Today is graduation at Northern Seminary and we have not one, but two MA in NT cohorts graduating today. Lots of goodbyes will be swarmed with lots of joy and memories.
One easy to fix grilling mistake:
(NEXSTAR) – Elizabeth Karmel is always ready to debunk “the biggest myth” in grilling.
Karmel, the award-winning chef and cookbook author known as “Grill Girl,” has been grilling and barbecuing for more than 25 years, having shared her tips, tricks and expertise during television appearances on Food Network and in cooking columns for Bon Appetit, Better Homes & Gardens and the Associated Press.
In other words, she’s a veritable grilling guru. But there’s one common grilling practice that she can’t get behind, and unfortunately “a lot of chefs and writers tell people to do it,” Karmel says.
That practice? “Oiling the cooking grates instead of oiling the food,” Karmel laments. “This is a rampant grilling mistake that lots of people make. But I’ll tell you why it doesn’t make sense and why it doesn’t work.”
Writers sometimes receive interesting feedback from readers which can make them look anew at their own work. A few years back, this happened to me. I had an email from someone who had read my first two novels, The Wake and Beast and who wanted to tell me how much he liked them. In particular, he said, he was thrilled to find a writer who truly understood ‘the importance of birdsong.’
I forget exactly what he said now, but the gist was that birdsong, in his view, was an overlooked but vital accompaniment to the human experience. He was thrilled, therefore, to find that I had punctuated my novels with birdsong, or with birds themselves, which he had noticed appearing at key moments in the plots.
If he was thrilled, I was surprised. I hadn’t noticed this at all. But I went back to my books and, sure enough, he was right. Birdsong - and birds - kept appearing at crucial moments. It was one of those experiences which I think any fiction writer could tell you about: the sudden realisation that your book, even as you write it, is doing something independent of you. In a very real way, you are not so much its creator as its steward. Your job is not to invent a story: it is to be a vessel for it.
When it came to writing my third novel, the last in this trilogy, I had this reader in mind. It was partly his influence that led me to deliberately structure the book around birds. In Alexandria, the paganish, post-human people a thousand years from now are bird worshippers. In particular, they have a prophecy they cleave to, which seems to be about to be fulfilled: When Swans return, Alexandria will fall. If you want to find out what it means - well, you know what to do.
Something about birds returning fills me with hope.
Farmer Zack Koscielny has only been in charge of livestock and crops for four years, but he has already become accustomed to successive dry spells and then, this season, unusual flooding.
Unfettered, Mr. Koscielny has decided to reimagine his family’s fourth-generation farm. Mimicking native prairie, his fields look “messy” as he intercrops instead of planting the tidy single crop fields of wheat and canola of his childhood. He puts his pigs and chickens out on the pasture along with cattle. It’s all an effort to restore the soil health here to buffer against the wild swings in weather – and the pessimism that prevails when it comes to the climate.
His approach is part of a global movement known as “regenerative agriculture,” a sweeping term that entails the many ways farmers can restore and nourish ecosystems while also growing food. According to a growing body of research, it can help farmers adapt to extreme weather events while also fighting climate change by storing more carbon in the soil.
“I think farmers have such an opportunity,” Mr. Koscielny says, “if they manage land properly and stop fighting Mother Nature.”
Sad, but wonderful reflection by Karen Swallow Prior:
The church is the body of Christ.
The body is hiding — broken, bleeding, bruised and scarred.
Someone who promised to feed her ate her instead.
Someone who said he would be as a father to her betrayed her instead.
Someone who was her father was something else to her altogether.
Someone told her to go home.
Someone told her to go back to the husband who harmed her.
Someone offered her a ride home but took her down a dark, deserted road to despair.
Someone made her feel dirty, then told her to clean herself up.
Someone looked her up and down, undressed her with his eyes, then with his hands.
Someone told everyone it never happened.
And by Mike Bird:
I can tell you that abuse happens in Catholic and Protestant churches of all types. Sadly, where you find men, you will find abusers, abuse, and victims.
