We finished dinner and for probably the 50,000th time, I laid my folded napkin to the side of my plate.  You could hardly tell it had been used.  I looked across the table.  Keith's napkin lay in a crumpled up wad a good foot to the side of his plate.  We won't even go into the stains, but please tell me how a dinner of pot roast so tender it fell to pieces, mashed potatoes, carrots, and green beans from the garden could result in that!

              And you now know why I do not use paper napkins.  Keith would use half a dozen at every meal.  That simply does not fit into my grocery budget.  At least cloth napkins are washable and therefore reusable, and you don't have to worry about picking up the greasy white shreds that have snowed all over the floor after a meal of ribs or fried chicken.

              From the very start of our marriage we have used cloth napkins, not just for company or formal occasions—all the time.  Over the years I have amassed a stack of four or five dozen I suppose, maybe more.  And it did not take long to learn one important thing about napkins, and here it is.

              After eating with us a few times, a kind lady I knew wanted to help me out.  So she bought a remnant of permanent press cloth, a pretty floral print with a beige background.  It was actually a perfect match for my china.  She carefully cut out 12 inch squares and hemmed them on all four sides.  "You won't have to iron these," she said as she handed me a dozen beautiful cloth napkins.

              I used those napkins for years just because they were a gift, but now that sweet lady is gone and so are those napkins.  Unlike cotton, permanent press, at least in those days, did not soak up anything.  If you had a small spill, they merely pushed the liquid around.  If you had a smear of grease on your hands or face, it was still there after you wiped.  They were beautiful to look at and no, I never did have to iron them, but useless when you needed them to do what napkins are supposed to do—absorb messes.

              After forty years of standing in front of Bible classes and even larger groups of women, I can say that some women are cotton napkins and some are permanent press.  I imagine any man who has taught Bible classes, or any preacher, can say the same thing.  You can tell when someone is interested—they soak it up.  Sometimes it's the note-taking; they can't seem to do it fast enough.  Other times it's the look in the eyes, the posture, or even facial expressions.  When you are planning a speech, you expect a laugh here, a gasp there, a groan or even the feminine variety of "Amen."  You expect some sort of reaction if you have crafted your words carefully enough and chosen the scriptures that will suddenly slam the door on an attitude or behavior that needs changing.  When you get none of that, either you don't know what you are doing after all, or no one is paying good enough attention.

              Every time you attend one of these functions, every time you hear a sermon or sit in a Bible class, and every time you open your Bible for some real Bible study, it should change you.  At first the changes will be big.  You are new to this Christian business so you have a ways to go and the alterations should be noticeable to those who know you best.  Then as you mature spiritually, the changes will become smaller—maybe an attitude adjustment, maybe just a change in private behavior that few people will see, but a change nevertheless.  If that does not happen, you have become a permanent press napkin.  You might look good on the outside.  You might even match the "china" around you on Sunday mornings.  But instead of soaking up the Word, the water of life, you will just be pushing it aside out of your way.

              Even one permanent press napkin in the audience is too many.  Check your label today and see what you are made of.
 
And have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Col 3:10
 
Dene Ward

You would probably be as surprised as I was to learn that vichyssoise, a cold potato leek soup, is an American invention.  Chef Louis Diat of the Ritz Carlton in New York City, was reminiscing one day about a potato soup he and his brother had enjoyed in their childhood.  As boys, they would cool it off during the hot summer by adding milk.  So the chef decided to give his customers a similar experience the summer of 1917, except that what began as potatoes, onions, chicken broth, and milk for peasants became potatoes, onions, leeks, chicken stock and cream, much more suited to a wealthier clientele.  Something similar happened to bouillabaisse.  What began as a stew made by sailors with fish scraps now goes for as much as $75 a bowl in French restaurants.  Talk about an expensive bowl of soup.  Yet most soup is exactly the opposite.

              We eat a lot of soup.  It’s cheap, filling, and healthy.  Even one as high as 400 calories a bowlful is a good meal, and most are far less fattening, coming in at about 200 per serving.  You won’t get tired of it because of the nearly infinite variety. 

