world. He'll work it out eventually.
In the meantime, work, love, and . . . party.
No need to be more pious than God. He wants you to accept His gifts.

For this Dutch girl, the whole thing sounds suspicious, like a coupon that will turn out to be expired once I've driven across town and stood in line for 20 minutes ("I knew it was too good to be true"). Or like an advertisement for a beach house that looks much better on screen than in person ("You get what you pay for.").

Is this a trap? or a test of my motives? Is celebration a slippery slope that will land me in a self-indulgent mess?

I decide that frugality, taken to an extreme, is a failure to demonstrate gratitude for what God has provided. I must learn to think differently, enlarging my capacity for celebration.

I start small. We're on a date—the first in months—and I order Duck Curry instead of the usual chicken. The extra $2 tastes delicious.

Then I head to Wheaton for my dissertation defense. The weekend goes so incredibly well that I know it's just the sort of occasion Qohelet is talking about—a time to celebrate. At a dinner with friends I stay up late and "taste my first champagne" (not bad, actually!). But the real surprise, the real opportunity to test drive Qohelet's philosophy comes when I arrive home.

It's midnight, thanks to a delayed flight out of Chicago, and I am exhausted. But as we pull up to the house my jaw drops. Parked in the driveway with an enormous red bow is a car, a new car, just for me!

We'd been talking about "Someday," that time when I have a full-time job with a real salary and we can afford a newer car for my commute. But it appears that my parents have been reading Ecclesiastes, too. They felt that it was time to celebrate—that someday was now. And so they dug deep and orchestrated a surprise I will never forget. Though this extravagance cost me nothing, it will be a daily reminder of God's lavish love for me, a love  not limited by "what's on sale" or "what's practical."

He's teaching this Dutch girl how to celebrate.

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*Qohelet is the name some scholars use to refer to the "Teacher" in Ecclesiastes, since it's hard to know exactly what the translation would be. It's simply his Hebrew title rendered in English letters.

four things I inherited from Oma

Today would have been my paternal grandmother's 95th birthday. Oma was a strong, stubborn, and independent woman, yet wholly convinced of her need for a Savior. Because her death in 2014 coincided precisely with our family's move to Oregon, many of her possessions found a place in our new home. From teacups to cabinets and doilies to delft, most rooms in our house hold a piece of her legacy. In honor of her birthday, here are a few of the most valuable gifts she bequeathed to me:

1. The Quest for Information

My library on Oma's shelves (Photo: C. Imes)

Oma was not a scholar, but her coffee table was always stacked with books, magazines, and newspapers in English and Dutch. Her TV was always set to an international news channel. These shelves, now filled with my own books, once held hers. Though she immigrated from Holland to Canada as an adult and never lost her thick, Dutch brogue, Oma learned English so well that she could beat any native speaker at a game of Scrabble.

2. The Rhythm of Hospitality 

Oma's well-used teacups (Photo: C. Imes)

Having people over was no big "to-do" for Oma, it was simply a part of life. I spent many a Sunday afternoon at Oma and Opa's house, having tea and cookies before the noon meal and visiting with out-of-town guests. The meals were not exotic, and I don't recall ever seeing Oma flustered in the kitchen. The solid predictability of the menu (meat, potatoes, gravy, beans, cauliflower, and apricot sauce) matched the steadiness of her demeanor. Mealtime was not a culinary exhibition, but a time to gather for conversation and to read the daily devotional and pray.

