By Rev. Dr. Melinda V. McLain

In the Kitchen

While many folks have been baking their way into oblivion during the pandemic, I’ve been working on how to cook and eat cleaner and better with less effort, fewer trips to the grocery store, and without having to spend all my time planning and cooking meals. Besides, it’s more fun for me to buy spectacular bread from our chef friend Deirdre Davis of Pinoli Farmhouse Kitchen instead of learning to bake sourdough myself!

While I’ve developed a number of recipes to keep life interesting for all this pandemic cooking at home, I have developed a pretty good pattern of how to turn a single chicken into 10-12 meals over the course of a week or so. For a bigger household, you can also use my “chicken game” to extend your budget and meals or you could simply roast two chickens at a time and get 20-22 (or more?) meals!

This all begins with a whole roasted chicken. Sure you can buy them at various grocery stores already cooked, but you will pay more and get a smaller, drier, and less delicious chicken than if you learn to roast a fresh one in your own kitchen.

Perfecting my chicken game also helped me to get more value from the expense of buying better quality poultry from producers who raise the birds well and do not engage in some of the awful practices of less ethical poultry companies. I regularly buy Mary’s Organic Chicken from the El Cerrito Natural Grocery, but again do what works for you. Some big chains sell whole organic birds in two packs and that could bring your cost down, too.

Roasting a chicken isn’t all that hard, but it does take a bit of practice. We have a little countertop NuWave oven that we got when we lived in an apartment in San Francisco with a dreadful circa 1962 oven. Even after we moved and got a brand new stove, I still love using this oven for a roasted chicken. Use whatever you’ve got, but be careful with your initial seasoning so that the chicken can be used many ways.

I like to simply slather it with a mixture of olive oil, Meyer lemon juice, fresh chopped rosemary, and salt and pepper. The lemons and rosemary are available year round in our garden, so you can probably grow them too or get some from neighbors! I’m also a fan of placing the chicken on a rack breast side down and then flipping it over with a pair of tongs halfway through cooking. In the NuWave, I put sliced or cubed sweet potatoes and the chicken’s giblets in the bottom of the oven to cook in the juices of the chicken. Yummy and easy!

I admit that I was very fortunate to have been taught how to cut up a chicken by my great-grandmother whose chicken and egg operation allowed her family to survive during the Dust Bowl years. But even if you don’t know how to do it now, you can learn to quarter a chicken. And I’ve found that after quartering, I can divide the breast portion one more time to create a wing-breast portion and then use the rest of the breast and back meat later. We eat the leg-thigh combo in our first meal.

Our second meal usually includes rice or quinoa along with the wing-breast piece and we’ve now had four meals from one bird. But the magic comes when we use the rest of the chicken.

Over time, I’ve found and simplified or made-up lots of recipes that will create another 6-8 meals using the chicken that is left. Here are a few of my favorites, but adapt your own too!

Chicken soup with rice or noodles and lots of veggies. This is so easy to make when the chicken is already cooked. Be sure to use all the fat and juice from the roasting process plus some olive oil to sauté onions, celery, and carrots in a big soup pot, add chicken stock or broth, the chicken, and then any bite-sized veggies you have on hand. If you then add noodles or rice, this delicious and nutritious soup can stretch a long way! Use different seasonings to create variations on this basic recipe that can take you from Spain to China and back to Northern California. Be creative!

Thai green curry with chicken. There are a gazillion recipes for this dish, but I keep it simple by using Thai fish sauce, fresh garlic, coconut milk, and pre-made green curry paste. I cook cubed butternut squash in the coconut milk, add the bite-sized chicken, and then frozen green beans at the very end. Poured over rice, this is a one bowl meal that we can stretch into 4 to 6 meals. It also freezes well, so eat it one night and then defrost later when you don’t have time to cook.

Chicken putanesca sauce for pasta. In the summer, we often cook and freeze tomatoes from our garden to use later or you can buy canned tomatoes in quantity to have in your pantry. Sauté onions and garlic in a big pot, add the tomatoes, Italian seasonings, and slice Kalamata olives into the mixture. Use the juice from the olives too, but if the sauce is too thin, use a bit of arrowroot or cornstarch to thicken. Add the chicken and mix with your favorite pasta. This also freezes well and can extend to 6 or even 8 more meals!

Green chile chicken stew. This is the delicious and easy way to bring the flavor of the Southwest home. Sauté onions and lots of garlic in olive oil in a big soup pot. Add Mexican oregano and canned green chiles. Hatch chiles are the best, but other canned chiles work fine. Be sure to slice into bite-sized pieces if they are whole. Add chicken stock or broth and the chicken plus you can also add cubed potatoes or canned or home-cooked beans to extend the dish further. You can also add some hot sauce or hotter than hatch peppers if you want more zing. This stew is also good over rice - stretching it even farther - and is another great thing to have in the freezer.

In the summer, my chicken game includes making cold sesame noodles and a variety of chicken salads.