              We have had ham and bean soup, navy bean soup, and white bean and rosemary soup.  We’ve had cream of potato soup, baked potato soup, and loaded baked potato soup.  I’ve made bouillabaisse, chicken tortilla, pasta Fagioli, and egg drop soups.  For more special occasions I have prepared shrimp bisque, French onion, and vichyssoise.  We’ve warmed our bones with gumbo, mulligatawny, and clam chowder.  I’ve made practically every vegetable soup there is including broccoli cheese soup, roasted tomato soup, and lentil soup.  And if you want just plain soup, I have even made chicken noodle.  You can have soup every week for a year and not eat the same one twice.

              Not only is it cheap to make, it’s usually cheap to buy.  Often the lowest priced item on a menu is a cup of soup.  I can remember it less than a dollar in my lifetime.  Even now it’s seldom over $3.50.  So why in the world would I ever exchange a bowl of soup for something valuable?

              By now your mind should have flashed back to Jacob and Esau.  Jacob must have been some cook.  I have seen the soup he made that day described as everything from lentils to kidney beans to meat stew.  It doesn’t really matter.  It was a simple homespun dish, not even a gourmet concoction of some kind.

              Usually people focus on Jacob, tsk-tsk-ing about his conniving and manipulation, but think about Esau today.  Yes, he was tired and hungry after a day’s hunt.  But was he really about to starve?  I’ve had my men come in from a day of chopping wood and say, “I could eat a horse,” but not only did I not feed them one, they would not have eaten it if I had.  “I’m starving,” is seldom literal.

              The Bible makes Esau’s attitude plain.  After selling his birthright—his double inheritance—for a bowl of soup, Moses writes, Thus Esau despised his birthright, Gen 25:34.  If that inheritance had the proper meaning to him, it would have taken far more than any sort of meal to get it away from him.  As it was, that was one expensive bowl of soup!

              The Hebrew writer uses another word for Esau—profane--a profane person such as Esau, who for one mess of meat sold his own birthright, Heb 12:16.  That word means “unholy.”  It means things pertaining to fleshly existence as opposed to spiritual, things relevant to men rather than God.  It is the exact opposite of “sacred” and “sanctified.”  Jacob understood the value of the birthright, and he also understood his brother’s carnal nature.  He had him pegged.  So did God.

              What important things are we selling for a mess of pottage?  Have you sold your family for the sake of a career?  Have you sold your integrity for the sake of wealth?  Have you sold your marriage for the sake of a few “I told you so’s?”  Have you sold your place in the body of Christ for a few opinions?  Have you sold your soul for the pleasure you can have here and now?

              Examine your life today, the things you have settled for instead of working for, the things you have given up and the things you gave them up for.  Have you made some really bad deals?  Can you even recognize the true value of what you have lost?  Don’t despise the blessings God has given you.  Don’t sell your family, or your character, or your soul for a bowl of soup.
 
Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Phil 3:17-20.
 
Dene Ward
 

I was reading the Q and A column in a cooking magazine based in Boston.  “You’re kidding,” I spoke aloud when a reader asked how to dispose of bacon grease without clogging her sink.  Dispose of bacon grease?  Keith was equally appalled, but on a whim he asked a friend, who is originally from New England, what he did with his bacon grease.

              “Why?’ he asked with a suspicious look on his face.  “What’s it good for?”

              What’s it good for?  I guess this is one of those cultural things.  Bacon grease to a Northerner must mean “garbage.”  Bacon grease to a Southerner means “gold.”

              My mother kept a coffee can of it in her refrigerator.  I do the same.  My grandmothers both kept a tin of it on their stoves.  They used it every day, just as their mothers had.  In the South bacon grease is the fat of choice.  In the old days only better-off farmers had cows and butter.  The poorer families had a pig, and they used every square inch of that animal.  Even the bones were put into a pot of beans and many times the few flecks of meat that fell off of them into the pot were all the meat they had for a week.  In a time when people needed fat in their diets (imagine that!), the lard was used as shortening in everything from biscuits to pie crust.  And the grease?  A big spoonful for seasoning every pot of peas, beans, and greens, more to fry okra, potatoes, and squash in, a few spoonfuls stirred into a pan of cornbread batter, and sometimes it was spread on bread in place of butter.

