“The answer to materialism is actually to become more materialistic in the true sense of the word, not to seek possession of objects for a spiritual deliverable, but to value an object for its own inherent beauty and goodness.”
Monthly Archives: January 2017
Isak Dinesen amongst graves.
One of the books that I took off the shelf this month was Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen, what looks to be a first edition that my grandfather received through the Book-of-the-Month club soon after it was published in 1938. I have read parts of this book many times over the years, but never the whole thing. It is one of those works that is compelling in many ways, though it “lacks narrative interest,” i.e., it is not a page-turner.
It was sitting on my desk and one day I opened it in the middle and enjoyed, as always, the voice of the writer through her vivid stories. I transcribed one for my edification, and I trust yours.
THE IGUANA
In the Reserve I have sometimes come upon the Iguana, the big lizards, as they were sunning themselves upon a flat stone in a river-bed. They are not pretty in shape, but nothing can be imagined more beautiful that their colouring. They shine like a heap of precious stones or like a pane cut out of an old church window. When, as you approach, they swish away, there is a flash of azure, green and purple over the stones, the colour seems to be standing behind them in the air, like a comet’s luminous tail.
Once I shot an Iguana. I thought that I should be able to make some pretty things from his skin. A strange thing happened then, that I have never afterwards forgotten. As I went up to him, where he was lying dead upon his stone, and actually while I was walking the few steps, he faded and grew pale, all the colour died out of him as in one long sigh, and by the time that I touched him he was grey and dull like a lump of concrete. It was the live impetuous blood pulsating within the animal, which had radiated out all that glow and splendour. Now that the flame was put out, and the soul had flown, the Iguana was as dead as a sandbag.
Often since I have, in some sort, shot an Iguana, and I have remembered the one of the Reserve. Up at Meru I saw a young Native girl with a bracelet on, a leather strap two inches wide, and embroidered all over with very small turquoise-coloured beads which varied a little in colour and played in green, light blue, and ultramarine. It was an extraordinarily live thing; it seemed to draw breath on her arm, so that I wanted it for myself, and made Farah buy it from her. No sooner had it come upon my own arm than it gave up the ghost. It was nothing now, a small, cheap, purchased article of finery. It had been the play of colours, the duet between the turquoise and the “nègre”, — that quick, sweet, brownish black, like peat and black pottery, of the Native’s skin, — that had created the life of the bracelet.
In the Zoological Museum of Pietermaritzburg, I have seen, in a stuffed deep-water fish in a showcase, the same combination of colouring, which there had survived death; it made me wonder what life can well be like, on the bottom of the sea, to send up something so live and airy. I stood in Meru and looked at my pale hand and the dead bracelet, it was as if an injustice had been done to a noble thing, as if truth had been suppressed. So sad did it seem that I remembered the saying of the hero in a book that I had read as a child: “I have conquered them all, but I am standing amongst graves.”
— Isak Dinesen in Out of Africa
St. Xenia Fool for Christ
How do I love pie?
As I looked forward to National Pie Day — today, January 23rd — I’m afraid I let my thoughts swirl into heady daydreams that were like gusts of wind that pick up bits and pieces of litter here and there and then suddenly drop the lot in an untidy jumble.
First thought: Oh, Pie Day is coming again! I must bake a pie!
Maybe another Pear Pie, as at left?
Thought #2: If I am going to all the trouble to make a pie, I might as well do more than one kind.
#3: If I am baking more than one pie, I better invite some guests to help me eat them.
#4: Why not plan for 3-4 kinds of pie, and have a Pie Open House, say from 4-7 p.m. on Pie Day, to accommodate the schedules of several friends. 
Another chain of events and thoughts brought me to my senses. Last week at our agape meal I was served a big slice of cheesecake, enough pie to last me a month at least. And this morning I reviewed my short-term goals and realized that Pie Day does not facilitate them…
(The above picture is of my own Amusing Lemon Meringue Pie)
Goals? Since when do I have goals? I am certainly not the goal-oriented type, but I am trying some wintertime goals this year that involve: 1) spending time in a large room that needs a thorough sorting and organizing, and it’s not the kitchen; and 2) ramping up my exercise to recover strength I’ve lost in the last two years or so — also not going to happen in the kitchen.
If you let me count the ways I love pie, it might be that I love the idea and history and symbolism of pies more than the eating of them. I remember my grandma and a friend named Kris, either of whom could put together a pie and have it in the oven as easily as some of us butter a piece of bread. There was the time we watched my daughter Pippin form the first rustic galette I ever saw made, one of the select few pies ever to come out of the difficult oven in our mountain cabin. I recall happy days in the kitchen with the counters — and sometimes floors — white with flour, when I would revel in being able to accomplish this kind of nourishment for the body and soul.
In later years it has been easy to take pictures of these pastries, each one a unique event. When Mr. Glad was still my fiancé we never thought of taking a picture of the first pie either of us had made, as we worked together on it and laughed (afterward) about the Pie Predicament we ran into. But it is the one part of that Thanksgiving feast that remains in my mind.
When I am reading the recipes and remembering pies of the past, or rolling out the crust — or especially admiring one fresh from the oven! — I’m energized with creative joy and the idealism of family love and tradition. When I sit down to eat my pie, I am faced with — my weakness. I am one of those people for whom the wholesome enjoyment of that first bite quickly turns into a passion of the wrong kind.
Pie as an ideal and as memories brought me to the creative satisfaction of writing this post. Pie as a reality becomes something I too often consume with a lack of reverence. It’s not too late for repentance, you say? That is true; we must never stop repenting. 🙂 I won’t refuse gifts of pie, but this year at least I will let my celebration be mostly in words and pictures, without spending a whole day at it.
One thing I might like to do today is look around Blogland and see if any of you are baking and/or eating a special pie today. I will love to look at your pictures and celebrate together!
Gladsome Lights 