Got a great recipe that fits into the chicken game or want to know more about any of these recipes? I’m always ready to talk about good food for your own good table at home.

by Kelly Knight, Marketing Manager for The Good Table

Spiritual Touchstone

It’s winter, and while I’ve been appreciating the recent rain, I also can’t get fire season off my mind. This year’s fire season was the worst on record in many places, and caused trauma for a lot of us. The destruction and anxiety rests heavy for me, at a time when I should be looking forward to spring, growth, and new beginnings.

That being said, California’s ecosystem has a relationship with regular fire. Many of our trees have adapted to a consistent fire pattern, known as a “fire regime.” My college biology professor often spoke fondly of the Ponderosa Pine, a tree with a thick and latticed bark that easily withstands a low intensity fire.

This poster by Nina Montenegro has been on my mind a lot lately:

Image by Nina Montenegro, of The Far Woods

Some seeds only germinate when exposed to fire. That seems so crazy, but it’s true.

“...the actual seeds of many plants in fire-prone environments need fire, directly or indirectly, to germinate. These plants produce seeds with a tough coating that can lay dormant, awaiting a fire, for several years. Whether it is the intense heat of the fire, exposure to chemicals from smoke or exposure to nutrients in the ground after fire, these seeds depend on fire to break their dormancy. ”

— Your National Forests Magazine

It got me thinking about how fire in a spiritual context is often thought of as purification. When a fire sweeps through the land, it burns up all the dead undergrowth, purifying the landscape. In an environment that has adapted to fire, it can be a regular and natural cleansing process.

What seeds have germinated for us in the fire of 2020? In my life, I’ve definitely felt “fired up” to go deeper into activism, into my own commitment to social justice and compassion. I think some of us may have been dormant in different ways for a very long time, but the events of 2020 showed us that we can’t afford to be asleep to the realities of racism, the wealth gap, healthcare access, and lack of worker protections any longer.

Certainly, we all want the world to get better. It’s been a dismal time, there’s no doubt about that. Many of us are suffering in the wake of the pandemic, the wildfire season, the recession, while under the emotional and mental load of waiting for a vaccine.

But maybe, if we can find a little room, a little grace, the fire may have ignited that seed and something new and precious is coming. Maybe we’re kinder, more compassionate, more aware, more patient, more neighborly than we were before. Perhaps the fire burned up our pettiness, our cowardice, our willingness to look the other way when bad things happen to folks in our communities. It certainly seems evident that enough people were tired of the horrible mismanagement of the pandemic by former President Trump (as well as his corruption, greed, and narcissism) to vote him out, and for that, I am very grateful.

What other blessings have been germinating in your life? What other seeds will you plant?

I wish for you the seeds of peace, comfort, and compassion. May we all be healthy. May we all be safe. May we all be loved. And may we all find purpose as we work for a better society with equitable access to all of these things.

by Rev. Dr. Melinda V. McLain, pastor for The Good Table UCC

Image Credit: Live Japan

“Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes.
How do you measure a year in a life? How about love?”

— Jonathan Larson in the song “Seasons of Love” from the musical Rent

Spiritual Touchstone

We’ve just passed the first anniversary of the first case of the novel coronavirus reaching the United States. But for me, the global pandemic truly “began” with our initial statewide lockdown on March 15, 2020 that also coincided with the liturgical season of Lent - a time when those of us on the Jesus path reflect on our mortality and humanity. At the time, I don’t think any of us could imagine all that would transpire in our world between then and now, but while the death and economic destruction has been devastating for millions, we have also been able to move forward on our project to create The Good Table and as a church, we’ve also been able to keep serving our communities with love. And not just love in the form of kindness, but in the form of measurable assistance to our neighbors in need.

Our Lent last year included the launch of a campaign by a group of United Church of Christ (UCC) local churches to erase all the available medical debt in Contra Costa and Alameda counties as part of our joint Good Friday service. We weren’t able to gather last Good Friday in person AND it took us a bit longer to finish the campaign, but with help from the national UCC, at its conclusion, our 2020 campaign erased $5,473,959.51 in medical debt for 2,604 families in 34 counties in California including $3 million in debt for over 1,000 families in Contra Costa and Alameda counties. I have no doubt that this campaign made a big difference to those families.

This year Lent begins on February 17th with Ash Wednesday. In previous years, we have had a joint contemplative prayer service with Taizé chants and the imposition of ashes with Christ Lutheran, El Cerrito. Two years ago our joint service also included Hope Lutheran, El Sobrante who also hosted a daytime service and we began our “Ashes on the Go” outreach during rush hour at Del Norte BART along with colleagues from Arlington UCC, Kensington. Last year, both the Japanese and English language congregations from Sycamore UCC, El Cerrito joined us at BART and for the evening service. In some ways, last year’s Ash Wednesday on Feb. 26th felt like the last time that any of us could do “public” ministry. And I know for sure that it was the last time that any of us were able to share a hug or hold hands while praying together.

