The Kite Runner

I have plenty to write about our move to Durham and a trip to Lincoln we made but these can wait until I have more time to write at my leisure – when we get broadband connection at home. I must tell you, instead, about an amazing book I have just read - ”The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini. It’s a breathtaking narrative that charts a young boy’s life in Afghanistan during the 70’s and 80’s, the emotions he has and the consequences of the decisions he makes. I don’t want to give much of the story away so I won’t let on too many details, just to say Hosseini manages to capture the very human feelings of cowardice, malice, guilt, envy, fear and sorrow. He weaves in the illustrious history of Afghanistan and the racial tensions there, painting a vivid picture of the culture and traditions. It is one of the best crafted novels I have read for a while and I can’t wait to read his next book!

Traslocare – to move house

I cannot believe how soon it is until Dave and I leave Leeds. We’re due to move on the first weekend in August and I feel totally unprepared. I’m trying to get quotes from removal companies, I’ve transferred our house insurance, I’ve looked on the internet for the price of beds and sofas (our new house is unfurnished and so we’ll have to buy or get people to donate certain items). Our Moo cards have arrived so we can hand them out to people with our new address – I’ve set up a new blog for people supporting us and wanting to find out whats going on as we start this new chapter – http://daveandjoyoung.wordpress.com. What else have I forgotten??

I am genuinely excited about the move but this is tinged with sadness at all the wonderful friends we’re leaving behind. Dave and I have been part of a strong community ever since we met and to be transplanted into a new group of people will be very strange. One of my main concerns about the move to Durham is feeling like a sore thumb in a room full of very theological people who have major academic discussions about things that don’t seem to apply to real simple everyday faith….

As for leaving, I know what I’m like – I don’t think about the consequences of things until they happen. I’ll be just fine in the preparations and not properly thinking about it and then, bam! it will hit me a day before we leave and I will be in floods of tears.

God is good and he’s going before us, this I know , for it’s evident in all the things that are coming together in our plans. My Grandad always says to me ‘all things good come to them that love God’ and I see that blessing in our life.

Birthday Cake

In honour of Dave’s 26th birthday this Sunday past, a cake my aunt bakes for birthdays:

A.M.’s Cake: 

4oz margerine
4oz caster sugar
4oz self raising flour
2 eggs
teaspoon of vanilla essence
a punnet of strawberries
1 small carton of extra thick whipping cream
icing sugar to dust
greaseproof paper and extra margerine

Grease the inside of a cake tin with a piece of kitchen roll rubbed with margerine. Line the tin with greaseproof paper. Whisk together in a big bowl the sugar and margerine until light and fluffy – this takes a little while and the longer you whisk the more air gets in so the lighter the sponge is. Add the eggs one by one and beat into the mixture. Fold in the flour and the vanilla essence. Pour mixture into the tin and bake at 190 degrees celcius for 20-25 minutes. Take the cake out of the oven when risen and golden and set aside on a cooling rack. The cake needs to be cooled before you put the filling in!

When the time comes to serve, wash and slice the strawberries and whip up the cream until it forms stiff peaks. Slice the cake in half horizontally and fill with strawberries and cream. Dust the top with icing sugar and serve.

Delight

Much good news and many nice things to report this week. I have an interview for a job next Weds in the North East which I am very very excited about. My brother has finally completed 6 years of medical study, has passed all his exams and is now officially a Doctor. Eeeek. (Don’t get ill in August because he may have to treat you!) He has a job in Sunderland and will be living nearer to us when we move to Durham. We’re going to celebrate his success this weekend with a family meal which I am looking forward to.

For Jo’s wedding, I am a bridesmaid and she and her team of sewing experts have made me the prettiest dress; there will be 3 maids in total and we’re wearing the most beautiful shade of green and the most flattering dress ever. On Weds I went for a lovely dinner at her house, good chats with her and her parents and eventually, a fitting of the dress to check/alter the hemline. Her mum, Maggie, is fabulous and in charge of pastoral care at church. We had a long encouraging conversation about counselling and she gave me some resources to look through for training in that field, something I’m considering for the future.

I’m also going to the Harrogate Turkish Baths on Saturday for a friend’s hen do. The process is amazing and relaxing; after plunging in a icy pool of water, you can either sit in the eucalyptus steam rooms or head for 1 of 3 different level heated rooms, the idea being you work up to the hottest room through a series of cold dips, showers and steams. Going there will hopefully unwind the taut muscle that is aching in my shoulder – I think I may have strained it – and the group of girls in the hen party are great company so it should be an all round pleasant Saturday. Dave is going to hear Tom Wright (his theological idol -though I probably shouldn’t call him an idol) speak tonight and tomorrow, so he’s happy.