              I use it to shorten cornbread, flavor vegetables, and even to pop popcorn.  Forget that microwave stuff.  If you have never popped real popcorn in bacon grease, you haven’t lived.  I am more health-conscious than my predecessors—in fact, we don’t even eat that much bacon any more.  But when we do, I save the drippings, scraping every drop from the pan, and while most of the time I use a mere teaspoon of olive oil to sauté my squash from the summer garden, once a year we get it with dollop of bacon grease.  Any artery can stand once a year, right?

              As I said, it’s a cultural thing.  Things that are precious to Southerners may not be so to Northerners, and vice versa.  Don’t you think the same should be true with Christians?  What’s garbage to the world should be gold to Christians.

              One thing that comes to mind is the Word of God.  In a day when it is labeled a book of myths, when it is belittled and its integrity challenged, that Word should be precious to God’s people.  David wrote a psalm in which at least seven times he speaks of loving God’s word, Psalm 119.

              We often speak of “loving God” or “loving Jesus,” but you cannot do either without a love of the Word, a love shown in obedience.  Whoever does not love me does not keep my words, and the words that you hear are not mine, but the Father’s who sent me, John 14:24.  Jesus even defined family, the people you love more than anyone or anything else, as “those who hear my word and do it,” Luke 8:21.  Surely the ultimate love was shown by the martyrs depicted in Rev 6:9 who were slain “for the Word of God.”

              Do we love God’s Word that much?  Then why isn’t it in our hands several times a day?  Why aren’t we reading more than a quota chapter a day?  Why can’t we cite more than one or two proof-texts, memorized only to show our neighbors they are wrong? 

              Bacon grease may be gold to a Southern cook, but it is hardly in the same category.  Yet I think I may have heard Christians arguing more about when to use bacon grease than when to read the Bible.  Maybe we are showing the effects of a culture other than a Christian’s.
 
Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him." John 14:21
 
Dene Ward

I looked in the pantry the other day for a box of pasta.  Know what I found?  Spaghetti, penne rigate, orzo, linguini, lasagna, shells, and elbow macaroni.  I stood there at least five minutes trying to figure out which one I wanted to use.  Then I needed vinegar.  There was apple cider vinegar, white vinegar, balsamic vinegar, rice vinegar, white wine vinegar, red wine vinegar, and homemade rosemary vinegar.  That took even longer. 

             I remember the old days when I had spaghetti and macaroni, apple cider vinegar and all purpose white.  I didn’t have enough money in the grocery budget to play around with anything else.  We still aren’t rich, but we are certainly better off than thirty years ago, and being better off has cost me a lot of time lately, trying to figure out what I want to use instead of just grabbing the only thing available and throwing it in the pot.

              That made me wonder what this economy and this culture is costing the Lord’s body.  Things may be changing, but we can still worship without fear.  So what do we do?  Since we don’t face actual physical persecution, we find silly things to fight about among ourselves.  Since we have plenty in the coffers due to our more affluent membership, we argue about what to do with it, and often wind up “burying our money” in bank accounts. 

              In the very old days, the brethren were too busy fighting pagan culture and hostile government to fight among themselves.  In the more recent old days, money was hard to come by for everyone so when they got a little they were quick to share it.  I’ve seen that in secular organizations.  I was involved with a local music teacher’s group that regularly emptied its bank account giving to needy students for lessons and school music programs for supplies.  Then we put together a community cookbook, made $1000 in one month and had to practically pry anything past several members who, once they had gotten a taste of financial security, didn’t want to give it up.

              We often say, “Be careful what you wish for.”  When we can read in the scriptures of churches so poor they didn’t have enough themselves but still begged to be a part of the giving, I think I understand why wealth is such a dangerous thing.  When things are so easy for us that we look for petty things to fight about, Satan is using that wealth, that security, that life of ease to tear us apart and make us ineffective at the mission God has set before us. 