With our UCC siblings, we plan to take on another Lenten love project this year called the Black Homeownership Fund (BHF) sponsored by Arlington UCC, Kensington and housed at the Richmond Community Foundation. The BHF would create a zero-percent-interest loan fund, to be paid back only when the home is refinanced or sold. This is especially helpful for providing assistance with the super high down payments needed to get into the Bay Area’s high-priced housing market.

We still have many months to go before we will be able to gather in person again. And it will be many months before our renovation of our site is complete. The death toll due to the pandemic will continue to rise and the economic crisis is far from hitting bottom, although the advent of vaccines and more economic stimulus may begin to slow the devastation soon.

And yet, we still have a lot of capacity for love in the form of caring, but also concrete and tangible assistance for our neighbors.

What gifts of love have you received during this time of pandemic and stress? What gifts did you give? What can we do to continue to increase love in our communities?

by Rev. Dr. Melinda V. McLain

Image of Native Ohlone

Spiritual Touchstone

There was a time when all the creeks flowing into the San Francisco Bay were free. Native Ohlone people fished in them for what must have seemed like an endless supply of salmon and other fish. When the Russians, the Spanish, and people from all over the world arrived in this place, things began to change. The Ohlones were either murdered, displaced, or removed and the creeks and streams were fished without limit. Finally, during the Gold Rush, mining companies flushed enormous quantities of toxic chemicals, especially mercury from the gold fields, through the watersheds into local creeks, ending up in the San Francisco Bay.

Today there are no salmon spawning in the creeks leading to the Bay, and the coastal creek salmon populations in Northern California are at 1% of historic levels. Another lingering effect from the mercury pollution is that dams built on local creeks often sequester concentrated quantities of mercury and other toxic pollutants, so efforts to remove dams to increase salmon runs is not a simple proposition.

When the dams were built they were of great benefit to the people living nearby. But like so many human activities, there have been unintended consequences that continue to present current challenges including significant mercury and methyl mercury pollution in Northern California waterways and the San Francisco Bay. It is a grim history that is mostly unknown to local residents.

Mining in the Bay Area

It is easy to want to just “tear down all the dams” in a desperate attempt to restore so much that has been lost. And yet, if all the dams came down tomorrow, the suddenly released chemicals would wreak unholy havoc and pollute all our watersheds immediately.

I’ve been thinking about this history as part of my own recovery from trauma I experienced early in life and all the trauma we experienced in 2020 due to a global pandemic, toxic politics, pervasive economic inequality, and a needed, but painful reckoning with racial injustice. Locally, last fall’s catastrophic fire season is now adding more trauma, as many are now back in evacuation mode due to potential flooding and mudslides near the burn scars. Plus, many of us have lost loved ones due to the virus and/or friends and family due to other causes such as cancer or old age. Tragically, all these deaths and losses have not been properly mourned because of pandemic restrictions and too many of us could not really say goodbye in person to beloved elders, family members, and friends. As a result, like the historic dams throughout Northern California, we all have accumulated previously unimaginable layers and layers of encapsulated grief.

It is common, and somewhat useful, to “dam up” and/or “compartmentalize” the effects of trauma so that we can keep functioning and caring for our families and neighbors. But this short term coping strategy can do long term damage if not tended carefully. The toxic feelings, grief, and even rage can become overwhelming if not channeled and safely addressed. More recent trauma can also release past traumatic memories.

As we begin 2021, some of the trauma we experienced in 2020 is beginning to lessen. Every time I watch another “vaccination video” or hear that a friend who works in healthcare or a beloved elder gets their shot, I find myself weeping with a mixture of grief and joy. I also feel cautiously hopeful that this long period of death, dying, destruction, and social isolation may be finally moving towards an end. This long overdue weeping for all the losses - both recent and historic - is helpful, but I also find myself beset by unspeakable sadness as all the toxic trauma begins to release.

I know how lucky I am to have survived infection with the virus last fall without any symptoms or other tragic consequences. I’m also incredibly grateful to be sheltering-in-place with my beloved spouse in a home with a big garden that is comfortable and safe. It is also an enormous privilege to have meaningful and well-compensated work that can be done mostly at home. And in addition to that economic privilege, I also benefit from being a well-educated white woman.

But even with all my blessings and privilege, I lost two beloved elders, several longtime friends and colleagues, and have been emotionally saddened by serious diagnoses within our immediate community. The losses from the wildfires and damage to the economic well-being of so many neighbors and friends (especially my friends in the performing arts) also weigh upon me. And these losses remind me of previous traumas - especially the huge losses I experienced as a young person and pastor during the HIV/AIDS “dying years”.

There are cracks forming in the dams I have unintentionally created to hold back all the sadness and grief. This is good news, but it isn’t easy because just at the time when I think I should be feeling better and more hopeful, I feel sad and anxious.