John and Barbara (Brinkman)
Camfferman, 1949

3. The Determination to Stand for what's Right

Naturally, I knew Oma only in the last half of her life, when the settled rhythms of gardening, housework, volunteering, and Sunday services defined her week. Her early years were half a world away, on a farm in the Netherlands lovingly known as "Kalf 20." She walked to school over bridges and past windmills, milked cows, biked everywhere on top of the dikes, and in the winter ice-skated on frozen canals. By the time World War 2 erupted, she was in her 20's. Her mother had already died, so she kept house for her father and siblings. The rest of her energies she devoted to the Dutch Resistance. I doubt she felt brave. She just did what had to be done — carrying messages past Nazi soldiers by hiding them, rolled up in the handlebars of her bicycle. When stopped and questioned, she lied, heart pounding inside her chest. By the grace of God, she was never caught. After the war ended, she helped with relief efforts, proudly wearing the orange arm band that identified her as a member of the Dutch Resistance. (The royal "house" in the Netherlands is known as the "House of Orange," which explains both the color and the word embroidered on the band. It's a patriotic symbol.)

4. The Impulse to Write

Letter from Oma to her family back home in Holland
shortly after her move to Canada, 1949

It wasn't until after her death that I recognized what should have been as plain as the Dutch nose on Oma's face: she was a writer. My parents unearthed box after box of letters she had received over the years from siblings and cousins and in-laws across Canada and back in Holland — letters written in response to her own. A niece of hers began assembling the correspondence between the Brinkman siblings during the years just after WW2. Oma married a dashing Dutch soldier who had been stationed in England and they quickly immigrated to Canada where they could start a new life together. Letters flew from one side of the ocean to the other with regularity. In addition to letters, year after year Oma kept a diary, with brief notes about each day (the weather, visitors, anything unusual). During the war she wrote more extensively, leaving behind a treasure of information about life in the Netherlands under the Nazi regime as well as Brinkman family history. In the last two years of Oma's life, she felt the growing urgency of getting her story down in writing. Dozens of drafts of her life story, highlighting the war years, were tucked in boxes and drawers.

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Oma would have been the first to tell you that she and I are very different. She was not an academic, and other than a brief stint as a school bus driver and a house cleaner, she was never employed outside the home. I have never been through a war, and I am no longer a member of the [Dutch/Christian/United] Reformed Church that was her spiritual home throughout her 93 years of life.

All the same, if you look through the "house" that is my life, you'll see her influence in almost every room. I'm sure I inherited more than my fair share of her stubbornness, and I plan to keep filling her shelves with books and her teacups with tea, to stand for justice and truth in the face of evil in my generation, and to keep writing. For writing is the most tangible legacy we can leave to our children. Thank you, Oma, for leaving me yours.

one ordinary life

The trail along the Salmon River offered cool shade that August afternoon. Countless trees, some of them wider than I am tall, others just fledglings, flanked both sides of the river. My eyes landed on a massive trunk and I craned my neck to see its towering top. If that one tree wasn't here, how different this stretch of trail would be! You could almost miss it, the expanse of dull brown bark beside the trail. But it's absence would change everything. Beside the path on either side, leafy ferns crowded together in the shade of the tallest tree, safe from the sun's scorching rays.

Salmon River, Oregon. Photo: C Imes

I climbed down the bank and walked on the stones, worn smooth by centuries of melting snow. Glancing across the water, I noticed a fallen tree. The steep bank where it once stood proudly had been washed downstream, lacking roots to trap topsoil. I stood there, pondering. You could certainly take a tree like that for granted, one of many, until it is gone. The refreshment of a hike through the woods depends on a great number of ordinary trees, growing up side by side, steadily reaching heavenward and shading the earth with their spreading limbs. (Just outside the national forest, on the drive home, lay evidence of mass destruction, several acres hacked to the ground all at once, with their bloody stumps baking in the summer sun.)

Who are the shade-givers in my life -- the ordinary people whose faithfulness makes this world a place worth living? Good neighbors blend in with their surroundings, seeming ordinary enough. But if we pause to imagine life without their stability -- their day-in-and-day-out caring for their corner of the world -- we discover what a difference they make. Subtract one tree and you have a hole in the sky, fewer branches for nesting, the topsoil washes downstream. A bleak landscape gradually replaces the forest. The exposed branches of neighboring trees grow dry and brittle...

