Life is Like a Bowl of Zwieback

Until 2 years ago I thought that zwieback (I pronounced it zoo-E-back)was the hard dry toast you purchase at the grocery story in baby blue packages with a smiling little cherub on the cover. I remember giving it to my babies when they were teething, and acting very unlike smiling little cherubs. It was the consistency of a two by four so that the little angels happily could chew on it for hours, never breaking off a single chunk large enough to choke on, before it turned to mush.

In the intervening years I went through a divorce and spent years alone. When my second husband and I married a couple of years ago, rescuing each other from loneliness, celibacy, and single parenthood, I learned some important things. The rock hard stuff in the store is not real zwieback, and it is pronounced swee-baac.

Real zwieback is a tradition dating back so many generations that no one remembers when it started. Fresh baked zwieback is the lightest, softest, sweetest dinner roll ever.

Some brilliant cook invented Zwieback long before I was born and bread machines were invented. My mother-in-law, Marlene, is famous for making the best zwieback on three continents. She is suffering from Alzheimer's, so a few months ago she and my father-in-law invited me to her house to make zwieback with her so that she could pass on treasured generational zwieback secrets. I knew I was in trouble the minute she began warming the utensils we were to use. Making zwieback like hers is a science, requiring precision.  I am a terrible scientist.

This Easter I am making zwieback alone for the first time. Slightly intimidated by Marlene's reputation, I glanced at the recipe, and googled "scald milk". The Cooking-for-Modern-Clueless-Idiots website said that scalding milk began back when milk came from cows instead of from grocery stores. Heating the milk to near boiling killed dangerous bacteria and the enzymes that kept dough from thickening. The website said that scalding is unnecessary now in the days of pasteurization.  Scalding already pasteurized milk is probably a step we take just because it has always been done this way. It is like the story my mother tells. A woman learned from her mother that she should trim the ends off a roast before putting it in the oven. After years of doing this, she asked why this step was necessary. Mother didn't know, so she asked her grandmother. The sage old woman answered. "I always did that because the roast wouldn't fit in my pan!" I scalded the milk anyway, just in case.

I finished the delicate zwieback-made-with-scalded-milk dough mixing it gently in a warm bowl. Getting the right consistency required using more than 16 cups of flour even though the recipe calls for only 4 - 8 cups. It was written down by a person determined to make sure that no one attempting to follow it could possibly succeed.

I gently tucked the finished dough into a pre-warmed bowl, covered it with a fresh towel, and left it to rise in peace and quiet. It grew large, light, and baby soft. The recipe said to let the dough rise to twice its original size then "punch it down".  I obeyed. Laying aside all the earlier gentleness I used the cooking skills I acquired in kickboxing class throwing undercuts and right hooks at my beloved dough. After knocking all the air out of it, I walked away. The ball of dough recovered from its shock, and gradually struggled back up to its former fluffy glory, only to be punched down again. Three times. I felt for the poor dough. I related to it. It couldn't see my perspective or know that the times of being uncovered and punched down are as crucial for preparing it for its delicious destiny as the times of warmth and comfort.

As the scent of baking zwieback fills my kitchen, I realize that God is like an old-style cook. Sometimes He puts us in warm sunny windows to grow in quiet comfort. Sometimes he lets life knock all the air out of us, then seems to walk away. He does it repeatedly, and He does it because he loves us. There is a delicious destiny ahead for us.


That's it. Gotta go take soft golden brown zwieback from the oven.


Beth


This post can also be seen on my other blog, doorinthewilderness.blogspot.com.

The Birds of the Heavens

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
   the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
   and the son of man that you care for him?
 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
   and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
    you have put all things under his feet,
all sheep and oxen,
   and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
   whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
 O LORD, our Lord,
   how majestic is your name in all the earth! Psalm 8:3-9, ESV

I love seeing God's fingerprints on creation. For the last week or so I have been fascinated by this live feed from a camera mounted near an eagles nest. You can watch the pair of bald eagles working together to feed, and protect their three chicks.

http://www.ustream.tv/decoraheagles#utm_campaigne=synclickback&source=http://raptorresource.org/falcon_cams/decorah_eagle_xcel.html&medium=3064708Decorah Eagle Nest Cam

Who Am I?

I am fascinated by personality tests. When an unfamiliar test, instrument, or inventory comes along, I eagerly fill in all the bubbles, calculate the results, study the explanation, and share my new insights with everyone unlucky enough to be nearby. Some of my family members don't share my interest in these tests. They tire of my talking about them. They just don't see the appeal.

So why do I find these things so interesting? I guess I long to know who I am, to know my name. For some reason I don't clearly understand, I am still not sure I know who I am, not completely.

Names have meaning. They define us. In the Bible a person who encounters God in a powerful way is sometimes given a new name, a new identity. The book of Revelation says that in the end, each of us will be given a new name. 

Sometimes in the course of walking through this world, we are burdened with wrong names. Robbed of our true identities and saddled with false identities that enslave us.

Recently an old injury, one that came from being maliciously misnamed began paining me again. I think Satan does that, uses wounding words and circumstances to repeatedly misname us. He reinforces the false message until we believe it. We think we have no choice but to sigh heavily and slog through life being who we are told to be, like a person wearing ill fitting clothes that chaff and rub. 

In the past few weeks this concept of receiving a true name from God has come up in a variety of unrelated ways, in conversations with friends, in a book I am reading, in an email...God is creating in me a desire to strip off and discard the false names I've been unwittingly wearing around for far too long. I am hungry for a new name, a name that fits, and calls me forward into the next era of my life. I can't wait to find out what it is. Like Jacob who wrestled with God and refused to let go until he was blessed with a new name, I plan to hang on and wrestle until I know my name.