              Maybe that’s why persecution is looked at favorably in so many passages.  Maybe that’s why wealth in the New Testament is never pictured as anything but dangerous. 

              I just looked in my pantry again.  I have all-purpose flour, cake flour, bread flour, and whole wheat flour.  Despite my protestations, I am too wealthy. 

              It’s time to go fix dinner.  I don’t know whether to use the basmati rice, the brown rice, or the Arborio rice.  Do you know what to do with the blessings you have?
 
We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints-- and this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us. 2 Corinthians 8:1-5
 
Dene Ward

Henry J Heinz was born on October 11, 1844 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  In 1850 the family moved to Sharpsburg, and before long, little Henry was showing his business acumen by selling vegetables from the family garden.  His customers included area grocers.
 
             As a teenager he began preparing and bottling horseradish.  But here again, his business sense helped him out.  He put his horseradish in clear bottles while every other producer used dark brown.  He wanted customers to see the quality of his product.  Before long he had branched out into pickles, vinegars and the like.

              In 1875, a national financial panic pushed him into bankruptcy.  But he was not about to give up.  Two of his cousins formed a new company, F and J Heinz, and they introduced ketchup to the product line in 1876.  By 1888, Henry had discharged his bankruptcy obligations and took charge of the company.  It was his again, and so was that famous ketchup.  It's the brand we use exclusively.

            At the end of every gardening year I always end up with extra plum tomatoes and nothing to do with them.  My pantry is full of canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, and even tomato jam.  So what else is there?  Now that I have a grandson who is a manic dipper of anything he can pick up in his chubby little fingers, I had a sudden epiphany.  “Ketchup!” I said to myself.  “Make the boy some ketchup.”
 
             So I found an easy recipe—not a quick one by any means, but once you get past the initial chopping and measuring stage, all you do is stir once in awhile for a couple of hours. 

              I did not want to put a lot of energy into something I had never tried, so I made a small batch.  I filled a five quart Dutch oven halfway with chopped plum tomatoes, onions and peppers, sugar, vinegar, and spices, and put them on to cook.  About two and a half hours later I poured up one generous cup of ketchup.  It was definitely the best ketchup I had ever tasted, and plenty for Keith and I who take a year to go through a 32 oz bottle, but it was not going to do for a ketchup fanatic, and it certainly wasn’t worth the work.  Now that I know the recipe is good, though, I will fill two of those pots to the brim and in about the same amount of time have something a little more worthwhile.

              And that is our problem when it comes to converting the world.  We only fill one pot half full and then wonder why we got such a small return.  Then we become discouraged, or worse, decide that God’s way doesn’t work any more and then we really get into trouble, going places and doing things we have no authority for, denigrating God in the process.

              We see the 3000 baptized on Pentecost and say, what’s wrong?  Why can’t we do that?  Let’s do a little math.  Most scholars estimate the population of Jerusalem during a feast day at 1 million or more.  Three thousand out of one million is not that much.  In fact, it’s the same as 300 out of 100,000, or 30 out of 10,000 or 3 out of 1000.  That’s less than one third of one percent, or, to be silly about it, it’s a short one-third of a person for every hundred. 

              Stop being so negative.  Stop allowing sheer numbers without perspective to discourage you.  This is a Biblical principle.  The road is narrow.  Only a few will find it.  We just have to make sure that their inability to find it wasn’t our fault.  And we have to remember above all, that it isn’t God’s fault either.  It is not the fault of His methods.  It is not the fault of His plan.   We certainly cannot improve on the ways of the Almighty.  What we can do is implement them.        

                Fill as many pots as you have with tomatoes.  If you want a 3000 day, then cook a million.  Most of us can’t do that, but we can cook a hundred in a lifetime surely.  And if all you get is one cup of ketchup, that’s wonderful.  In fact, it’s better than Pentecost.  You did not fail by any means.  You did your part, and, even better, you did it God’s way.
 
