when technology fails

Beep . . . beep . . . beep, the alarm sound I always regret hearing forces me to roll over and reach out to silence the clock, as my fingers move across the small table to locate my glasses.

Tired from going out to dinner the night before, I make my way down the hallway to the kitchen where I turn on the light and start the coffee. I sense the presence of my dog, roused from sleeping in his chair to follow me in his stealth-like way, waiting patiently by the door as I untangle the leash and lead him outside where the early morning sky welcomes me with its bright array of stars. I bask in the quietness, the chill of the air, the pause before the rush of the day.

Once inside, I reach down into the large bag of dog food, filling the scoop to pour into the dish. This same order of events happens daily though I am often the one who takes the weekend shift.

I then pull a standard white ceramic cup out of the cupboard, remembering momentarily how colorful the Christmas mugs were, already placed in the back of a neighboring cupboard to take their rightful place on the shelf above the coffee maker sometime after next Thanksgiving. A larger cup is what I need but it is too early for decisions so I take what I now have filled with coffee and enough cream to turn it the color of milk chocolate and walk back to my work room.

Online I read my lenten devotion and begin to peruse the newsfeed when I stop--abruptly.

The dog has gotten comfortable and gone back to breathing deeply, as I turn off the light and crawl back into my bed.

It is there my now wide-open eyes attempt to readjust to the dark room, unable to comprehend the coaxing my mind is doing to override recent events and lure them back into a state of slumber. I will have plenty of time to ponder the inescapable reality that the clock chosen to awaken me in time to go to the Farmers' Market is apparently no longer functioning correctly. Instead of sounding the alarm at 5 a.m., it went off at 3 a.m.

And I already drank almost an entire cup of coffee.

nothing to offer

The sweet yet tart lemon pie filling resisted solidification as more time and higher temperatures were doing little more than burning what had started out as a perfectly good crust. I would have to come to grips with the reality that my attempt to make a pie had failed and I had nothing to bring to the covered dish luncheon at church. I sighed deeply, unsure of where this possible sin ranked among the faithful.

I have been baking since I was ten years old and take a certain amount of pride in what I create. Being able to offer my dad a piece of homemade cherry pie could somewhat make up for the fact that I could not lift a bale of hay and was not his best pick for someone to fill in on the asparagus picker. Too small, too slow, too sunburned--there were plenty of reasons to find someone better. But in the kitchen I could make a wide variety of cookies, candies and pies that would fill the house with the aromas of cinnamon and chocolate, letting me feel like I was contributing something special.

The old-fashioned advice: the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, served me well over the years. I remember bringing a chocolate pecan pie over to my friend's house the night he proposed marriage. It provided a delicious passage for our conversation to travel from our philosophies of life to how many children we planned on having. He would offer his heart along with his house, his hopes and dreams. I would offer unending batches of chocolate chip cookies.

There are certain go-to dishes that are always a crowd pleaser. My molasses cookies with the butter cream frosting are standard fare for the church gathering and a small fan club cheers me on whenever I show up with a tray of them. But I did not have time to make them. And because it is Lent I needed to forego with anything chocolate. So lemon pie with meringue was my next favorite.

Having made this recipe before, I thought it would be a sure thing. The crust turned out almost like my mother used to make. I say almost because she would make her crust thinner and even more perfect. I heated the milk and whisked in the sugar-corn starch combination. It was supposed to thicken and seemed like it was starting to do so when the lemon juice and zest were added. Maybe the lemons were bigger than usual providing too much juice. Maybe it did not cook long enough. At some point I decided it was time to pour it into the crust-lined pie pan and put it in the oven. I would whip up the meringue while it was baking.

Every ten minutes I would check to see if the liquid filling was setting and would close the oven door, look at the clock and go on about my business for another ten minutes. This went on way too long. At one point the filling started bubbling, rising to the top of the pan and even overflowing. I had turned up the heat trying to force an end to the baking. Nothing worked. By this point the outer edge was not only covered with a sticky lemon coating but the additional heat had turned it black. This pie would never be leaving the house.

In a last ditch desperate maneuver I let the pie cool a few minutes before putting on the meringue that was already losing its lift. I then put it back in the oven with the crazy idea that I would pull it out and the meringue would be lightly toasted, covering over the disaster of a scorched crust, but alas, there was no saving it. I had failed.

I was too tired and it was too late for me to do anything more. I would see what I could come up with in the morning.

Waking before the alarm I lay in bed taking a mental inventory of the pantry. Baking staples--flour, sugar, oil take up one part of it. Spaghetti sauce, barbeque sauce, tomato soup, noodles, beans and random items like mustard and Nutella make up most of the rest. I would have to get out of bed to check the freezer and refrigerator, coming up empty-handed.

I can make great biscuits from scratch using cheddar and parmesan cheeses and wonderful scones made with lots of cream and butter, served with lemon curd. Recipes flashed before my eyes until I had to face the reality that apart from bringing my newly purchased chips and salsa, which I knew the people at church may not appreciate nearly as much as my sons will, I had run out of ideas.

I had nothing to offer.

I did not like to explore this nothing-to-offer status. It made me feel dependent, forced to wait in a child-like place for my need to be met. I tried to push aside the emotion welling up within me and order my thinking. All I needed to do was to make something edible to bring to church. How hard was that? But in my desperate attempts to do the acceptable thing, I discovered what I needed more was to move beyond self-sufficiency into peace. My perfectionistic tendencies were predictably encouraging me to react in self-protective ways, but I could not come up with a viable excuse. With failure staring me in the face and no immediate way to fix it, I had to take responsibility for messing up. It was no one's fault but my own, and . . . .  Right in the middle of my ensuing panic came the voice of the steadfast Spirit calling to my heart to stop striving and simply reach out my empty hands--to Him.

Tables were overflowing with each person's homemade delicacy as I got in line to eat. Afraid I would feel ashamed for having contributed nothing, I instead felt only gratitude. No one asked me what I brought. There seemed to be plenty of food for all. The only One who knew my heart at that moment was the one who held my empty hands in the quiet of the morning, giving me the freedom to be released from my self-imposed requirements--to offer myself and nothing else.

As for the pie, though it did not look pretty as the meringue pulled away from the sides exposing the burnt edge of the crust and a filling that never did set correctly, its flavor was much better than I expected, and when we got home, my family happily got out their forks.