My mind drifts back to Hudson Street, the place I called home for the first 9 years of my life. I can still smell it -- the wholesome aroma of Suzie's bread wafting across the street. It's been almost 30 years, but I can still taste the soft buttered slice, fresh from her oven on baking day. Suzie's hands and face and apron smudged with white flour as she answered the door bell. Warm lumps rising in the oven. Then punching and pulling and rolling the dough until it was just right for braiding.

I can still hear her voice, strong and warm, with its European lilt. Swiss neighbors, like swiss chocolate and swiss bread, are hard to forget.

Is that why I've always felt a part of me come alive at the smell of fresh bread baking? It takes me back to those innocent days -- sandboxes and swings, gardens and neighbors who cared. There were others who didn't -- who were more likely to be drunk and yelling than pulling out their knee-high weeds, but Suzie and Marion made up for the whole lot. They were the stately oaks across my Hudson who kept the rich topsoil from washing away. It was their shade under which I flourished and grew. I know Suzie prayed for us then and still does.

I braided my first loaf the other day and thought of Suzie. Her steady demeanor, her no nonsense, no drama way of life. Her long, black (now white) tresses that I only rarely saw loose, when she brushed them. Every day she braided and twisted them into a bun on the back of her head. Suzie and Marion were nosy in the kindest way. "Mare" used to let himself into our backyard each day to check our thermometer and our vegetable garden, as if he didn't have enough of his own garden, bursting with produce. My brother, John, used to stand with his toes right up to the tippy edge of the sidewalk and call for him, "Mare! Mare!"

I'm guessing Suzie canned lots of things and cooked up a storm. But all I remember is her braided bread, for me one of the most delicious smells of childhood. (I wonder -- is her kitchen valance still hanging? -- the one stuck to the wall with the chewing gum I chewed just for her?)

A cherished visit with Suzie and Marion in 2005

I realize now that some of the houses I've imagined while reading books are really Suzie's house, with its galley kitchen looking out over the back yard, its family-sized table off the living room where her children ate their meals growing up, and where John and I sat after they were grown and gone, to fill our mouths with bread still hot from the oven. The piano with a hymnal close at hand. The living room with its inviting circle of couch and chairs. The box of children's books waiting to be read.

My world was a better place because of Suzie. She may be ordinary, but without her my life would have had an empty place. Suzie sheltered us on Hudson Street, providing a safe haven in a broken world. Her bread nourished the body and her company nourished the soul.

Never underestimate the power of an ordinary life well-lived.

culinary adventures: grinding our own wheat

By far the biggest culinary adventure at our house was buying our own grain mill. We first heard about home-ground wheat from our friends Dan and Corrie 4 years ago. "Grinding your own wheat" sounds so . . . extreme . . . but I can assure you that Dan and Corrie and their 4 boys are totally fun and relational and, well, normal. They integrated home milling into their busy routine on a missionary budget. We were sold on the idea when we discovered the additional health benefits of home-ground flour, but we didn't have the time or kitchen space in Wheaton to take the plunge, so we waited until now.

The initial investment is substantial, including a mill, 25-lb. sacks of grain and food-grade buckets to store it in.* But the dividends are already rolling in! We can totally taste the difference between homemade bread using store-bought flour and home-ground flour. Our bread is just bursting with flavor, not to mention nutrients that are lost or compromised in store-bought flour. It only takes an extra minute to throw the grain in the mill before starting the breadmaker, bringing our total time for breadmaking up to about 15 minutes a week.

After tasting such delicious bread (and watching Bread Beckers' 'Getting Started' video), we were inspired to try all sorts of other baked goods. Here's a list of what we've made in just two weeks:

whole wheat bread
braided whole wheat bread
whole wheat / rye bread
whole wheat / kamut bread
hamburger buns
croutons
tortillas
fry bread
pie crust
pizza pockets
crackers
sausage-filled roll
cheese sauce
muffins
cookies
whole wheat brownies
black bean / brown rice brownies
banana bread
cinnamon rolls

Check out all the grains we can mill right at home in our NutriMill:

The best thing I learned from Bread Beckers is that you only need a handful of basic recipes that you can adapt for different needs: basic bread dough, basic muffin batter, basic biscuits, basic pancakes and basic tortillas. For example, the basic bread dough recipe can make various breads, cinnamon rolls, rolls, buns, and more. We're getting lots of practice this summer so that when school starts we have the kinks worked out. Here's to healthy eating!