That said, there is something particularly hypocritical and sinister when some church leaders champion complementarianism as good for women, and yet reduce women to either a source of sexual temptation or see them as an instrument for male sexual fulfillment. Yes, that is not everyone in the SBC, it finds expression elsewhere too, but there is a weird type of complementarianism that oscillates between chivalry and chauvinism, between seeing women to be feared for their powers of seduction yet also aggressively controlled in want of sexual gratification, where women are dangerous Jezebels yet also a live-in concubine to be sexually enjoyed.
To be honest, I struggled seeing SBC twitter more outraged over Rick Warren appointing a woman to be a teaching pastor than with their failure to protect women and children from abuse.
And yes, I know, this attitude goes far beyond the SBC, you find it elsewhere too!
[And Mike goes on to say it’s not that hard to get this right:]
One can cry, mourn, scream, and punch the ground, but at the end of the day, church leaders need to own up to their responsibility to protect the vulnerable from abuse and recognize the need to develop a culture for effectively confronting violence and abuse that focuses on the support of victims, not protecting the accused. What is more, the best, simplest, and easiest way to do that is to include women - whether ordained or not - at all levels of decision-making in churches and institutions. You need women present wherever matters affecting women are discussed or debated. Not that hard.
Counterfeit cheese (parmesan):
If you go to the store to buy parmesan cheese or even receive it grated on your meal while at a restaurant, there’s a good chance it’s not real.
That’s according to Parmigiano Reggiano, also known as the ‘king of cheeses’ in Italy. They’re the originators of the delectable fermented dairy product whose slogan, “The only Parmesan,” is one of the first things you’ll see on their website.
The Italian company estimates that while they made $2.63 billion in 2019, the counterfeit Parmigiano Reggiano market is worth $2.14 billion.
The assessment has led the consortium into making trackable chips that can be grated into the rind of their parmesan wheels in hopes that custom officials worldwide can track if the counterfeit product is hitting grocery stores.
For now, it’s only an experiment. It’s projected to be installed in 100 barrels in 2022. If it’s successful, the technology will be extended into the entire Parmigiano Reggiano production and revenue can be restored.
Some might need to hug a cow:
You may have heard of goat yoga, but cow hugging?
It’s one of the more popular activities at The Gentle Barn and involves just that, hugging a cow.
The Gentle Barn is a nonprofit that provides sanctuary for abused animals, which in turn play a role in therapy sessions for humans going through tough times.
Ellie Laks, who founded The Gentle Barn in 1999, discussed the organization’s unique approach to healing during an appearance on “Morning in America”.
“Sometimes humans are going through hard times where they don’t want to talk,” Laks said. “They don’t want to be vulnerable. They don’t want to be open. Or sometimes there are just are no words because you’re in too much pain.”
With locations in Santa Clarita, Calif., Dittmer, Mo., and Christiana, Tenn., animals at the sanctuaries have helped hundreds of people to feel more love.
“For those that don’t respond to traditional therapy, or in tandem with traditional therapy, people can come to The Gentle Barn and hug cows,” Laks said.
Hugging cows works to match our heart rates, according to Laks.
I hope your Kingsnorth quote means you're reading his Substack, Scot. He's the most prescient writer out there today, Christian or not. Very valuable voice. And if you want to talk with him, he answers his emails!
Dana
Re: attitudes toward women..Then there is the single woman who doesn’t fit in those categories and is viewed with some suspicion. Why isn’t she married? Does she hate men? Is she a lesbian? She doesn’t fit in any of the existing boxes, so we don’t know….the first question asked is not likely to be Where are you on your walk with God, but Why haven’t you married? The implication is that there is something wrong with her. Then there is the divorced woman, another uncomfortable situation. But at least they have children and maybe grandchildren to talk about. My church has instituted a ministry to widows, but not to other single women. (I suspect that the luncheon for widows and widowers is a cover for widowers to meet widows, but so far nothing has developed other than a free lunch) This is not just about women of course, but single men as well. Singles’ ministries are the rarest and least successful ministries,
mainly because the male, married church leadership simply has no idea what to do with us. So we try to find our place in church life, often feeling that we don’t really fit in the mainstream. Wonder what the modern church would do with a Paul today. Not the husband of a wife, would he even be considered for a ministerial position regardless of his preaching skills or Godly walk or teaching ability? Yet no one asks how God can use single believers. They just ask why we aren’t married, as if that is God’s requirement for all believers.