This week, from Milton’s blog ‘Don’t eat Alone‘ and from a daily devotional email, I was prompted to read the stories of Samuel and Saul in 1 Samuel in the Bible. God is teaching me through the lessons these two characters and their experiences. Samuel, hearing God’s voice in the night, eventually recognised it and obeyed him. Saul, trying to manipulate circumstances for his own purposes disobeyed God’s orders, unwilling to wait and sealed his fate as King. In this time of preparing to move on, these stories are speaking to me about God’s great mercy and guidance. This is a waiting space for Dave and I and the temptation for me is to plan ahead, doing what I want or what I think I should do and not waiting for what God calls me to. It would be so easy to find an admin job that was well paid, comfortable and mundane but God is pushing me out of my financial security comfort zone and asking me to trust him with the next step. My lessons are to hear and respond to God and not to pre-empt Him or disobey him.

Most of all this week, in my reading and my experiences, I have learnt of God’s delight. A friend drew my attention to Zephaniah 3 v.17:

The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing.

Here we are at a crossroads, a point of change and God is working out his purposes, quietening my anxieties with his love and rejoicing over me as I learn to walk in his ways.

6 Months

CNV00104, originally uploaded by joyoung81.

On Saturday, Dave and I celebrated 6 whole months of being married and to commemorate this momentous milestone, here is a photo of us in Venice on our honeymoon!

What to do with a plant pot of Basil?

In order to make the summer couscous salad of my last post, I bought a rather hefty pot of basil from the supermarket and only used 1/12th of the pot. So with the remaining 11/12ths I decided to make fresh pesto. This is a seasonal recipe with new potatoes and green beans. Mine is a simple version. Some pestos have fresh garlic, some use a pestle and mortar but I have gone for the easy method with pine nuts, cheese, basil and oil – this lets the flavour of the basil sing.

Tagliatelle al pesto

350g – 400g Tagliatelle
100g pine nuts
50g grated parmesan
a very large handful of basil leaves
a handful of green beans
some halved new potatoes
olive oil

 In your blender, place the basil, pine nuts, olive oil and parmesan. Whiz it up until it is a paste and as coarse or fine as you prefer. Add more olive oil to loosen the paste and place in a bowl to one side. Steam your green beans and new potatoes and cook the pasta accoring to instructions. When both veg and pasta are cooked and drained, transfer the veg to the pasta pan. Mix up the pesto again if it has seperated slightly from the oil then stir into the pasta and veg, serve in bowls with more grated parmesan on top.

Being in a food rut

Scanning back through recent posts, I realise I’ve become a bit of a naval gazer, wallowing in my holy thoughts(!) and haven’t posted any decent recipes. I think it is due to the fact that Dave and I have been so busy with his selection conference and attending weddings (the figure for this year is now 12 weddings) and being away from home and attending countless meetings that I haven’t had the energy to try lots of different recipes. I’ve found myself embedded in a food rut where it is simpler to use oven chips and jars of sauce to compose a meal than really make an effort -although I despise them. You haven’t really got a clue what you’re eating if you use these convenience ingredients so I do prefer to make dishes from scratch.

This weekend, as well as going to the Jarrett’s wedding, (Paul and Fiona have long been known as the Jarretts, when they first got together even though she has yet to relinquish her surname!) where they will be having a hogroast(yum!), we will be hosting friends for Sunday lunch, Ian and Colleen and baby William. Ian is vegetarian and Colleen can’t eat dairy so I shall have my work cut out for me! At least I don’t have to consider baby food as they will bring something for William to feast on. 

I think I’m going to roast some salmon and do a summer couscous dish that I have adapted from Jamie Oliver. For me, the couscous dish reminds me of many happy of barbecue parties with friends such as Jo and Paul when we all lived in Leeds.

Roast Salmon and Summer Couscous

Serves 4

4 salmon fillets or steaks
255g couscous
1 red pepper
2 courgettes
a bunch of asparagus if available
2 spring onions
fresh basil, mint and coriander
lemon juice
olive oil
red wine vinegar
salt and pepper

Jamie’s recipe requires you to char the peppers, remove the skins and chop, which is very labour intensive. I have a cheat’s method – I find it easier to chop the pepper, courgettes and asparagus in to bite size chunks, drizzle them with a little olive oil and roast them in the oven (200 degrees celcius) in a baking dish for 10-20 minutes until they are soft and slightly blackened.Once they’re done, set them aside to cool. Place the salmon fillets on a roasting tray and put in the oven at 200 degrees celsius for about 16-20 minutes. Whilst the salmon cooks, put the couscous in a bowl and pour over 1/2 pint of cold water and leave it to soak in to the grains. Chop the herbs up finely and cut the spring onion into thin slices. When the couscous appears to have absorbed the water, stir in the roasted veg, the chopped herbs and spring onions. Then season with a few tablespoons of lemon juice, the olive oil, slat and pepper and red wine vinegar. As the salmon is ready and serve it up on plates with a large spoonful of the couscous salad and some watercress salad. This is a really eye catching, mouth watering dish full of red, green and yellow hues.