*You don't have to buy grains in bulk,
but it's cheaper in the long run, with the added
convenience of not running out of grain so quickly.
Bonus: look for a bread maker at Goodwill.
We've found them for only $8, like new!

culinary adventures

Easton helping with homemade cinnamon rolls. Yum!

If it's true that "you are what you eat," then our family has been getting a total makeover this summer! We've been trying to eat healthy for a long time now, but our move to Oregon has given us the time and space to take things to the next level. Perhaps all the upheaval of moving (again!) is balanced out by measurable changes in our diet. I've discovered a couple of phenomenal blogs that have given me the courage to embark on culinary adventures. So, if you're wondering where I am these days ... think KITCHEN and Farmer's Market. Yes, it's absorbed a lot of my time, but we're busy learning new skills and developing new habits that will get easier with practice. The kids have been totally intrigued with the process and totally on board with trying new foods (well, mostly :)).

Here's a list of 10 changes we've made. The first 5 have been part of our routine for a couple years or more. You may remember my blog posts from Wheaton about brain food - here and here - and about once-a-month baking. The next 5 changes are new for us this summer, prompted by close proximity to Bob's Red Mill and a great Farmer's Market and a "chance" encounter with a couple of great blogs: www.100daysofrealfood.com and www.kitchenstewardship.com. Before I say more, a quick word about why I bother blogging about this when I'm not a nutrition expert and this is not a food blog. I'm convinced that we are called to honor God with our whole selves, mind and body. What we eat affects our worship and our testimony. It's also a matter of stewardship -- of our time, money, our body, and this planet's resources. This post is designed to inspire you to take the next step toward healthy eating, whatever that means for you. Eating real food is possible, even on a budget or a tight schedule. Where there's a will, there's a way, one step at a time.

 1. Avoiding artificial colors, flavors, hydrogenated oils, and sweeteners
 2. Limiting sugar (we're now switching to natural cane sugar, honey, and pure maple syrup)
 3. Eating whole grains whenever possible
 4. Baking our own bread
 5. Making our own baked goods

 6. Grinding our own grain
 7. Buying fresh and local produce
 8. Switching to olive and coconut oil
 9. Experimenting with green smoothies
10. "Stock"ing up on the basics

I have many other aspirations - making our own yogurt, cutting out chemically-laden cleaning supplies, growing a garden, and maybe even canning - but these things take time. We can only do so much in a day (usually less), so we'll just try to keep moving in healthier directions. So far it's been a fun and delicious adventure!

what not to eat (if you want your brain to work)

This is Part Two of a rabbit trail on food consumption and its affect on mental processing. If you want your brain to work well this year, read on! What you don't know can hurt you...
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According to the certified nutritionist who spoke to us after a recent PTA meeting, some foods actually kill your brain cells by altering brain chemistry and/or making cell membranes inflexible. Here are the worst culprits:

artificial colors
artificial flavors
artificial sweeteners
preservatives (e.g. nitrates and nitrites)
monosodium glutamate (MSG)
hydrogenated oils
trans fats

We've been avoiding most of these packaged-food villains at our house for several years now, but in the seminar I learned a lot about why it makes a difference. Leslie told us that studies show impaired IQ function within 30 minutes of consuming "excitotoxins" (an umbrella term for the first five no-no's on the list). Kids are FOUR TIMES more susceptible than adults to their brain-altering effects. [side note: This explains why in past years I could tell when someone in my child's class at school had a birthday before she told me. Cupcakes loaded with brightly colored icing leave more than a ring around the mouth. They impair our children's ability to focus in class and get the most out of their teacher's instruction. I was delighted when our elementary school outlawed birthday treats this year. Call me mean, but that's 20 fewer days each year that my children will come home hyper!]

