Cooking With LSP - Bread Of Life

Inspired by the Archbishop of Canterbury, I went to the kitchen in search of action. Yes, bread action. Here's the thing. From January to early March you were laying in supplies of flour and yeast. 

Why? Because you knew a Red Plague panicked populace would empty the shelves come the COVID shoe drop. So what to do with all those baking supplies? Make bread, obviously, and here's an easy recipe, which works. Trust me on this.

Dough after appx 18 hours. Add more flour if too runny

Here's how it's done. First step. Put three cups of flour in a mixing bowl, add 1/4 tsp yeast and 1 tsp salt. You can add more salt if you want to make like some kind of NYT know-it-all. There's no rule, it's up to you, but I recommend 1 tsp.

Whatever, behold the result and stir it around. Don't be shy, stir it up, then add 1 cup of tepid water to the mix.  Stir that up too, it's not hard. Add more water, maybe a 1/3 of a cup until you've got a shaggy dough. 

Tip it outta the bowl and onto a floured surface

It shouldn't be too wet or too dry, just a shaggy dough, and you'll know it when you meet it. Cover that fella with clingfilm, the bowl, not the dough, and let it rest overnight, 18 hours+.

Next day the dough should look bubbly, this is good. Remove it to a floured surface and form to a ball. Add more flour or water if the floury beast's too dry or too wet. That done, put it back in the mixing bowl, cover with clingfilm and let it rest for another hour, another rise. 

Heavy Metal

In the meanwhile, preheat your oven to 450*. 30 minutes later, put some unoiled heavy metal into the oven to heat up. I use a Lodge, you might prefer Crueset. That's up to you. Another 30 minutes later, uncover the mixing bowl, form the dough into a ball again on the jolly old floured surface, take the heavy metal from the oven, uncover it and...

Put the dough ball in the Dutch, crease side up. Don't burn your hands on the incandescent heavy metal, use an oven mitt, for goodness sake. Then cover and bake for 30 minutes at 450*. Uncover for another 10 minutes or until the bread's as crusty as you like, totally your call, and remove from the oven.

Right Tasty

Gasp in wonder. You've made bread which smells good, looks good and is good, it wasn't even hard to do. Reflection over, cover that bad boy up with an Archiepiscopal tea towel and let rest for a few minutes. Then cut into it and fall upon your scoff like...

A Warrior. 

LSP

Some Kind Of Joke Mate?

Here's the Archbishop of Canterbury, he's saying a worship ritual in his kitchen. No kidding, the leader, the apostolic head of the English Church is gettin' down like a bit-part chef in his plates-on-the-wall kitchen. Really? Yes, really, when he had all of Lambeth Palace to raise up the people to Christ and hope, strength and consolation in the Risen Lord.

That aside, why aren't COE clergy allowed to livestream services from their churches? Not optimal, granted, but better than some low-level, stripped-pine  kitchen malfeasance. Maybe it's because Welby, an Etonian, didn't want his clergy to seem somehow elitist by, you know, saying worship rituals in their churches when everyone else is at home.

What utter, imbecilic, risible, faked up, hypocritical, weak, rubbish plate-on-the-wall uselessness. And what a total contrast to HRH Elizabeth II. She used her privilege, and it's not inconsiderable, to lift the nation and its people. 

Of course the Queen represents the old and true England, unlike the laughable, equivocating, bishop figure currently holding down the See of Canterbury. But hey, when you're heading up the third largest communion in the world, do it in your kitchen coz that's a powerful message.

Your Pal,

LSP

Easter Music From Russia

OK, Wilco's "Kingpin" is pretty Easter but so's this, from Russia. 

Christ is Risen,

LSP

Kingpin

Thanks, Wilco, carry on,

LSP

Happy Easter!

Storms, adventure, the silvery light, just another April morning in Texas at 3 am, as lightning split the sky, thunder crashed from the heavens and the house shook at the sheer, board-quaking fury of it. Well, it woke me up, I can tell you. A few hours later it was time to walk Blue PsyOp and get the show on the road, Easter Day style.

