Sophia Serve

Lenten Dining

With all the snow we’ve had lately, it’s difficult to remember that “Lent” means “spring.” Early snowdrops will have to really push.

Through forty snowy days, Christians contemplate all the events that lead up to Easter. I have a friend who always gives up chocolate through Lent. I, on the other hand, think Lent, like most seasons, is a fine time to eat rather than to fast.  We need to keep up our strength and push through to tulip time. After all, that’s what Jesus himself did. Look at all those empty plates.

Our Energy Bar

Our renewable energy bar seems to be set a bit lower today. People have been working on new types of fuel cells for years, but now two SophiaServe readers have sent me links to stories that point to real light at the end of our darkening tunnel.

If you watched "Sixty Minutes" the other night you may have seen K.R. Sridhar showing Lesley Stahl his little silver box--a slender silver "bullet" that could replace nuclear power plants. And as you can see, it has a very small footprint. At a moment in Vermont's history when our legislature is voting on whether or not to renew the license to operate Vermont Yankee Nuclear Plant (which according to credible sources leaks very, VERY bad stuff) the "Bloom Box" seems like a gift from heaven. It's called that because Bloom Energy, with a heap of venture capital, is manufacturing it.

Holding it here, Sridhar explained to CBS viewers how he bakes sand and cuts it into little ceramic squares and then coats them with green and black paint that he secretly developed. Methane and other bio fuels from landfills or farms and oxygen goes in; it heats up and energy comes out. By putting 64 of his little squares together, he could power a whole Starbucks.  Twenty California companies currently are using it. Let's pray the adage, "As California goes, so goes our nation" is really true. I want one of these little boxes in my own organic flower garden. And I don't want to have to wait five or ten years. It will be cheaper than solar and wind if they can figure out how to mass produce it.

This is an energy bar many of us could hurdle.

Salvaged

Next to hardware stores, my favorite collection of stuff is stashed into a  huge warehouse called "Vermont Salvage.”  Old wooden doors stand open on either end, so you have to be hardy to shop there in winter.

It’s THE place to go if you're looking for old door knobs or bathtubs. Green-bronzed horses or cast-iron radiators. Arches and architectural leftovers from the insides of abandoned churches. Stained glass windows line one whole wall, right behind rows and rows of sinks. And just across the aisle, about a hundred toilets line up like frosty choristers in this open cathedral of commodes.

G.K. Chesterton once said, “A paradox is a truth standing on its head waving its legs to attract attention.” There I stood, red-nosed, hands in my pockets and ears tingling from the cold, juxtaposed with these unlikely neighbors paradoxically waiting to be rescued once again and taken to some warmer place. Like Harry Potter, I had conjured up these magical foreign gadgets, this bizarre metal and glass menagerie mutely waving their legs at me.

I wandered the aisles, but kept returning to the stained glass lined up against the walls. These warehouse owners are far too savvy to have any Tiffany lurking around, I was quite sure, but some of them looked so lovely lounging there in ornate frames, dusty and smudged, but still intact. How can sand, salt and ash create something as beautiful as stained glass?

During both world wars, the people of Chartres saved their famous glass windows by burying them in mines or in the crypt itself. No small feat since the 116 glass windows cover the equivalent of an acre of space!

 

Eight  hundred years earlier, three stained glass masterpieces nearly met the rubbish heap. While most of Chartres Cathedral burned in 1194, the western wall was saved. Salvaged. One window hung there in the smoke like a giant jewel-encrusted brooch. It’s called “The Blue Virgin Window” because of the rich blues against a ruby-red background. Most early stained glass artists used copper for red, iron for yellow and cobalt for blue. But Chartres’ glaziers, alchemists in their own right, created a blue so intense, so rare, that no one has duplicated it.

This window is a testament to many things, not least of which to the artists themselves, for reds and blues were the most difficult glass colors to create. Stained glass artists worked at their benches often flashing up to forty coats of glazings just to get the right hue and luminosity. For these ruby reds they overlaid green, purple, brown and yellow. What made matters ever more challenging, they couldn’t view their work until it was actually hung.

But beyond the craft, this crowned “empress mother” and her child speak to the creativity of soul-salvaging.

The stained glass windows at the Vermont Salvage were simpler designs composed mostly of yellows, browns and greens. No rubies or lapis lazuli, but still, they were a welcome break from winter’s white. And my soul took note.

 

 

 

 

A Valentine 4 U

    Like penciling in a child’s growth-chart, I marked its height against the kitchen window panes. It grew so tall,  I had to move it to another room. What power lies curled up in any flower bulb, but especially in an amaryllis!

In writing that word, I was taken by the name of this four-fold flower: Amarylis…A Mary Lis…A Mary lily.

My favorite image of Mary and her son is this one—a Russian icon. Perhaps the oldest icon in existence. In fact, legend has it that before it went from Jerusalem, to Constantinople and finally to Russia, (copied several times) it was in the disciple Luke’s home, for he painted it on a table top.

 In this month of valentines , I turn again to Kathleen McGowen’s second book called, appropriately enough, The Book of Love.  I often sign my name to letters and e- mails with the phrase, “Loving thoughts.” I suppose it’s my way of saying, love is all around us, so let’s draw it into our consciousness.

McGowen reviews  six expressions of love,  and attaches a Greek name to each. I don’t speak or write Greek, but I love the sounds as they roll off my tongue. So I’ll include them here and you can roll them around a bit yourself.

Agape—This is the great joy we find in each other and in the world that feels like a spiritual expression—a sacred embrace.

Philia—This is profound friendship, full of respect. It’s what siblings often feel for one another. It’s true companionshp.

Charis—This is parental love defined by grace and devotion.  It’s the love we see coming right out of Luke’s painting of Mary and her son.

Eunoia—This is the love we have for one another out of deep compassion and commitment to service. We saw this love expressed in Haiti recently—it’s where community lies.

Storge—This is a pure love full of tenderness and caring. It’s profound empathy. It’s how we love children. And animals. And our world.

Eros—And finally we come to the cupid-arrow-shooting kind of "Valentine Love."  At a very deep level, it’s the love two people have for one another when their  souls come together in a profound union.

 

I was struck, not only by the intense redness of my “Mary Lily” but by the fact that it was four-fold. Four is a number that brings a deep feeling of peace and calm.  We’re comfortable with fours—four directions, four limbs on our bodies. Even our DNA, biologists tell us, is based on combinations of “four.” Pythagoras, that old, old source of number-meanings declared the four powers of the soul to be mind, science, opinion and sense.

 A friend sent me this image the other day to remind me that tomatoes have four chambers just like our hearts, and eating them can be very heart-beneficial.

I took it as a valentine 4 me! And now, 4 U.