Stepping Stones

In the past week I have had glimpses of suffering, short sharp revelations of emotions; fear, sorrow, anguish- people dying, friends being ill, depression. There is nothing terribly wrong in our life at the moment; I believe these sensations of tragedy befalling those whom I love are preparatory ‘visions’, rather like vivid dreams that wake you because they are so real. God is opening the way for Dave and I to move forward with him to a place where there will be many occasions for us to take up our own crosses and shoulder the crosses of others who are too weak to carry theirs. This I find quite daunting; the thought of anyone I love suffering churns me up inside.

The feelings of fear and anxiety that have troubled me the past week came to a head on Sunday evening when James spoke on Philippians 1 v27-30. Learning to conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. In all circumstances, whatever happens. His talk should be posted on St Georges site shortly and I recommend you listen to it, it was excellent. Anyway, afterward I went for prayer and Ann who prayed with me had a picture for me of the stepping stones at Bolton Abbey – a derilect priory by the River Wharfe in Yorkshire. Across the water, there is a row of large stones and recently she said there had been one missing. As people tried to cross on the stones they would take large strides to each stone but when they approached the gap, they would falter. It was possible to cross but they needed to make a standing jump to leap across. The picture was for me for when I reach the points of difficulty where I would be pushed out of my comfort zone, handling situations that alone I couldn’t cope with. When I come to the gap in the path where I have to take a leap of faith, God will be beside me encouraging me on, telling me that I could do it not in my own strength but with his strength. Its the verse from Philippians 4 that I keep returning to ” I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.”

In the future, with whatever happens in this life, I hope that I will have the grace to relinquish any notion that I have the strength to cope and be able to rest myself in a place where Christ is all I need.

Dying…

I feel that God may be saying something to me about dying.

First, Jonathan preached on Philippians last night, about Paul’s positive attitude to death. Death, the ‘ultimate enemy’, has been defeated by Jesus Christ. We have nothing to fear because the worst thing that could happen is in fact the best thing to happen by far. A follower of Christ when they depart this life will be with Jesus.

Second, at home that night I read a poem by Mary Oliver that spoke to me about living this life to the full. Here’s an excerpt from the poem ‘When death comes’

“When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.”

Then finally this morning, in my inbox was this Henri Nouwen meditation for the day

“Praying to Die Well

Many people say, “I am not afraid of death, but I am afraid of dying.” This is quite understandable, since dying often means illness, pain, dependency, and loneliness.

The fear of dying is nothing to be ashamed of. It is the most human of all human fears. Jesus himself entered into that fear. In his anguish “sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood” (Luke 22:44). How must we deal with our fear of dying? Like Jesus we must pray that we may receive special strength to make the great passage to new life. Then we can trust that God will send us an angel to comfort us, as he sent an angel to Jesus. “

I am hearing three messages: Death is not the end, live this life to the full and in dying, pray for strength and God’s comfort because both are there waiting for you to receive them. I won’t speculate as to whether these are for now or for the future. I just know that God is speaking to me loud and clear. 

Only Dead Fish….

CNV00183, originally uploaded by joyoung81.

This was taken in Alnwick Gardens, at the entrance to the Labyrinth, on our holiday and I love it.

What a quote – only dead fish swim with the stream! It reminds me of times when I get involved in dead end conversations at work where I’m tempted to have a moan or gossip about others. Sometimes it seems easier just to do what everyone else is doing yet you always feel a bit dirty and uncomfortable about it afterward. I want to be someone who is known for not saying unkind things about her colleagues, being slow to criticise and quick to praise.

In life, if you’re dead to what Jesus is doing within you and if you want to have your own way all the time, you will float along caught up in the stream of what the world is doing around you. It is almost laziness, letting the tide carry you on. You might have company but it will never be amazing. This is a common experience.

Yet if you entwine yourself in the source of new life, in Jesus, constantly having your mind renewed, you’ll find the strength to stand with integrity against the current. Through quiet devotional time, serving God and other people, your life can’t fail to change. You’ll find direction, satisfaction and purpose. Best of all, even if the world were to desert you, you would never be alone.

I don’t want to be dead fish lost in the labyrinth of life. I want the good shepherd to lead me, to provide me food and to bring me safely home.