Thankfully, I have helping professionals and many other resources in my life to assist me in tending this grief and sadness. And because I have worked to heal from past traumas, I have some tools and skills including a long life of spiritual practice and study that carries me, even when my faith in God and the goodness of neighbors falters. As a helping professional and spiritual leader myself, I know that tending this grief and toxic trauma is a critical part of being able to fulfill my call and obligation to be of service to others.

Ohlone Salmon Fishing

If you find yourself feeling inexplicably awful these days - please know that you are not alone. And get whatever help you can to tend those feelings from professionals, support groups, or by making time to talk with trusted friends or family.

I’m also a big fan of rituals of cleansing and release. During the HIV/AIDS years, the creation of the Names Project and then the AIDS Memorial Quilt was such a helpful way to name and mourn all the losses and to create new memories in community to cherish.

Some years during Lent, I have simply taken scraps of paper and written the names, events, and even petty grievances that feel stuck in my soul and then released them by burning them - or putting the scraps in water so they melt. These rituals of remembrance and release provide and opportunity for weeping and prayer that leads to spiritual and emotional healing.

There are so many other ways to positively release all these pent-up feelings including making art, dancing, singing, shouting, long hikes, hugging trees, and even just letting yourself ugly cry while watching vaccination videos.

Whatever ritual or practice works for you, it will be greatly enhanced if you can do it with others safely online or outside with masks and social distance. Allowing ourselves to be witnessed and then comforted in our grief is essential to mourning well. We are social creatures who desperately need community and that is one of our greatest losses in this pandemic: we are all socially isolated to some degree and it really is hard to heal from grief without being able to hug friends and extended family.

These are challenging times and there is a lot of work to do so that each of us and our communities can be strengthened and healed. May it be so!

by Kelly Knight, Marketing Manager for The Good Table

Image: Minimalist Baker

In the Kitchen

January seems like the weirdest time of year to diet, if you ask me. It’s cold, it’s dark, and everything in my body is saying a hard no to any form of deprivation. So, I’m going to ask you to suspend our normal societal patterns of resolutions and restriction, and join me in a glorious journey of healthy winter comfort food.

Admittedly, the best comfort food for me is lots of starches and dairy, but I’ve also done a fair bit of exploring into how you can get those vegetables in while still curling up with something that soothes the stomach and soul.

One recipe I’ve been loving lately is Vegan Shepherd’s Pie by one of my favorite food bloggers, Minimalist Baker. It’s comforting, it has classic flavors, and it’s vegan, gluten free, and packed with vegetables (but you still get mashed potatoes!)

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Vegan Shepherd’s Pie
by Minimalist Baker
Serves 6

Mashed Potatoes

• 3 pounds Yukon gold potatoes, partially peeled (thoroughly washed)

• 3-4 Tbsp vegan butter

• Sea salt and black pepper (to taste)

Filling

• 1 Tbsp olive oil

• 1 medium onion (diced)

• 2 cloves garlic (minced)

• 2 Tbsp tomato paste (optional)

• 1 healthy pinch each sea salt and black pepper

• 1 1/2 cups uncooked brown or green lentils (rinsed and drained)

• 4 cups vegetable stock (DIY or store-bought)

• 2 tsp fresh thyme (or sub 1 tsp dried thyme per 2 tsp fresh)

• 1 10-ounce bag frozen mixed veggies: peas, carrots, green beans, and corn

Instructions

1. Slice any large potatoes in half, place in a large pot and fill with water until they’re just covered. Bring to a low boil on medium high heat, then generously salt, cover and cook for 20-30 minutes or until they slide off a knife very easily.

2. Once cooked, drain, add back to the pot to evaporate any remaining water, then transfer to a mixing bowl. Use a masher, pastry cutter or large fork to mash until smooth. Add desired amount of vegan butter (3-4 Tbsp as original recipe is written // adjust if altering batch size), and season with salt and pepper to taste. Loosely cover and set aside.

3. While potatoes are cooking, preheat oven to 425 degrees F (218 C) and lightly grease a 2-quart baking dish (or comparable sized dish, such as 9×13 pan. An 8×8 won’t fit it all but close! // as original recipe is written // adjust number or size of dish if altering batch size).

4. In a large saucepan over medium heat, sauté onions and garlic in olive oil until lightly browned and caramelized – about 5 minutes.

5. Add tomato paste (optional) and a pinch each salt and pepper. Then add lentils, stock, and thyme and stir. Bring to a low boil. Then reduce heat to simmer. Continue cooking until lentils are tender (35-40 minutes). Once tender, remove the lid and continue simmering uncovered, stirring frequently, to evaporate any excess liquid.

6. In the last 10 minutes of cooking, add the frozen veggies, stir, and cover to meld the flavors together.

7. OPTIONAL: To thicken the mixture, add 2-3 Tbsp (amount as original recipe is written // adjust if altering batch size) mashed potatoes and stir. Alternatively, scoop out 1/2 of the mixture and whisk in 2 Tbsp (amount as original recipe is written // adjust if altering batch size) cornstarch or arrowroot powder and whisk. Return to the pan and whisk to thicken.

8. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed. Then transfer to your prepared oven-safe baking dish and carefully top with mashed potatoes. Smooth down with a spoon or fork and season with another crack of pepper and a little sea salt.

9. Place on a baking sheet to catch overflow and bake for 10-15 minutes or until the mashers are lightly browned on top.

10. Let cool briefly before serving. The longer it sits, the more it will thicken. Let cool completely before covering, and then store in the fridge for up to a few days. Reheats well in the microwave.

Other healthy winter comfort food recipes:
The Pioneer Woman, Butternut Squash Mac ‘n Cheese
Food Network, Slow Cooker Mushroom Barley Risotto
Smitten Kitchen, Ultimate Chicken Noodle Soup (I’ve made this multiple times and it’s amazing)

Stay warm friends. Here’s to a month of cozy!

by Kelly Knight, Marketing Manager for The Good Table

Artist: Rachel Wolfe-Goldsmith

In Our Community

It goes without saying that 2020 has completely changed our way of life, and mostly not in good ways.  Sure, it was novel to bake our quarantine sourdough at first, but as the months dragged on, the lack of social connection and being in community has really worn on all of us.  (It’s also given us insight into and compassion for the everyday life protocols of our immunocompromised community members — but that’s a different article).

Social isolation, the anxiety about our loved ones potentially getting sick, grief for those we’ve lost and the gigantic scale of the pandemic, anger at the current administration for their failure to act… it all adds up.  What do we do about it?  How can we keep ourselves mentally healthy during a time with so few resources?

Resilience, as defined by Merriam Webster, is the ability to recover quickly from stress.  “It's the notion of springing back into shape after being knocked down. In today's world of economic and political turmoil, being able to withstand the related shocks and stresses - for both individuals and societies-at-large - is more important than ever,” says the Salzburg Global Seminar, an independent non-profit organization that inspires current and future leaders to shape a better world.

So how do we cultivate resilience?

Artist: Jorge Bejarano

Certainly, therapy, meditation, yoga and other mental health resources can help us find some equilibrium, if we have access to them.  But something that occurred to me this week was that art and creativity may offer us even more.

I was driving around the block, my small children in their carseats in the backseat.  In order to stop the baby from crying, I was driving around downtown Oakland, stopping as little as possible.  As I drove the improvised circles, I noticed that the plywood covering storefronts and businesses had been overlaid with street art.  Intensely colorful murals and impactful statements lined the streets.

Artist: Natty Rebel

The next day, I went back on foot to document some of it.  It seemed important to witness, to document this cultural moment.  As I took pictures, I thought about the motivation to create art: outrage, joy, inspiration, boredom.  Art is a channel for these emotions, a place to contain and express them.

Street art, in particular, is a chance to be in community -- it’s a conversation with the viewer and with the other pieces surrounding it.  The art I saw decried police killings, stood up for black lives, and rejoiced in the community and the diversity of Oakland.  It’s important to witness these voices, understand their truths.

Artist: Unknown (Please get in touch — we’d love to give the artist credit!)

Art can be an outlet for anger at injustice, a voice for the unheard, a signal to rally, a comfort to those who feel alone.  In our contentious and difficult times, it can be a way to release stress, to make something creative, generative.  It can be solace, comfort.  It is the ultimate container for anything we feel.

Do you have an art practice?  What does it look like?  Does art help you cope with the uncertainty we face?  What other ways can you find resilience?  

As we go into 2021, art and community will matter more and more.  I urge you to observe the art around you, and generate your own practice, whatever it looks like for you.  The world needs more art.

***

For more on the street art taking place in Oakland and San Francisco, check out these news articles and organizations:

Open-Air Art Museum
How Oakland Community Organizers Are Preserving Street Art
Painting the Void

by Kelly Knight, Marketing Manager for The Good Table

My garden sign by The Victory Garden of Tomorrow

Spiritual Touchstone

When it comes to religion, I am a mutt: a crossbreed of several different theologies and practices that resonate deeply with me.  One way I connect with my spirituality is through gardening — the cycles of birth, growth, and death in the garden are a lens through which I contemplate the seasons of my life.

As I prepared my garden for winter this year, I thought a lot about what a gigantic mess 2020 has been.  If it were a garden, it would be overrun with weeds, choking out the seedlings we planted with the best intentions.  For some of us, it would have been either too hot and dry, or too wet and cold.  Sometimes my worries about the pandemic, fire season, and our country’s contentious politics have felt like annoying garden pests: showing up when I least want them and refusing to go away until I apply heavy evasive maneuvers.  

That said, the garden has given me so much joy this year.  In a time when everything stays the same day after day, it is a dance of endless change.  In order to observe it, we have to slow down and really look, really experience our plants growing, worms tilling the rich soil, bees tending to each flower.  

