Wake Up!

I feel a little odd about posting Fr. Jim's sermon (although I won't apologize) and I feel like I should explain why I did.

This time last year we lived in a single-wide trailer out in the middle of nowhere. The entire kitchen was in danger of falling through the floor and we were picking up groceries at church. It was obvious that we were in the midst of a Divine Lesson, but it was a hard one to learn.

This time last year, Fr. Rush read the Beatitudes during Mass and his sermon was on being poor in spirit. Being poor in spirit, in ancient Jewish culture, meant that you had no one to rely on, no one to help you. And blessed are you for that, for the only one left to you is God. That's when I realized that we were trying too hard to do things on our own, or trusting in friends and family to help us, when we should have been trusting in God more.

Our daily prayers went from asking that the car keep working to asking for the grace to trust. Within weeks the trailer was condemned and the rental agency found us a new place; a few months later Nick got hired as a permanent employee with benefits. It wasn't a complete turn around, and things were still hard, but it was now uphill.

Things had begun to be hard again, this winter. Then, last Sunday, it was the Beatitudes again. And Fr. Jim gave that sermon. It's not that we had lost the trust in God that we learned, rather I think we had begun to become complacent and this was a wake up call.

So this is me, sharing my Divine Lessons with you in the hopes that someone will learn from my mistakes. Okay, maybe “mistakes” was a bit off, as I've done nothing wrong; from my example. That's better.

Ciao!

--Zizi

Mushroom & Broccoli Alfredo, with COMS

It's simple, just like it sounds. I used fettuccine noodles. I fried onions, broccoli and mushroom slices in butter, with salt, garlic and a touch of cayenne. I added the mushrooms last, and almost before I took it off so that they wouldn't become overdone. I removed the vegetables from the pan and added about 3oz. Of butter. Just before the butter burned I added a can of COMS and roughly 3C of milk. I mixed that well and then added the vegetables and noodles back in. The sauce thickened up when it cooled down.