FRIENDS

Friends -

They are kind to each other's hopes.
They cherish each other's dreams.

-Thoreau

Cancer and Cake

God's creativity inspires me. He made everything ex nihilo. Into the empty void of Nothing, he poured quarks and quails, turtles and tourmalines, shooting stars and sharks. On a dark empty canvas, God painted color, light, life, movement, beauty. He does the same with babies, creating them within the dark hiddenness of the womb; and with ideas that unexpectedly arrive as gifts in cranial secrecy.

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Many times I feel lifeless, dark, empty. I'm void of creative energy for mothering, living a faith-filled life, loving my husband and friends, writing. My energy is low, my life blood surges slow; I feel tired. I need inspiration -- new ideas -- to bring a creative light to my life.

The other day I was standing in line at the Jewel after a particularly wearying grocery shopping experience. As I walked down the aisles grabbing Cheerios, bread, milk and olive oil my heart was heavy for my friend, Margie, who has - for the last year - been bravely, beautifully walking with her two young children and husband as he battles metastasized brain Cancer.

By the time I got to the check out line, I was inexorably sad. I felt my throat catch and tears behind my eyes. Silently, I prayed, Lord, help Margie. And help me help her. I need an idea, a plan, an inspiring creative way to bring hope and help and healing to this dark difficult place.

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At that precise moment, a little cookbook nestled beside the candy bar display caught my eye. "Celebrate with our best ideas ever: CAKES!" lauded the front of the little book picturing a green and white grasshopper cake dressed in chocolate mint candies and celadon colored whipped cream. I grabbed the book, flipped through its pages: a roller coaster cake, mud slide ice cream cake, spice cake with raspberry filling & cream cheese frosting, pirate's hidden treasure cupcakes, a carrot cake covered with dozens of tiny icing carrots, chocolate zucchini snack cake.

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Blood seemed to course a little bit faster through my veins. Neurons began to fire in my brain. The Holy Spirit seemed to whisper. Bake a cake every Monday with Charlotte (Margie's four-year-old daughter). This is something small you can do to help . . .

For the last few Mondays my kitchen has been blessed by egg shells on its counter, flour on its floor and Charlotte's laughter. With my daughter Emily, Charlotte and I have made the spice cake, the grasshopper, and a few others. Yesterday we made pirate cupcakes.

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Every Monday evening as I send Charlotte home with the cake we've mixed, baked and decorated together, I can't help but think of the simple way God dropped that idea into my mind in the Jewel line. A simple idea in a dark, hopeless place creating love, frivolity . . . slices of sweet life.

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May's Prayer

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I've always been perplexed, intrigued, even enchanted by the promise found in Matthew 18:19-20. It reads, plain as day, "Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."

The promise, coupled with my feelings about prayer on a bad day, makes me wonder sometimes if the promise was made because Jesus didn't think two of us on earth would ever agree about anything, come together to ask, or ask in the God's name. Still, I believe that Jesus' words are faithful, true, non-manipulative. So, I'm counting on the presence of Christ when I get together with my girlfriends to pray; and I count on his promise to do what we ask in his name.

Perhaps Chrysostom had the same duality wrestling within his saintly heart when he wrote May's Prayer:

A Prayer of St. Chrysostom

Almighty God, you have given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplications to you; and you have promised through your well-beloved son that when two or three are gathered together in his Name you will be in the midst of them: Fulfill now, O Lord, our desires and petitions as may be best for us; granting us in this world knowledge of your truth, and in the age to come life everlasting. Amen.

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Thanks to the women from Appleton, Wisconsin's Evangelical Free Church for posing for the picture on this post; and for sharing in a glorious weekend of retreat with me! Grace and peace and more gatherings of hearts & minds to all of you!