For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom knew not God, it was God's good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe. Seeing that Jews ask for signs, and Greeks seek after wisdom: but we preach Christ crucified, unto Jews a stumblingblock, and unto Gentiles foolishness; but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 1 Corinthians 1:21-25
 
Dene Ward
 

We just spent a week with the grandkids.  When it comes to food, they are just like mine were at that age.  They prefer their oranges out of a can, their macaroni and cheese out of the blue box, their chicken cut into processed squares, and their potatoes long and fried.  Forget the complex and strong flavors of Parmagiana Reggiano, feta, and blue—they want American cheese, thank you.  And all their sauces must be sweet—about half corn syrup.  True, these two enjoy olives—but they need to be canned and black.  A strong, briny kalamata is summarily thrown across the table.

              Children have immature palates.  For the most part strong flavors are out and bland ones are in.  Sugar, salt and fat make up their favorite seasonings.  And it must be easy to eat.  When you can barely hold a spoon and get the food on it and into your mouth, you prefer things that are solid without being hard and which fit the hand.  We would never give a child a fresh artichoke to eat, with instructions like “Peel off the leaf, dip it into lemon juice and melted butter, put it between your teeth and pull it out of your mouth, scraping the good part off as you pull, then discard the leaf.” 

              One day they will understand the pleasure of different tastes and textures.  Their palates will become educated to appreciate different foods and even different cuisines.  Even the pickiest of childhood eaters usually learn as adults to eat new things, if for no other reason than to be polite or keep harmony in the home.  When a woman spends hours a day cooking, she wants more than a grunt and food being shoved around the plate in an attempt to disguise the fact that very little of it was eaten. 

              But sometimes people become set in their ways.  They decide they don’t like something, even if they have never tried it.  They won’t entertain the possibility that their palates have changed, and so won’t keep trying things as they become older.  When I was a child I hated every kind of cheese, raw onions, and anything that contained a cooked tomato.  Now I eat them all.  Imagine if I had never found that out.  No pizza!

              What about your spiritual nourishment?  Are you still slurping down canned oranges and packaged mac and cheese?  Do you still think instant mashed potatoes are as good as real ones, and Log Cabin as good as real maple syrup?  What if the Bible class teacher taught a book you had never studied before?  Would you learn with relish or complain because you actually had to read it instead of relying on your old canned knowledge?  What if he showed you a different interpretation of a passage than you usually hear?  Would you chew on it a little and really consider it, or just dismiss it out of hand because it wasn’t what you already thought you knew?

              Keith and I have both experienced complaints from people because our classes were “too deep” or “too hard” or “took too much study time.”  Really?  It’s one thing to have an immature palate because you are still a babe.  It’s another to have one because you haven’t grown up in twenty, thirty, forty years of claiming discipleship. 

              The spiritual palate can tell tales on our spiritual maturity in every other area.  Jesus expected his disciples to mature in just a few short years.  “Have I been with you so long and you still do not know me?” he asked Philip (John 14:9).  If we don’t know his word, we don’t know him.  If we don’t know him, we have no clue how to behave as Christians.

              An educated palate for spiritual food is far more important than whether you have learned to like liver yet.  Become an adventurous spiritual eater.  You will find this paradox: though you become hungrier for more, you are always satisfied with your meal.
 
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. Hebrews 5:12-14.
 
