Books and Food

I really must get the books physically organized, as well as catalogued on LibraryThing. It is all very well having a hugely erudite collection, but it is annoying when attempting to cook dinner to search on the cookery bookshelf for Marvellous Meals with Mince and find only Hymns of St Ephrem the Syrian and the like.

The mince recipe (a cross between shepherd's pie and moussaka with a layer of sliced beetroot which rather failed to harmonize) received a rather mixed reception. However, it gave rise to a more inspired follow-up: Crimson Venison Casserole (TM). Having boiled the beetroot, I was left with almost half a litre of bright purple cooking liquid, and it seemed a pity not to do something with it. The diced venison in the freezer needed using, and the recipe on the back of the box required dried cranberries, of which we did have an ancient packet in the cupboard. No fresh mushrooms, no shallots: no matter. Substituting beetroot for beef stock, I adapted the recipe so heavily as to make it unrecognizable. The result was really rather delicious. For those who would like to try it, here is the procedure:

Crimson Venison Casserole
by Myopic Bookworm

(Optional: beforehand, soak a small sample of dried oyster mushrooms or similar in boiling water.) In a flameproof casserole, brown handfuls of diced venison in some hot olive oil, removing once brown to a handy plate. Chop a medium onion fairly small, mince some garlic, and fry both in the remaining oil for a couple of minutes. Chuck in a tablespoon of wholemeal flour and keep cooking for another minute. Throw in a decent portion of roughly chopped carrot, a handful at a time, stirring into the flour mix. Add around 40-50g dried cranberries, 500ml beetroot stock and 100ml red wine, a pinch of dark brown sugar, and a good sprinkling of dried thyme, and stir again (adding the soaked and drained oyster mushrooms if you've got some). Lay the venison on top, screw on some fresh black pepper, and put in a preheated moderate oven (can't remember temperature; must have been about 180C in our fan oven) for 75 to 90 minutes. Serve with potato (boiled new potatoes or mashed) and a green vegetable (we had purple sprouting broccoli).

The combination of orange carrot and crimson beetroot juice is just stunning.

Autumn III

Idyllic is the word that comes to mind to describe my brief experience yesterday afternoon. I found myself driving across the Oxfordshire countryside in the slanting sun, through the winding lanes west of Worminghall, with the infant slumbering peacefully in the back seat. As I reached Islip and headed out towards Bletchingdon and Long Hanborough*, the BBC began to play Butterworth's "By Banks of Green Willow". And on cue, I passed a willow tree.

By the time I reached the borders of Gloucestershire, the fields were hazy with dust and mist, the sun was westering, and if you could have distilled the air, it would have tasted of honey spread on fresh-baked crusty bread.

* The village elders seem to have decided that the signs on the main roads should bear the name "Bletchington", and the lorries from the local stone quarry have the same spelling. But I prefer "Bletchingdon", as the older road-signs have it. Aside from the proximity of Abingdon, it feels more distinctive and interesting. There is a similar variance at Long Hanborough, where the railway station is called "Handborough", I know not why.

Existence is Suffering

Sitting in the Chapel of Our Lady by the Martyrdom in Canterbury Cathedral yesterday morning, I was wondering about my present difficulty. Then, looking at the carved crucifix which hangs behind the altar, and wondering what it might mean, I had a thought. Existence is suffering, say the Buddhists. It is no use an atheist protesting at the suffering in the universe: the atheist simply has to accept the world as it is, having no God to protest to. But it is no use a theist protesting either. The world is as it is, whether or not the word "God" has any objective meaning. Just because there is a God, that doesn't mean that the world could have been made in a different way. A universe is a complex thing, and to assert that it could have been done better is a ridiculous pretention. If existence is suffering, then how much more is creation suffering? Even if you attempt to ditch all Paul's theology of atonement, the death of Jesus still stands as a central feature of Jesus's ministry, his most dramatic acted parable. And a parable must have a meaning: the Lamb slain at the foundation of the world. God knows that the world suffers, and in some sense he suffers with it, and in his death Christ shows us that he suffers with it.

Maybe my next heavy book (if I can face any heavy book soon) must be Paul Fiddes's The Creative Suffering of God. For the moment, I shall work my way through Rowan Williams's Tokens of Trust, which I picked up at the Cathedral bookshop. The first chapter is promising: he manages to discuss belief in such a way that the 'existence' of God become almost a non-issue.

This and That

Look, I don't do regular updates! I rarely kept a diary up for more than a couple of weeks.

For those who are interested (greetings, weird people!), we had a very enjoyable few days on the island of Jersey, during which I read nothing at all (except the Saturday paper and some tourist leaflets). We will be spending part of next week on a trip to Canterbury Cathedral. The Squirmle has produced his first canine tooth (total count now 13).

I'm sort of following threads on the Christianity group at Library Thing, but my present intellectual/spiritual position is too much in flux for me to add anything to them with any degree of confidence or self-consistency. I have, for the moment, two problems. I have lost confidence in the notion of God as Creator; and I have lost confidence in the moral and spiritual authority of the New Testament. I am therefore going through one of my periodic attempts to see whether a sustainable liberal Christian faith can actually be reconstructed.

