Cooked Rarely

My husband loves my mother’s cooking. Sadly, I don’t have the same talents. Tonight we had a four course dinner that was only supposed to be one. Before my dear one could offer to take me out for pizza (course 2) I had already placed some Chicken Cordon Bleu in the oven (course 1). It wasn’t too long before I noticed a different sort of smell coming out of the oven. Odd, I’ve never known Cordon Bleu to smell quite like that before. I reexamined the packaging and noticed it said Curried Chicken (course 3). We haven’t eaten much curry and I didn’t know what to expect. The one who eats my food with graciousness and gratitude took one bite and blamed himself for gaining a tender stomach for spicy foods as years have gone by. When in doubt – Chicken Pot Pie (course 4)! Nothing like chicken pot pie for weak taste buds and I try to keep a few in the freezer most of the time. To ease my conscience and to attempt to make the pie a little nicer I try to bake it in the oven instead of using the microwave. So I put the pot pie in the oven where I had recently cooked the first course and went to do something else. Fifteen minutes later I came back and realized I had not adjusted the temperature setting from warm to 400 degrees. I quickly bumped up the temperature and went again to do something else. Ten minutes later I returned to the crime scene only to find I had never turned the oven on! It’s been awhile, even for me, to have such a madcap antics in the kitchen. There’s a reason why my four basic food groups include boxed, take home, frozen and eat out.

Amos 5:9 It will be like a man running away from a lion
only to meet a bear.
He enters his house and rests his hand on a wall
only to be bitten by a snake.

My prayer for the congregation?

Dear God, You design crystals out of covered stone, galaxies out of twinkling stars and feasts out of garden fruits. Some days we seem to do more harm from our good intentions than act as benefactors. Sometimes if we acted a little slower, studied a little closer, thought a little clearer, communicated a little more understandable, and appraised a little more often, then we would not find ourselves in hapless situations that could have been lessened or terminated with a few minutes of careful planning and review. On the days when we feel as though everything we touch is a blight let us find a common ground to review, reset, and reconstruct. We turn to you to help reform our juvenile habits to life-affirming traits. Amen

(he who made the Pleiades and Orion,
who turns blackness into dawn
and darkens day into night,
who calls for the waters of the sea
and pours them out over the face of the land—
the LORD is his name-
Amos 5:8