Dene Ward

Lines of wooden tables covered with red checked cloths, yellowed cotton cloths, handmade crocheted cloths, loaded till sagging, every square inch laden with stoneware bowls full of red potato salad, yellow with mustard, and studded with chopped celery, sweet pickle nuggets, and chunks of hard-boiled egg; bright orange carrot salad polka-dotted with black raisins; clear glass bowls of layered salads, various shades of green, orange, white, and yellow; finely chopped slaws, pale green with orange and purple flecks and dressed in a white dressing or a sweet vinegar; chipped china platters of golden-eyed deviled eggs, some bloodshot with paprika; luscious pink ham slices, and piles of fried chicken covered with a homemade breading redolent with spices and herbs, the chicken itself tangy and moist from a buttermilk brine; club aluminum Dutch ovens filled with pole beans, green beans, speckled butterbeans, and white acres, mustard, turnip and collard greens, all sporting a sheen of bacon drippings and shreds of pork; cast iron pots of bubbling baked beans spiked with molasses and the contents of every bottle in the refrigerator; others loaded with fall apart pot roast, pork roast, or chicken and bright yellow rice; others still steaming with chicken and slicker style dumplings; spoons sticking up akimbo from mason jars full of the jewel colors of various pickles, everything from deep red to chartreuse to layers of emerald green, canary yellow, and white; baskets of fluffy, tan buttermilk biscuits, soft yeast rolls, and black skillets of cornbread wedges; pies billowing with meringue, dense with pecans, or fruit bubbling from a vented golden crust; moist cake layers enrobed in swirls of chocolate or cream cheese or clouds of seven minute frosting, some cloaked in coconut, others with nuts peeking out from the coating—none of them exactly perfect because everything is homemade.

              That’s what potluck was like when I was a child.  It was far superior to today’s offerings, at least half of which are purchased on the way—fold-up boxes of fried chicken and take-out pizza, plastic containers of salads and slaws, and bakery boxes of cakes and pies, all entirely too perfect to be made from scratch.  Is it any wonder that everyone rushes for the obviously homemade goodies and even snatches slices of cake early, before going through the regular line, and hides them for a later dessert?

              Potluck originally referred to feeding drop-in guests or folks passing through who needed a meal whatever was in the pot that evening.  Drop-ins were not considered rude in those days.  I remember my parents thoroughly enjoying the evenings when someone just happened to stop by.  We didn’t load our lives down with extra-curricular activities back then--people were the activities.

              Potluck eventually came to mean “You bring what you have and I’ll bring what I have and we’ll eat together.”  It didn’t really involve any extra work—that was the point.  When no one has enough of one thing but you pool it together, there is plenty for everyone, and plenty of time left to visit.

              We often speak of “feasting on the word of God.”  I wonder what would happen if we had a potluck?  What would I have to offer?  Anything at all?  Do I spend enough time in the word of God to have thoughts on it readily at hand?  Most of us are too embarrassed to show up at a real potluck with nothing in our hands, but think nothing of showing up to a Bible study with nothing to share.

              Would my spiritual table be loaded down with good food or store-bought, processed, preservative-laden grub because I had no time left in my day to cook something up?  Would my offering be fresh and nutritious or calorie-laden and fatty?  Would it be a gracious plenty mounded high in the bowl or spooned into a plastic cup barely big enough to feed one?  Would it be piping hot or lukewarm?  Would people go away satisfied or determined to avoid my table at all costs in the future?

             Think about it tonight when you look at the meal you feed your family. What’s in that spiritual pot of yours should someone happen by?  Would they be lucky or not? 
 
"Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David, Isaiah 55:1-3.
 
Dene Ward
 

You would think after all these years that I would know better.  You should never take a brand new recipe to a potluck or try it out on guests.  There is a reason cooks talk about "tried and true" recipes.  But I saw this gorgeous "Chocolate Glazed Peanut Butter Filled Torte" in a magazine, one that is usually trustworthy, and wanted to make it.  Keith and I do not need rich desserts around the house for just us two, so taking one somewhere else means we seldom have more than a piece or two to splurge on when we bring the remains back home—which may sadden my heart, but not my waistline.  It looked good, the ingredients sounded good, and I had them all which was an added bonus.  So here we go…
 
             This was one of those uber-rich cakes with scarcely enough flour to hold it together.  When I read that I was to cut this two inch thick layer in half, fill it, and then put the top back, I should have known there would be trouble with so little flour.  And there was.  First, it sank about halfway in the middle.  That meant when I took my long serrated knife and tried to cut it in "half" there was nothing in the middle to cut.  What I cut off looked like a tire.  Calm down, I told myself as my pulse and respiration increased, the filling will show through there and it will look like it's supposed to be that way. 