The first is prompted partly by some kind of psychic seepage from reading or hearing about the religious views of some of my personal heroes and luminaries, such as Ralph Vaughan Williams and David Attenborough. Also by watching Richard Dawkins on TV. Dawkins is supremely annoying in his insistence on engaging almost entirely with the lunatic end of contemporary Christianity, which obliges me to keep agreeing with him while saying "yes, but...". On the other hand, I do wonder whether my own position (a kind of loose evolutionary theism) is ultimately tenable. In discussion with my other half a couple of weeks ago, I found myself adumbrating Deism.

If God really were an Intelligent Designer, then so much of the design is morally repugnant that theodicy would become a problem. (To paraphrase Attenborough, why believe in a God who designs worms that live in children's eyeballs?) Perhaps I must put to myself the argument I have put to others: God cannot do something categorically impossible, and if creating a Nice universe with free creatures is categorically impossible, then he couldn't have done it any other way. But if God is not able or willing to intervene in evolution (any more than in natural disasters), then what is his contribution to creation? If he is merely a First Cause and Ground of Being, then it is hard to see how a created universe might differ from an uncreated one. The notion of a Creator then becomes entirely a matter of faith based on tradition: there simply is nothing in the universe to stand as evidence one way or the other. "God does not reveal himself in the world." My loss of confidence in the Creator is, perhaps, a result of so much recent exposure to Creationism, and my deeply felt rejection of it. Without the bedrock of irrational commitment to authority, it is hard to maintain grip on a liberal faith.

As for the New Testament: just as the realization that evolution is a fact undermines a traditional view of the Old Testament, the realization that homosexuality is a fact undermines a traditional view of the New Testament. Trying to retain Jesus while regurgitating Paul is hardly a new conundrum, but it is one which I am addressing anew.

If neither Creation nor Scripture can offer a reliable support for religious faith, then one has only the exercise of religion itself. I realize that I once summed up faith just so, about 20 years ago, as "the practice of prayer and virtue". But to engage with a non-interventionist God requires commitment to the kind of non-conceptual and contemplative prayer in which I have so often tried and failed. Perhaps I must make another effort towards Zen, which I once described as offering "a way of praying on those days when I don't believe in God". What, though, to do while attending public worship (irritating, distracting, boring)? As a householder (grihastha), I am no longer a free agent, able to wander at will between Solemn High Mass and the Friends' Meeting for Worship.

Adventurous Challenge Met

Taking the children swimming is no doubt viewed by many parents as a fairly routine thing. For me, however, it was a bit of an adventure, as I have never done it on my own before, and the Squirmle hasn't been in a pool for nearly a year, which for him is two-thirds of a lifetime. We were going to go with his friend Paul, but Paul has a cold. I compounded the challenge by deciding to put my Green hat on and take the Squirmle and his buggy on the bus, which is also something I have not done before.

I am pleased to report an almost unqualified success. A bit of a wait for the bus, which became unexpectedly busy (another buggy, and hordes of pensioners), but the infant fell asleep early in the journey, which helped, especially as it also enabled me to check out without interruption all those hateful details (where are the lockers? how do you get into them? where are the loos? ditto? etc.).

The Squirmle was overwhelmed by the pool at first - mainly, I think, by the noise and the number of people - and he clutched me and whimpered for the first ten minutes or so. Then he realized that all those other children were actually laughing and enjoying themselves, and that sploshing gently up and down in the water was not unpleasant. Pretty soon he had remembered how to smile and kick feebly while being floated around on his tummy, so we had a good 20 minutes before his teeth started to chatter. Memo to self: take a bigger bag - one that will carry not only all the towels, changing stuff, snacks, etc., but also all the clothes that both of you are wearing, including shoes and coats! No hot snacks at the leisure centre this morning, but we found our way to the Cathedral coffee shop and shared a jacket potato with baked beans.

Got back at 2 o'clock, and he's still asleep two hours later! Result! For making an acquaintance with water, it was a lot more hassle for me than letting him pour muddy water over himself out of a flowerpot on the patio (which was yesterday's amusement), but involves less laundry.

Not reading books

Not reading books is a talent I need to cultivate. Especially with non-fiction, I have a tendency to pick up a book that looks as if it might be interesting, and then keep picking it up and reading a bit more, even though I've realized it's not actually that interesting and I could use my time more constructively (or enjoyably) doing something else. I am doing this with "Hating America" at the moment: I guess that, like Winnie-the-Pooh with a jar of honey, I am making quite sure that it is the same all the way to the bottom, and faintly hoping that the last section (on the most modern period) might have a bit more interest. I may find myself doing the same with "Emergence": books about things like complexity and game theory always have that patina of boringness, with the use of small line drawings to illustrate concepts which are either incomprehensible anyway or blindingly obvious. It's partly to do with the nature of the detail: if you're interested in emergence in the evolution of the biosphere, a disquisition on checkers-playing computers is simply an irritation.

Who needs people when you've got books?

The latest plan for the reorganization of the house involves the removal of the guest double bed in favour of a pair of single beds which stack one below the other. One of these is currently under our bed, the other in the study. This will free up the space under our bed for boxes of books, and a whole wall of the study will become available for bookcases full of books. Future guests must reconcile themselves to a slightly less comfortable bed, but a more accessible collection of reading matter. I think that's a fair compromise!