We strolled by the Meth Shack, the Pick 'n Steal and then back to base and picked up a server. He helped set up for Mass on the front steps of Mission #1. It went well,  the people staying in their cars at the curb of the thing. Next step?

Drive to the lake. No, not on some kind of fishing expedition, this was all about the second Mass, celebrated in the car park of Mission #2. It went well under a pop-up, though the audio part of "AV" was annoyingly imperfect. 

No matter, the Sacrament was confected, the people fed and there it was, Christus Surrexit. We even had a cop to make sure no one got rowdy or outta line. He used to run Dallas SWAT, good man. Carries a SIG, curiously.

Then, mission accomplished, I visited some churchpeople for lunch. What a good crew, descendants of Ranch 101 and rodeo stars to boot. Consensus 'round the table was that China's made an act of war, and that we should kick their butt 'round the block and six ways to sideways. Like no dam foolin. 

Here's the thing. Hitler and the Rising Sun mistook US forbearance for weakness. Big error, right, so watch out, Xi. Keen-eyed readers will note a ChiCom ship caught fire in dock the other day. Sorry, does this lack NYT CCP nuance?

Happy Easter! In Christ we have the Victory,

LSP

Holy Saturday - The Harrowing of Hell

Our Lord's body lies in the tomb, he has descended to the dead, to Sheol, to Hell, ad infernos. The light of the Gospel, of the Word himself shines out in the darkness of Hades.  The hand of salvation reaches out into the Pit for the salvation of souls.

Harrowing? Yes, for the satanic anti-kingdom. God has broken its gates, he's stormed the stronghold and scattered the Enemy. There, in the dead, leaden, tortured fastness of Hell stands Christ triumphant, Victor, offering the hand of salvation and life to the captives of the demon-ridden underworld. St. John Chrysostom exults:

"The Savior's death has set us free. He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it. By descending into Hell, He made Hell captive. He embittered it when it tasted of His flesh... It took a body, and met God face to face. It took earth, and encountered Heaven."

As Jesus lies in a grave in a garden, the light who is light shines in the darkness, a brilliant flare of truth, beauty, love and mercy, of life itself. Rejoicing in the triumph, may God give us grace to cry out to him for mercy, so that we too may enter Paradise.

The harrowing of Hell? For sure, and of our own souls also.

God bless,

LSP

Good Friday

Consummatum Est, it is consummated, and the sinless, all-sufficient sacrifice is offered to the Father as Jesus dies on the cross. The sin of Adam and the tyranny of Satan, Hell and death is reversed, salvation is in the wings.

Here on earth the Altars are stripped and evil waxes large, as it did on that first Good Friday. But the battle's been won in Christ; the desolation of Calvary will turn to the joy of the empty tomb and Easter. Death has become the instrument of life, with the very tools of the Enemy turned against him to utter effect.

Yes, Jesus dies on the cross and with it the Reaper has been defeated. Do not fear, DFTR, we have the victory.

God bless you all on this Good Friday,

LSP

Pope Francis Some Kind Of Joke?

A joke? No, he's not. He's the head, chief pastor, shoes of the fisherman Pontif of the Roman Church. An heir and fulfillment, when you think of it, of the Imperium itself. So what does the spiritual head of Western civilization have to say about the Chinese Virus? That it's caused by Climate Change, by Global Warming. Here he is:

“We did not respond to the partial catastrophes. Who now speaks of the fires in Australia, or remembers that a year and a half ago a boat could cross the North Pole because the glaciers had all melted? Who speaks now of the floods?

“I don’t know if it is nature’s revenge, but it is certainly nature’s response.”

Nature's response? Well yes, in a round about way. If a crew of Chinese Communists mess with bat viruses in a lab in Wuhan nature will, most probably, run its course. Good call, cross the road, hit a truck. 