Garden, ready for the winter

Our lives benefit from this moment-to-moment mindfulness as well.  When we are really present for what is happening, we are more aware of the moments of grace we may miss if we are not tuned in.  Yes, the pandemic has made showing up for life a lot harder — there is, inarguably, more anxiety, more sadness, more pain, more loss this year.  But given the human propensity to remember negative experiences more than positive ones, this tuning in can give us back the good parts of our lives by bringing our attention to them, no matter how small they are.

As I was pulling out the weeds and spent plants, I felt grateful for the air in my lungs and my body’s ability to tend to my garden.  After a long, hard pregnancy, a difficult birth, and a complex recovery, any movement feels like a miracle.  I put what I’d pulled out into the compost bin, and as I did, it occurred to me that winter is a great time for some spiritual composting.  

I think it’s healthy and maybe even necessary to compost what we no longer need, both physically and spiritually.  When we return what we’ve used but need to let go of to the compost pile, it can rest, and then as it is turned over and over, become something rich and fruitful that nourishes new growth.

What might go into our spiritual compost bin?  Things like long-held but no longer useful beliefs, lingering resentments, relationships that have become toxic, and anything else that weighs our soul down.  A lot of the time, when we let these things go, we find ourselves a lot lighter.  I often visualize a real compost bin and putting my worries and old ways of thinking deep inside.  When intrusive thoughts emerge, or I want to ruminate on an old memory I’m still hanging on to, I think about turning it over and over in my compost bin, and then imagine walking away.  It’s a conscious effort to not get sucked in to anxiety and rumination, but when I can let things sit on their own, I feel much better.

One of my many composting systems

This practice of letting go, of spiritually composting, has also meant that what comes out is much richer.  Processing trauma and examining what is and isn’t useful to us anymore can often provide a fertile ground for self-growth and reflection.  When I look at why I was holding on to something, I often find some small revelation about what I need in this current moment, and then I can tend to myself with care.

The next time you feel like 2020 is unsalvageable, give spiritual composting a try.  Make a list of the things you’d like to let go of, and then imagine burying them in deep soil to decompose and become the next stage of growth for you.  

What seeds will you plant in this fertile ground?

by Rev. Dr. Melinda V. McLain

Spiritual Touchstone

On Thursday, we will celebrate Thanksgiving. And I don’t know about you, but for me, I find myself practicing a form of white-knuckle gratitude. To be sure, I am painfully aware of how lucky I am to have a wonderful job, a beautiful home, and a loving spouse. For so very many people, those things are missing or are hanging on by a thread. And as a white person in a society deeply polarized by race, I have the luxury of choosing how I will respond to the insistent and righteous cries for justice happening right now. Unlike our siblings of color, I can focus on something else and not have to worry about my safety or the well-being of my immediate family. So I recognize that I don’t really have a right to feel anything other than grateful for all the privilege I have in my life. And yet . . .

I’m also profoundly aware that when I contracted the coronavirus at the end of October, my experience of being infected by this life-threatening virus unfolded as the very best case scenario. I never felt sick in any way and more importantly, every person I might have inadvertently infected — including my beloved wife, Colleen — has tested negative and never got sick. We’re also done with all the self-isolation and quarantine periods. But if I’m truthful, I’m more relieved than grateful. While it wasn’t physically challenging for me personally, the emotional impact of living with this virus and the possibility that I could have infected others who might become gravely ill was awful and terrifying.

As a spiritual leader, I believe that choosing to live a life of unfettered gratitude is a noble way to deepen and develop our souls. Cultivating gratitude can also heal us from both the petty and profound traumas and wounds that we have experienced. And more and more scientific research shows that gratitude is a milestone in our development as a species and, in my own view, is essential to creating strong and healthy communities. Gratitude, as the Roman philosopher Cicero once wrote, is the “parent of all virtues”.

So what can we do when gratitude doesn’t come easily? The first factor in choosing gratitude is to look for the good in our lives in the world and then to realize that the gifts and benefits we have do not come from our own labors. We cannot do good by ourselves, nor can we recognize what is good and worth being grateful for without seeing our relationship to others. Robert Emmons, a scientific expert on gratitude writes more about this in an intriguing essay written for the Greater Good Institute at U.C. Berkeley.

If Emmons is right, perhaps the reason that feeling grateful feels a bit forced this year is because the now-surging pandemic, coupled with an unbelievably toxic political climate, has made most of us feel socially isolated and disconnected from one another. This is not theoretical or just emotional — it is real and it is hard for almost everyone. So if you too are feeling not exactly grateful, or perhaps not even one bit grateful this year, please know that you’re not alone: I see you, I am you.

What then to do to be more grateful? If you’re of a spiritual bent, you may find that your connection to a higher power that you may call God or a thousand other names such as Divine Love or Holy One helps. Or, if you aren’t sure about whether there is some force beyond the natural world, most spiritual practice — especially in community — does serve to help us live better, fuller, more grateful lives. If you don’t currently have such a community, please consider yourself warmly invited to join The Good Table UCC in our weekly interfaith meditation group on Thursdays at 6p or our Sunday Gathering at 12n. Both are free and easy to access via Zoom or phone. Send an email to me to receive credentials for either gathering or to just connect one on one.