              But then I tried to remove that top.  It came away in sections.  You would have thought a Lamaze class was going on I was panting so hard by then, but I carefully put the pieces on another plate and kept them all where they were supposed to go.  "There is a chocolate ganache glaze," I kept chanting.  "Ganache fixes anything!"

              I got the peanut butter filling on and learned immediately to be careful spreading it, otherwise the cake sticks to it and rolls right up over the knife.  More panting and chanting.  Finally I got the filling spread on the bottom layer.

              Now it was time to reassemble the jigsaw puzzle of a top.  Except the cake was so moist that a thin layer of it stuck to the plate the top was sitting on.  And the large sections broke into small chunks.  Gradually, I got all the pieces put back on top of the cake.  With the peanut butter filling, the torte was now nearly 3 inches high, in spite of losing a good eighth of an inch on that other plate, but it looked like a chocolate mosaic.

              No one has been happier to make ganache than I was that day.  This will cover all sins, I told myself.  It will be shiny and beautiful.

              Oh, it was nice and shiny all right, but underneath that glistening surface you could see every lump and bump, every nook and cranny, every place where anything underneath was not absolutely perfect.  Kind of reminded me of the last time I tried on a dress a size too small.

              So now what?  Do I take this monstrosity to our potluck?  Well, it was a tiny little potluck made up of one of my classes and their families and they always count on me for an entrée and a dessert.  I had no time left to make another after having spent not only two hours on this ugly thing, but another one on the entrée and another couple studying.  And besides that, this thing was expensive.  I sure couldn't afford to throw it away.

              So the next afternoon I took my so-called torte and apologized for bringing the ugliest thing on God's creation to our lunch.  For some reason, it didn't stop them from eating it, and one even asked for the recipe.  "Sorry," I told her, "I threw it away."

              Well, guess what?  Every one of us is an ugly cake.  God took beautiful ingredients and made us "in His own image," but for some reason we all eventually turned out just plain ugly.

              We have all sunk into the morass of sin and crumbled beneath its weight.  Even when we proclaim our commitment we often manage to stick to things we should have let go of.  We fall to pieces in trials and temptations instead of standing strong.  It took Him a few thousand years of piecing things together, fixing the things we made even more messes of, and spending the most awful cost to do it, but He made us into a cake that tastes pretty good when we follow His directions.  Oh, the lumps and bumps may still show through occasionally.  Our imperfections may leave scars that simply cannot be hidden, but He is ultimately satisfied when we forget about trying to fix things ourselves and just do it His way, not worrying what others might think about how we look.  He won't give up and throw us away, but will take us to the Feast he has prepared, and will not be ashamed of what an ugly cake we were to begin with.  After all, ganache—in this case, grace—can fix anything.
 
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. (Rev 3:20)
 
Dene Ward

Remember those grape hulls I mentioned, the ones leftover from making grape juice?  After sitting in that liquid for a few weeks, nothing remains but a pale, sour, seedy bag.  Still, straining them out and throwing them away was hard for me to do.  When you live closely for so long, you use everything until it has no service left in it. 

              I never throw away a plastic bag, for instance, after only one use.  I wash it and hang it out in the kitchen to dry.  After several uses it will eventually develop a hole or two, sometimes pinprick holes, but even that makes it no longer airtight.  When that happens it becomes a produce bag.  Why buy special green bags with vents in them?  I just add another hole or two with a couple of knife stabs and “re-purpose” the bag.

              So I had a hard time throwing out those grape hulls.  I certainly didn’t want to eat them—I had already tried that, but maybe the birds would, or a coon, or a possum—they eat just about anything.  So we laid them out on an old stump to see what would happen.

              Nothing happened.  Nothing wanted them.  We saw no signs that anything had even nosed around in them or pecked even once.  Somehow every animal and bird could tell just with a look that nothing good remained in those hulls.  They were simply useless.