Hydrogenated oils and trans fats make their way to our brains and replace the supple membranes around brain cells with stiff and inflexible ones incapable of responding to new stimuli. Some of the most common culprits are ostensibly healthy foods like peanut butter and refried beans, so start checking labels! Leslie recommended a book by her mentor, Dr. William Sears, entitled "The N.D.D. Book: How Nutrition Deficit Disorder Affects Your Child's Learning, Behavior, and Health, and What You Can Do About It—Without Drugs". It looks like a good read.

I love my readers, so I hope you all go out and load up a shopping cart with fresh, whole foods to eat!

feed your brain in 2013

This is not a food blog, and I don't plan to make it one, but I simply have to tell you about the PTA meeting that is changing my life. Ok, so I didn't actually go to the PTA meeting, but I showed up in time for a seminar afterward on what to feed your kids to make them smarter.

Some kids (and grown-ups!) are born smart, but spend a lot of time feeling tired, moody, unmotivated, or just plain foggy-headed. Food is often the culprit. In just one hour, Leslie gave us some great tips about what to feed our families (and what not to feed them) so that our kids' brains can be well-nourished and ready to learn.

In a word, eat whole foods.

Here are the foods that are especially helpful for clear thinking and improved memory. These foods actually fight dementia, Alzheimers, cancer, and other ...

Blueberries (enhance memory)
Blackberries (zap inflammation)
Avocado (regulates blood sugar, helps you absorb nutrients, reduces inflammation)
Spinach/Kale (improves alertness)
Broccoli (keeps your body from rusting and kills cancer)
Oranges (are antioxident and anti-inflammatory)
Black Beans, Garbanzo Beans, Lentils, etc. (offer fiber, potassium, and magnesium)
Wild-caught Salmon (lower blood pressure, speed thinking, improve mood)
Olive Oil (builds healthy brain cells)
Walnuts (enhance memory, critical thinking, and inferential thinking)
Plain Yogurt (improves alertness, nutrition absorption)
Cinnamon (anti-inflammatory, controls blood sugar, improves eye-hand coordination)

I won't try to reproduce the scientific research behind this, but Leslie (the certified nutritionist who spoke to us) is as nerdy about nutrition research as I am about biblical research. She knows her stuff and had lots of great reasons to support what she was saying. I was motivated enough to take a special trip with Emma to Trader Joe's yesterday in search of "brain foods." She helped me read labels, and we found lots of great new foods to try!

In my next post, I'll talk about "Brain Busters" to avoid. But first, here are a few ideas for how to incorporate these foods in your family's diet:

• Have a "brainy breakfast" of plain yogurt, blueberries, walnuts and cinnamon or oatmeal, blueberries, and cinnamon
• Add finely-chopped kale to a fresh salad
• Stock your freezer with frozen berries to add to cereal, oatmeal, smoothies, and ice cream
• Make a snack schedule so that the kids expect to see fresh fruits and veggies on the table
• Make smoothies regularly (we use plain yogurt, frozen berries or mangos, frozen bananas, cold water, powdered milk, OJ concentrate, and a tablespoon of ground flax seed)
• Go on a "brain foods" shopping trip with your child and let them help you hunt for healthy whole foods
• Let your children make their own food or prepare their own lunches. Kids are much more likely to try new foods that they helped prepare.
• Fill a small muffin tin with cut veggies and healthy dips (salsa, hummus, and guacamole)
• Eat soup. You can fill a thermos with leftover soup to take to school for lunch.
• Make a meal plan. It's much easier to eat healthy when you plan ahead and have the right kind of foods on hand.

Eliana came with me to the seminar, so she's been especially motivated to try foods she hasn't liked before (like avocado) and eat more fruits and veggies. Eating healthy takes time and energy, but if you take it one step at a time, it can reward your efforts with more energy than you had to begin with! What whole foods will you add to your menu this week?