Quotations, Photos, and Musings

It's been a while since I've done a "what I've been into" post and I'm horrible at keeping up with these things month by month and can never be consistent with the categories. So, this is a "here's a few things from my life" post. Much of it will be October. But September will sneak in.

Some recipes:

Slow Cooker Squash Stew  (This one got an, "Oh, ok, that's good." out of my roommates who wishes I made more fried chicken and less veggies. So I call it a win :)  It was also great reheated later.)

Vegan Brownie Pumpkin Pie:   (SO GOOD. Took it to a pot luck. Attempted a whipped maple-coconut cream, it was more maple-coconut sauce, but a great addition. Pretty easy recipe, though lots of dirty dishes.)

Actually,  "Oh She Glows" has become my favorite place for yummy vegan recipes. There's a sweet potato-oatmeal breakfast casserole sitting half-made in the fridge right now. I'll get it finished up and taken to class in the morning.

Some quotations:

Dorothy Day insisted on "not serving soup one day and war the next. We were to live without killing, no matter what the provocation or consequence, no matter how many other Christians or Christian bishops were fighting wars or blessing them." Jim Forest, "Remembering Dorothy Day" in Peace is the Way: Writings on Nonviolence from the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Ed. Walter Wink

"The seminaries did not teach me. I had to discover it by myself. They did not teach me that it is more interesting to know a Hindu than to know Hinduism; it is more rewarding to know a Buddhist than Buddhism, a Marxist than Marxism, a revolutionary than revolution, a missionary than missiology, wife than the "marriage and the family" course, Jesus Christ than christology." Kosuke Koyama Water Buffalo Theology, 150.

"The ways in which Western culture encourages the anxious conscience to patrol the flesh, which tears, tears up, trembles, tables, and tires, might lead in one instance to those social technologies of food disorders and surgical enhancements, readily fit to the female form. In another instance, it creates an economic and cultural structure of exclusion. . categorically multiplying abject and economically "waste/d" bodies." - Sharon V. Betcher, "Becoming Flesh of My Flesh," Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion

"True pacifism is not unrealistic submission to evil power.. It is rather a courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love, in the faith that it is better to be the recipient of violence than the inflicter of it, since the latter only multiplied the existence of violence and the bitterness in the universe, while the former may . . . bring about a transformation and change of heart." - MLK Jr.

Some photos:

Went to New Orleans in September.  Enjoying a beignet and cafe au lait at Cafe du Monde.  Loved this city. 

Got a haircut. Fuzzy photo, but I LOVE the cut.  Although, people have told me it makes me look younger,
which makes me realize I've crossed that age threshold where "you look younger" is now a compliment. 

Went thrifting with my roommates. One of them found me this pin that says "How dare you presume I'd rather be thin?"
Best thrift find ever? yup.

Went apple picking and hay-riding with friends. I am a butternut-squash lover, so this was kind of awesome.

Some cryptic musings:

A number of years ago someone asked me, "What's your passion?" and I had no idea how to answer. Sure, I was interested in things. But, passionate?  I was more of an "no highs. no lows" kind of girl. I liked to be calm, plod on, don't make waves. But it bothered me that I didn't know what my passion was and so I kind of said, "Figure that out, Nicole. You should know that." 

I think I've figured it out. There are a few issues where I will dig my heels in and stand up a little taller and talk a little louder and not apologize for my opinions. Not because of stubbornness, but because I have invested time and energy and mental power and relationships and my life into these things and I think they matter, a lot.  

It's anything but calm, but it's fabulous. 

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I will be graduating from grad school soon. It is the most uncertain my future has ever been. I've got some of those gut feelings about where to head, but I don't have any guarantees. In undergrad I knew I was heading to teaching. When I left teaching I knew I was headed to Chicago. When I left Chicago I knew I was headed to grad school. I don't know where I'm going now. But I know my passions, and I can see how those can play out in a hundred ways, so I figure the path that's out there for me has to fall at least close to one of those hundred things, so I'm not too worried. But I still get that little pit of anxiety in my stomach when I think about it, still wonder if all my continent crossing and uprooting and new experiences is going to leave me with wonderful memories but without a real path.