May this Thanksgiving, however you celebrate it, be a blessing to you and may we all find ways to get reconnected to one another, so that we may remember that when we work together for good, “nothing is impossible”.

Liv Wisely

Hi! I’m Liv Wisely, for The Good Table. And I have a very special lady with me. Could you introduce yourself please?

Ok, my name is Cheryl Land. I am 18 years old. I'm from St. Petersburg Florida, and I am your significant other. 

Cheryl Land

Can you describe your religious beliefs for us?

I am a Roman Catholic on paper, practicing as much as I can. 

I was not a cradle Catholic; I was raised in a Protestant church until my mother re-converted us to Catholicism. I was baptized in second grade, and we’ve been Catholic ever since. After figuring out I was not straight, and learning about the way the church treated gay people — not necessarily homophobic but restrictive — I had a lapse in the faith, but  after hearing lots of progressive Christians talk about their faith and their practice, it gave me incentive to do my own research and make a better educated decision to return to the faith. And I did!

And for the reference of the reader, I am a product of United Church Of Christ, I’m currently studying Judaism. I also dabble in the occult; all around spiritual but not always religious.

Now, at the time of reading, how long have we been together? 

On the 20th it’ll be five months. 

Knock on wood. 

Knock on wood. 

Superstitions are both things our religions have but also kind of condemn.  Jinxes aren’t things Christians sanction but I’ll STILL KNOCK ON WOOD. I may not believe it, but I don’t mess with it. 

Well, it hasn’t failed us yet… knock on wood. 

Knock on wood! STOP SAYING THAT!

Haha, okay okay. So, you and I are a queer couple of faith who met online during COVID. Throughout this time, we’ve had a lot to pray about because we care about social issues. How have we handled mutual grieving or spiritual worries together in the past? And how do we do that in a respectful way? 

Well, I definitely pray for you, and I pray for your family. Every mass on Sunday I say the Hail Mary Prayer for both my parents, my brother, and for you. So you have that with you. If you pray for me, I appreciate it — I take it as a firm compliment. 

Likewise! I pray for you. A lot of my prayer has to do with overcoming hurdles of my own so I can better help others. I actually got the concept from a Christian, let me be your hands, your feet, your heart, your mouth, etc. Kind of like: help me help others, which is helping you, which is helping me, which is helping others, haha.

It’s also because I don't know if I'm the one who can always help you; I don't know if you’ll go to me. If I ask God to be kinder, you might not even need that from me, so I ask the powers that be to soothe your anxiety and make you feel less alone. It's not that I believe god is someone that works for me. 

Me neither. I’ll ask you this: What do you think has made us work, spiritually? What is our advice for an “interfaith” relationship? That’s a fun one. We’ve had our ups and downs, suspension of disbelief.

I feel like the best you can do is listen. You don’t have to let them convince you they’re right; it’s not an argument. Talk about your faith a lot, learn about how specifically you practice and think. It’s important to reach common ground on your values, and you can do that while being interfaith. We have had our ups and downs — I have held beliefs you originally thought to be bonkers, and beliefs I take for granted. 

I think that's where the mutual respect and awareness of your own faith come in. The more confident you can be and the more flexible you can be with your own beliefs, the more you can ask yourself why you do or DON'T believe something.  That said, do you think our faith has brought us closer together or further apart?

Definitely closer together. I know so much more about Judaism than I knew months ago, and I'm so happy I do, because I want to learn. I enjoy learning about other cultures and other faiths. 

Being with someone you can learn from. Someone outside your comfort zone you have to keep up with, stimulating your mind. I believe we’ve both intellectual people, both very philosophical people, and we love talking about deep things. And it doesn’t exhaust us. It was scary at first, because there are lots of critics of Catholicism. I had to kind of get over my shock. You didn’t hate me for being Christian and didn’t just give Christianity a pass because you love me. 

Well, I’ve been lucky enough to have grown up with some pretty amazing Christians. Not only that, but amazing people who happen to be Christians. I hope we break the stereotype of both the faiths we’re involved in as being closed minded, because in many ways you’ve opened my mind.

And so have you.

I love you!

I love you too! 

by Bonnie Hariton

From The Garden

After the smoke-filled and excessively hot days of August through mid-October, we are ready for cooler days and brisk nights. We are ready for real rain, not the dry lightening kind, just the dripping wet kind. And, with no threat of frost anytime soon, we are ready for a fall planting in the garden beds. Here in Pinole, California, we are harvesting the last of our tomatoes by making batches of shakshuka. The beans, cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, and zucchinis have run their course, along with the dahlias. Now it is time to prepare some of those same raised beds to grow a mild-weather, second crop.

