The Chocolate Chip Country

Matthew 13:33 -
He told them still another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough."

I recently made the decision to try making my own sourdough starter. The process starts easily enough- you take equal parts flour and water in a glass jar, mix into wallpaper paste, and leave out overnight. The next day, it's already foaming and bubbling! So you take a little of that original piece and put it in a fresh jar, add equal parts flour and water, and stir it in. This is feeding your starter.

The rest you can throw away, use in a recipe specifically for 'discard', or use to make even more starter if you need a lot of it.

I was excited for the bubbles. Yeast, right? But they had no ability to make bread rise. If I wanted sourdough flavor, I had to use the discard and add commercial yeast to the flour and other ingredients to make a loaf. On its own, it wasn't strong enough. It smelled right and it tasted right, but it wasn't ready.

My first set of directions said it could take a week. Okay. One week of feeding until the sourdough starter would rise on its own. I could do that.

Except it didn't happen. It got liquid on top (called 'hooch', a sign the starter is eating through all the available sugars and wants more). It was gooey and soft and squishy. It refused to rise.

I did research. I found out it could take longer- three or four weeks, maybe! I changed the water I was using. I fed it more- more often and greater proportions. Instead of a 1:1:1 ratio, I was feeding it 1:4:4. Still equal amounts flour and water, but the starter was hungry. It needed more. I fed it twice a day and it still got a tiny sliver of that 'hooch' on top that said it was hungry. No matter how often or how much I fed it, it refused to rise. The jar never grew any more full.

Just when I was fretting because I'd be away on a camping trip for a weekend and couldn't be there to fuss over it multiple times a day, I looked at my starter in the morning and it wasn't just bubbly, it was foaming over like over-risen dough. No hooch, just airy bubbles.

I took a spoonful and placed it in a glass of water and it floated! It was strong enough and airy enough to float upon the water!

There was just one benchmark left. I fed it again and checked on it regularly through the day. And a few hours later, not only had it risen, but it had doubled its size! I had a true, mature sourdough starter. It didn't slowly go from no rise to perfect rise in stages, but straight from nothing to everything.

A mature sourdough starter is robust- it can be stored in the fridge and fed less often. It can be dried out and rehydrated. You can divide it and feed all the divisions and give a dozen times the original away to others to use for themselves.

A measure of leaven can indeed grow to lift up sixty pounds of flour.

But it takes time. You start with humble beginnings. You feed it constantly. You fret about the waste, the unproductive leftovers that still need help from other leaven to turn into good food.

And then, overnight, the magic happens. The tiny seeds of yeast in the flour finally get strong enough to overcome the weight of the flour, the presence of bacterias that might have slowed it down, the temperatures and variables in your air and water and house. You have something that can make bread for multitudes.

Jesus told us that the kingdom of heaven is like yeast. I look at my starter and I see the lessons of the Church. A new yeast needs feeding. A lot of feeding. While it's young and uncertain, it may need support to do its job, to make bread and pretzels and muffins for sharing. But if you keep feeding it, eventually it reaches a point where it grows and can stand on its own. Suddenly. Like magic.

And you don't know how long it will take. It could take a week. It could take a month. It could be longer. It's discouraging. You have to keep going even when it doesn't look right at all. You have to have faith.

If you keep at it, your faith will be rewarded. You, too, will be fed.

I have always had an interest in politics. I largely understand how people relate to each other the way I understand everything else: by reading a lot of theories and then observing how well it fits what I see. (I am such an introvert at heart, and an analytical one, too.) So I studied political theories of how people organize themselves, and historical cases of how things fall apart. I still do this.

My dad has similar interests. Before he heard the Call to ministry, he studied to be a lawyer and took political science classes. We often talk politics together, comparing notes on what we see or discussing an article or book one or both of us have read.

When I was a teenager, grappling with the issues of being in the generation that comes after the Baby Boomers, he would tell me a story of when he was in high school, and blew up the world.

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My fellow Christians, I implore you: do not vote for Trump. Do not fall into despair. If the world of politics leads you to that choice, turn your eyes away from it. Don't vote. Go to your community and build something. Build a Scout Troop. Start a Bible Study. Build a rehabilitation center for the addicts in our midst. Go on a food drive for the local pantry. If the building of this country is falling down, that is only because the foundation needs work. Go do the work. If the feet are set right, the rest of the body will follow.

Start small. Get a few people to bear each other up. It will grow. Believe in that, not in the promises of men.

There was a story I read a while back that just about sums it up.

A fellow stopped going to church. He said he didn't need it, could worship on his own just fine. His friends and family all tried to get him to come back.

Finally, the pastor went to visit him. The fellow had a fire going in the fireplace. The pastor didn't say much, just went to the fire and used the tongs to pull out a single coal and place it on its own away from the rest.

The coal cooled and died.

The pastor returned it to the rest of the coals, where it brightened and caught fire once again.

The fellow thanked the pastor for his fiery sermon and promised to come to church again the next Sunday.

Who you spend time with affects who you become.

I Corinthians 12: 14 For the body is not one member, but many. 15 If the foot says, “Because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body,” it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear says, “Because I am not an eye, I am not a part of the body,” it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired. 19 If they were all one member, where would the body be? 20 But now there are many members, but one body. 21 And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; or again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22 On the contrary, it is much truer that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary; 23 and those members of the body which we deem less honorable, on these we bestow more abundant honor, and our less presentable members become much more presentable, 24 whereas our more presentable members have no need of it. But God has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked, 25 so that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.

Mark 9: 42 And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. 43 And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: 44 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. 45 And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: 46 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. 47 And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: 48 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

Perhaps the problem is that the foot is not a worthy judge to cut off a hand.

Gay activists invade a church service.

Interview with Anne Rice about her return to Christianity.

A, er, leader in the United Church of Canada wishes to stop being known as a Christian.

Well, if you don't believe in Jesus' divinity, or the virgin birth, or the Resurrection, or any of that, then you shouldn't go around calling yourself Christian. Now, if only they were doing it out of a sense of honesty, and not because they didn't think it was good marketing.

Well, the Jehovah's Witnesses came to my door again a few days ago. I continue to be a bit saddened that they're the only church that really seems to want me around here.

The nice man who spoke to me asked whether or not I believed that God permitted wickedness. I responded with an of course. In order to choose God, we have to have an alternative, otherwise it's not a choice at all. I didn't say it that neatly... there was some stumbling. I wasn't ready for the question, really.

But it's an axiom to me, which makes it all the harder to explain on demand.

God loves us, but He didn't want us to just be the fish He keeps in His cosmic aquarium. He wanted us to be able to respond to His love. And to really respond to His love, we had to be given the option to not respond. If we didn't have a choice, then choosing to love Him is meaningless.

And a stray comment on a political blog sparked the realization that this attitude also carries over to politics. If the government mandates that I eat healthy foods, then when do I learn to take care of myself?

If we don't have a choice, then any virtues practiced aren't really virtues. We don't learn anything from them. We don't develop them and exercise them. They're mandated and we're just following the rules.

Last night, collinsmom called me because she was working on a paper and needed to talk to somebody. Not necessarily to get help, though I was happy to offer what I could.

She was working on something for a class on the New Testament, and was telling me about this theory that was being debated in class. This theory stated that three of the gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) were all written off of one big document, and that's why some passages are so similar.

She said, and I agreed, that when different people see the same events and get a chance to talk about it with each other afterwards, the accounts are going to have similarities. There will also be differences- after all, they came from different backgrounds. There's at least one person in my friends list who works in insurance, and she sees car accidents far differently than most of us who haven't.

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collinsmom, if you want to quote any bit of this for your paper, you've got permission.