But Francis won't name the actual truck, he can't bring himself to call out the atheist tyrants who run China and work to crush the Church. You know, the same people who unleashed this on the world. He blames climate change instead.

Name the real culprit, Francis, but perhaps you're somehow... conflicted? For goodness sake, how embarrassing.

Soylent Green,

LSP

Maundy Thursday

On the night before he suffered, Jesus instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood. In doing so Christ draws his friends, his Apostles into communion with his own paschal sacrifice. Take, eat, this is my body given for you... this is my blood shed for you, given and shed upon the cross for our redemption. 

Jesus invites us too into this saving mystery, into union with his own sacrificial action on Calvary. In the words of Austin Farrer:

"Do the disciples understand the nature of the bond? Jesus has blessed his food, to be the body he will offer in his sacrifice; do they know that they are committed to membership in such a body as that?  A body flogged, broken, crucified - see, he crumbles the loaf before their eyes.  Do they perceive the new meaning in the ancient custom, the breaking of the bread?  Are they willing to be parts of such a body, are they willing that his body, with its sacrificial destiny, should be theirs?  

The disciples were not yet fully willing, but they came to be, and so we all must; for if we do not want to be given and surrendered to God, why touch religion at all?  By partaking of the sacrificial body, we are to be made capable of sacrifice, taken up, as we are, into the sacrificial being of Christ." (From This is my Body, 1958 Eucharist Congress)

Tonight, as we watch and pray with Jesus in the Garden before his betrayal, ask him to fill our hearts with his love. The same love given on the cross and commanded of us at the Last Supper, "Love one another as I have loved you." (John 13:34-35) The same love which takes us up into the "sacrificial being" of Christ himself.

ALMIGHTY Father, whose dear Son, on the night before he suffered, did institute the Sacrament of his Body and Blood; Mercifully grant that we may thankfully receive the same in remembrance of him, who in these holy mysteries giveth us a pledge of life eternal; the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who now liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit ever, one God, world without end. Amen.

God bless,

LSP

Rest In Peace John Prine

Country singer and legend John Prine died on Tuesday from Chinese Virus related illness, he was 73 years old. Out of many  excellent obits I like this.

Rest in peace and rise in glory,

LSP

Holy Wednesday Reflection

I find this helpful, perhaps you will too:

Light From Darkness

 

It is out of that uttermost gloom of My God, my God, why have you forsaken me that the light breaks. The light does not merely shine upon the gloom and so dispel it; it is the gloom itself transformed into light.  For that same crucifixion of our Lord which was, and for ever is, the utmost effort of evil, is itself the means by which God conquers evil and unites us to himself in the redeeming love there manifested.

 

Judas and Caiaphas and Pilate have set themselves in their several ways to oppose and to crush the purpose of Christ, and yet despite themselves they became ministers. They sent Christ to the cross; by the cross he completed his atoning work; from the cross he reigns over mankind.  God in Christ has not merely defeated evil, but has made it the occasion of his own supremest glory.

 

Never was conquest so complete; never was triumph so stupendous.  The completeness of the victory is due to the completeness of the evil over which it was won. It is the very darkness which enshrouds the cross that makes so glorious the light proceeding from it. Had there been no despair, no sense of desolation and defeat, but merely the onward march of irresistible power to the achievement of its end, evil might have been beaten, but not bound in captivity for ever.  God in Christ endured defeat, and out of the very stuff of defeat he wrought his victory and his achievement.

 

Archbishop William Temple (1881-1944) Mens Creatrix.

God in Christ endured defeat, and out of the very stuff of defeat he wrought his victory and his achievement.

Behold the mystery,

LSP

Devil Went Down To Georgia

Thanks for the infographic, LL, and while we're at it here's the song:

Speaking of Georgia, the Private's doing well at Ft. Gordon though he tells me Chinese Plague's disrupted the training schedule and assignment to units. There's one civilian contractor in quarantine at the base hospital. So. 

God bless,

LSP