We consider sunlight and soil when deciding what to plant and where to plant. But when to plant is also important. A farmer in El Sobrante gave me a copy of her invaluable Planting Guide. It lists about fifty plants and has a column for each month of the year. November is a good time to plant onion sets, garlic cloves, and seeds of arugula, fenugreek, broccoli, fava beans, lettuce, parsley, spinach, and winter wheat! From these, we chose what we’d like to eat, what we’ve had success with in the past, and what we’ll try just for fun.

We grow edibles in half-wine barrels and in raised beds. Dan constructed our raised beds of redwood and they are 8 feet or 10 feet long by 4 feet wide by 12 inches deep. All of these have ½ inch hardware cloth metal mesh stapled to the bottom to deter gophers. We set aside three beds for perennials: asparagus, artichokes, and strawberries. With other beds, we practice a mini-version of crop rotation, simplified as “root, fruit, green, bean.” So where we planted root vegetables such as carrots, kohlrabi, and beets in the spring, now we’ll leave in the re- emerging Japanese eggplant (fruit) and plant seeds of lettuce, parsley, and spinach (green).

Here are twelve steps to preparing the bed from one season to the next.

1. Remove spent leaves above ground but leave the roots to decay on their own, unless they are very large.

2. Remove support structures such as cucumber or tomato trellises.

3. Loosen the soil not by turning it over, but by putting in a pitchfork and rocking it back and forth a bit.

4. Since the soil level in the bed has probably gone down a few inches, add one or two cubic feet of high-quality, locally sourced soil to the bed.

5. Add a generous portion of earthworm castings or use your own home-made compost, or a combination.

6. Add a light layer of coconut coir on top, which retains moisture and helps seeds to sprout.

7. Water the bed well.

8. Plant your seeds! Follow package or online directions on spacing for a row or for a square foot. Plant your seedlings! When I plant seedlings, I’ll add sprinkle of mycorrhiza,
   which helps roots to grow.

9. Cover the entire bed with something to keep out birds and cats. Bird mesh does a good job. Dan puts 4’ tall rebar posts, topped with tennis balls (for safety), into the ground at each corner of the bed. He ties string near the top from post to post, and we drape the mesh over. That way seedlings are protected until they are stronger. Be careful not to leave any gaps!

10. Keep the seeds moist by watering every day until they germinate, usually 10 to 14 days.

11. When the seedlings start to crowd each other, thin them by snipping off weaker seedlings at the soil level. This can be hard - just do it! The plants you have left will have more room to grow.

12. Visit your garden daily.

A newly prepared bed is a beautiful sight. A bed with sprouts emerging is a wondrous sight. A bed with fruits and vegetables forming is a marvelous sight. A bed overflowing with bounty so that you have plenty for yourselves and plenty to give away is a blessed sight! So go forth and plant.

If life these days is overwhelming, start small. Start with cat grass! Fill a 6 inch diameter pot with soil, sow some cat grass seeds, place indoors or outdoors in the sun, and sprinkle with water daily. In a few short days, this tiny garden will bring you - and your cats - joy. And pray for rain: the nice, wet kind.

---

In the Kitchen

Shakshuka with Poached Eggs

I have adapted this recipe, given to me by my friend and neighbor Deirdre Davis, chef extraordinaire, who runs Pinoli Farmhouse Kitchen. She adapted it from an Ottolenghi recipe in his book, Jerusalem (2012). Ottolenghi says that shakshuka is a popular breakfast or lunch fare in Israel. Served with some good crusty bread, it makes a delicious and hardy meal. I can vouch for that!

INGREDIENTS (for 6 servings)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon harissa or gochujang (spicy chili pepper paste)
1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds, toasted and ground
1 teaspoon whole coriander seeds, toasted and ground
3-4 cloves garlic, about 1 tablespoon, finely chopped
2 tablespoons tomato paste
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 medium white onion, in ¼ inch slices
2 large red bell peppers, in ¼ inch by 2 inch slices
5 cups heirloom tomatoes, chopped
6 whole eggs
1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
several fresh basil leaves

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Toast the cumin and coriander seeds together in a small, heavy, dry frying pan (without oil) over medium heat until they darken slightly, about 1 minute. Grind with a mortar and pestle or a spice grinder.

2. Chop the garlic. Chop the red peppers and the onion. Chop the tomatoes.

3. Heat the olive oil. Add the harissa or gochujang and stir. Add the spices and garlic andcook until just fragrant.

4. Follow with the tomato paste and the salt. Cook for a few more minutes.

5. Add the onions and bell peppers. Stir and cook over medium heat for about 6-8 minutes till softened.

6. Add the tomatoes and bring to a gentle simmer. Cook uncovered for another 10 minutes until the sauce thickens to your liking. Some people like the sauce thicker, others like it more soupy. Taste for seasoning.

7. Make 6 little dips in the sauce. Gently break an egg into each dip.

8. Simmer gently for 8-10 minutes, covered, until the whites are just set and the yolks are as runny or as firm as you prefer.

9. To serve, put some of the sauce and an egg into a bowl. Sprinkle with feta cheese and a few fresh basil leaves.