              How about us?  Sometimes we think that because we sit on a pew we are serving God.  Maybe all we are doing is lying on a stump.  Like birds that fly past those leached out grape hulls, maybe our neighbors take a quick gander and decide there is absolutely nothing there worthwhile.  If they don’t know who and what we are by the words we say and the deeds of kindness we do, how useful are we to the Master?  If they don’t see that we handle life better than they, that trials do not deplete our faith and joy and hope, why should they care about what we do on Sunday mornings?

              In fact, they will get some use out of those empty hulls of a life we lead—they will be able to tell at a glance what they do not want to be, and they will do their best to stay away from it, just as the coons and possums probably went out of their way to go around that stump in the wee hours of the morning.  Those grape hulls will act as a perfect thermostat for judging our personal brand of Christianity.  As such, they aren’t just useless, they are actively damaging to the spread of the gospel, and the growth of the Lord’s body.

              Empty hulls are not grapes, nor empty lives disciples of the Lord. 
 
Go and learn what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice…To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice, Matt 9:13; Prov 21:3.
 
Dene Ward

Every August the grapes come in, muscadines and scuppernongs in this part of the country.  Strong flavored, thick-skinned, acidic, and seedy, they are best for jelly and juice, though true Floridians enjoy noshing on them as is.  With the boys grown now, I go through fewer peanut butter and jelly sandwiches so the jelly production has dwindled and the juice making increased, and I have discovered the easiest method for making and canning grape juice.

              Put a generous cup or so of clean grapes in each sterilized quart jar.  Add some sugar and fill the jars with boiling water.  Process and once the lids have sealed, put them on your shelf for at least two months.  The liquid and the sugar will leach the goodness right out of those grapes.  When you open the jar, strain them out and enjoy what’s left behind.  Perhaps not as much fun as jumping into the vat with Lucy and Ethel, but far cleaner and easier.

              One day I decided to taste one of those strained-out grapes just to see what was left in it.  I should have known—it was duller and several shades paler than its original shiny purple-black, and loose as a deflated balloon.  How did it taste?  Like sour nothingness.   Maybe that’s what happens to us when we steep ourselves in the world. 
 
             Is wealth consuming your thoughts?  “Just let me have enough,” is a lie we tell ourselves.   He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income, Eccl 5:10.  If you allow thoughts of riches to flood your life—even if you don’t have them--anything spiritual will be washed out of your heart.  Notice the prediction God made about Israel:  But [they] waxed fat, and kicked: you have waxed fat, you have grown thick, you are covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation, Deuteronomy 32:15.  Their wealth (“fatness”) covered them so that it was all they could think about.  Any notion of serving God was completely forgotten.  If you think we aren’t at risk, just take a minute and look around.  What used to be a God-fearing nation has become a people who worship wealth, power, and celebrity instead.

              Other times we allow the pleasures and conveniences of this world to permeate our lives so that the mere thought of sacrificing anything, whether comfort, ease, or even opinion, will be smothered out of us.  “Self” will leach the good out of hearts and minds, and leave nothing but the emptiness of indulgence.  If your “rights” spring to your lips every time someone crosses you, you have stifled the spiritual character of yielding to others, whether your neighbors, the man in the car in front of you, or the brother who sits next to you on the pew.  You have suffocated the spirit of mercy that marks us as His children.  For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh... For to be carnally minded is death… Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God, Romans 8:5-8.

              But sometimes we simply drown in “stuff.”  What do you do all day long?  Run from this to that to another event, none of which is evil, but none of which is spiritual either.  How do you feel at the end of the day?  Drained, probably, and maybe even quicker to fall into the sins of impatience and intolerance simply because you are so tired.  And he that was sown among the thorns, this is he who hears the word; and the care of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful, Matthew 13:22.

              What are you floating in today?  Will it make you sweet and useful to the Master, or will it leave you an empty, useless hull of a servant, one who will be strained out and thrown away?  Let me know if you need a jar of my grape juice to sit on your shelf as a reminder.
 
My foot has held fast to his steps; I have kept his way and have not turned aside. I have not departed from the commandment of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my portion of food…For zeal for your house has consumed me, Job 23:11-12, Psa 69:9.
 
Dene Ward