Middle Kindling - July
What Has Been Feeding the Fire
Dear Friends,
I want to talk to you about the kindling, not the fire. The fire gets all the glory, and no wonder, what with the comforting crackle and the light thrown on every wall, it’s the thing everyone gathers around.
But there’s no fire without kindling of some sort.
Dry twigs. Curled bark. Scented pinecones. The little stack of nothing-much that someone had to gather before ever there was even the first fire made by prehistoric man.
Here’s what I have concluded at (nearly) sixty: I have spent so much of my life seeking, hoping, wanting to “be on fire”…
…but from here on out, I am praying instead to be kindling.
Ha!
On purpose, out loud, unashamedly, may I lean into the small things, gathered up and ready.
There’s a Biblical word for that kind of ready: horaios. It’s a Greek word tucked into Acts chapter 3. It’s a word that the English translators flattened into the word “beautiful”.
The lame man was healed at “The Beautiful Gate”, or the gate called “Beautiful”.
But “beautiful”…horaios…actually means something much closer to timely.
Ripe. Ready.
Kindling isn’t small because it doesn’t matter. It’s small but but it’s the most important thing of all because it’s what makes you ready for fire. Fire does not begin with a magically combusting stack of logs, but with a flame held to something unremarkable…quietly ready.
Nobody talks about the kindling, yet nothing burns without it.
And so it is with this newsletter Middle Kindling.
Once a month, for however long you’ll have me: the small, seemingly inconsequential things I’ve been gathering.
Not a highlight reel.
Not a polished post dressed up to make it look like my life is more well-traveled and curated than yours.
Nope. Just…a letter. The kind a friend sends you when she’s noticed something sweet, and somehow everything is made even sweeter by telling somebody.
Consider this your permission slip too, by the way. You do not need to be “on fire”. In fact, it is far more important to be gathering all the small ingredients that make for timely ripened readiness. There is no fire without those ingredients.
With the right kindling, the fire is fast. Inevitable.
Here’s what I’ve gathered so far this July:
THE LATEST COLOR STORY
Finding its way into my closet and my art, apparently, I am not the only one who has been loving me some “tomato red”. It’s been the “it” color since spring!
MY GARDENS
This year, I planted cherry, Roma, and a new variety called “Mountain Man” tomatoes. Also green beans (bush), basil, thyme, rosemary, lavender, sage, and carrots. The flowers coming in this year are dahlia, sunflowers, bee balm, zinnias, and my favorite - foxglove. Nothing spectacular, but profoundly soul-nourishing for me.
ONE SIMPLE SUMMER MEAL
I don’t know about you, but it has been too hot around here to grill, or even stand over the stove.
All you need is a can of organic cannellini beans, rinsed. Slice a half a red onion, take it all apart with your fingers in a bowl, and pour in a quarter cup of red wine vinegar and set it aside. Open a small can of anchovies, slice a couple cloves of garlic, pull the leaves off a couple springs of fresh thyme, and drizzle a glug of olive oil over it all, right on the cutting board, and chop-chop-chop-chop till it becomes a paste-like dressing…
…or you can put all of that in a large mortar and pestle and mash it all together that way. Add this paste-dressing to the beans, and dump in your pickled onions, sprinkle some fresh, coarse ground black pepper, and enjoy this no-cook summer meal. It is so so good, I promise. Do not let the anchovies put you off it!
ONE BOOK I AM LINGERING OVER
ONE BEAUTIFUL NEW PRACTICE
I’ve been learning soft pastels - and they are not at all as easy as I thought they would be. This is just a page out of my art journal of a couple of little abstracted cosmos flowers.
A SIMPLE PRAYER
Lord, keep doing the slow work in me that usually doesn’t show until it does. Let me be horaios…beautiful…timely. Ready. Not late, not early, but ready at the appointed time.
UNTIL NEXT MONTH
Keep gathering and keep honoring what inspires you, uniquely. For next month, I am already eyeing the rosemary going crazy out there in my small garden. I think it wants to become literal kindling for autumn’s fires…bundles of rosemary in a basket sounds just about perfect. Ask me about it in August!
Sending you all the good summertime feelings,
— Sheila