I was just thinking
one morning
during meditation
how much alike
hope
and baking powder are:
quietly
getting what is
best in me
to rise,
awakening
the hint of eternity
within
I always think of that
when I eat biscuits now
and wish
that I could be
more faithful
to the hint of eternity,
the baking powder
in me.
-Macrina Wiederkehr in Seasons of Your Heart
Photo by Jodie Morgan on Unsplash
Hope. Leavening. Biscuits. The morning office in the season of Easter includes the Pascha Nostrum. In begins:
Alleluia.
Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us;
therefore let us keep the feast,Not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil,
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Alleluia.
As I read this passage throughout the week, the word leaven caught my eye. I looked it up (as is my practice, I LOVE to look up even the most common words.) Leaven is yeast, which I knew, but the more detailed definition was fascinating.
noun
a substance, as yeast or baking powder, that causes fermentation and expansion of dough or batter.
an element that produces an altering or transforming influence.
verb (used with object)
to add leaven to (dough or batter) and cause to rise.
to permeate with an altering or transforming element
dictionary.com
Leavening permeates with an altering or transforming element. Leavening is something tiny that infuses every part of the whole with change, not just change, but transformation. We know how baking soda, sourdough, and yeast work to transform water, flour, salt into the magic of homemade bread, biscuits, or pancakes. Without those elements, the individual ingredients create something, but not the things that make our mouths water.
As I thought about leavening, I started to read what others have said about leavening. I found the poem (see above) by Macrina Wiederkehr. Hope as leavening. Hope is an element that produces an altering or transforming influence.
Hope is contagious. Hope is like yeast and baking powder. It has an energy that makes things rise. If you want to know if you are good for others, ask yourself how much hope you’ve given them. It is there you will find your answer.
-Macrina Wiederkehr
If you want to know if you are good for others, ask yourself how much hope you’ve given them.
How much hope do I give? That’s a question that cuts deep. Our transforming influence can be measured in how much hope our presence, life, questions, talk, and ideas impart to others. Do the things you talk about, the ideas you share leave crumbs of hope or frustration? The smaller and deeper questions are the most basic. How much hope do I give to my kids? To my friends? Do the things I share on social media promote hope or something else? Does the grocery checker feel hope when I leave or relief?
Hope. Leavening. Transformation. Biscuits. Smaller, deeper starts with smaller actions, deeper reflections.
I’m going to make biscuits this week as a reminder of the power of baking powder, of leavening to permeate and transform. I know my daughter will join me in the adventure. We are going to follow these tips in this video. Make you can make something with baking powder, sourdough or yeast this week? Share what you make in the comments!
Photo by raquel raclette on Unsplash
ideas.poems.quotes.songs that sparkled for me this week.
(I try and pay attention to words or phrases that stand out to me in my reading and listening. There is a spiritual practice called Florliledgium that collects short, interesting pieces {words that “sparkle” up} and put them together. This is kind of like that. Watching for things that sparkle. Gathering them and seeing how they work together and what message, mantra, or new idea might arise.)
A Practice:
Read slowly.
Notice if a word or phrase stands out to you.
How do the words make you feel?
Is there an invitation?
(I’m sharing in italics the lines that stand out to me in these passages. Maybe it’s the same, or maybe it’s different, there is much food for thought in each of these passages)
Then at last we see what hope is and where it comes from, hope as the driving power and outermost edge of faith. Hope stands up to its knees in the past and keeps its eyes on the future. There has never been a time past when God wasn't with us as the strength beyond our strength, the wisdom beyond our wisdom, as whatever it is in our hearts--whether we believe in God or not--that keeps us human enough at least to get by despite everything in our lives that tends to wither the heart and make us less than human. To remember the past is to see that we are here today by grace, that we have survived as a gift.
And what does that mean about the future? What do we have to hope for, you and I? Humanly speaking, we have only the human best to hope for: that we will live out our days in something like peace and the ones we love with us; that if our best dreams are never to come true, neither at least will our worst fears; that something we find to do with our lives will make some little difference for good somewhere; and that when our lives end we will be remembered a little while for the little good we did. That is our human hope.
-Frederick Buechner A Room Called Remember
The virtue of hope, with great irony, is the fruit of a learned capacity to suffer wisely, calmly, and generously. The ego demands successes to survive; the soul needs only meaning to thrive. Somehow hope provides its own kind of meaning, in a most mysterious way.
-Richard Rohr Daily Meditation April 17, 2020
When we purposely build periods of reverence or stillness into our days, we practice gazing through the eyes of love, and we get better and better at seeing love everywhere we look.
Mirabai Starr Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics
