Food: Yaki Soba

I haven't made Yaki Soba yet but foraged for ingredients today. I needed some stuff from the Asian market. I found soba noodles, found pickled ginger (gari) and was looking for dried shallots. A handsome Asian gentleman asked me if I needed help, so I asked him about light versus dark soy sauce. He explained but it didn't exactly make a lot of sense and there was a bit of communication disconnect for me. I feel this is HIS market; the burden to understand is on ME. While there were many soy sauces on the shelves, most of the labels were not in English as a first language. Initially, I thought "light soy sauce" would be lighter and so looked for a light-colored soy sauce, but they were all black and opaque. Then I read that "light is used in cooking and is the one most commonly referred to in the recipes. Dark soy is much saltier and is used to give stronger color and flavor." I think that is what the gentleman also said. (So what is Kikkoman's I wondered? Light or dark?)

I still feel a bit out of place in this market as 60 to 70% of the products are not familiar and I am not always certain exactly what I need, so I usually just wander up and down the aisles looking at the strange (to me) products, kind of fascinated. Most, but not all, do have some English labeling....sort of.

Well, after his explanation, I asked him what the soy sauces on the shelves were. He only hesitated a few seconds and then with confidence said that they were "medium" meaning, I guess, neither dark nor light....just medium. OK, I accepted that and decided to just use Kikkoman's for now until I figure this out.

So then I asked him if he had "dried shallots" and he pointed to the refrigerator where I found dried shrimps but no dried shallots. I kept wandering about and found "fried shallots" on a shelf and thought perhaps I had misread the recipe and it was "fried" not "dried" so I bought fried shallots which looked somewhat like green bean casserole fried onions but also a bit like meal worms and browned oat granola.

I have the red and green peppers, shrimp, chicken, onion, scallions, bean sprouts...so will probably make this tomorrow. BTW, Yaki soba is a dipping sauce with 1/2 cup LIGHT soy sauce and 1 teaspoon DARK soy sauce along with salt and sugar, 2 teaspoons each. I think I'll google soy sauces.....

PS: Several weeks later I was in the market again wandering the aisles and in the soy sauce aisle, there were boxes on the floor. I happened to check out what was in one box and, voila! it was LIGHT SOY SAUCE. I still am not certain exactly what the differences are, but perhaps this was ordered because I inquired??? Do you think?

I now need to go find gyoza skins to make epi gyoza...

And this is one of the many confusing hits with totally conflicting information as to the saltiness....

LIGHT VS. DARK SOY
This is an extremely complicated subject for a variety of reasons. First there are so many different kinds and brands of soy. Not only light and dark, but thick, sweet, Phillipine, Chinese, Japanese, Thai etc. Then there are different brewing methods using differing ingredients....Basically light soy is saltier and thinner while dark has a molasses flavor component and the ability to color dark sauces while using a small amount of soy. Specifically I prefer light Japanese soy - I usually use Kikkoman - and mix it with Chinese dark - usually Amoy Golden Label from HK. Typically for a stir fry I use a 3:1 proportion, light to dark. When it's available, the Kikkoman which is imported from Japan, is better than our domestically brewed Kikkoman.

Book: At the Jazz Band Ball by Nat Hentoff

Or Sixty Years on the Jazz Scene.

Nat Hentoff has been a lover of jazz nearly his whole life and has written about the jazz scene forever. This book is a collection of 65 small essays on musicians and their music: Dizzy, Ellington, Monk, Coltrane, Davis, Parker...and dozens, hundreds more. For anyone at all interested in jazz, the book is filled with vignettes and musings of a lifetime talking with jazzmen and women (a few) and listening to thousands of performances, jam sessions, concerts, classes.... He wrote for JazzTimes and DownBeat and The Wall Street Journal.

He tells of the Jazz Foundation of American which provides "emergency help to the sick, elderly or out-of-fashion jazz musicians" and was on the ground after Katrina, or of the Jazz at Lincoln Center program which has "WeBop! classes...for children from eight months to five years, along with their parents..." as one of many offerings to the public. He pleads for more jazz education in our school. He has heard Obama has Coltrane on his iPod and that John Conyers has "recordings by Miles and Coltrane [in his office] for when he "needs a lift..." Would that Oprah loved jazz.....

Not too long ago, the author went to the Blue Note in Greenwich Village for a tribute to 80-year-old Clark Terry. Terry "was making it up to the bandstand [having been helped out of his wheelchair] as someone in the audience shouted, 'How are the golden years, Clark?' Terry, trumpet in hand, turned toward the voice and said, 'They suck!' --and beat off the first number of the set. He played as if he were in his twenties....Jazz again had refilled me with life."

Before entering the club that night, Mr. Hentoff had felt "way low....meeting deadlines on the genocide in Darfur and about those parts of the Constitution here in the United Stated being on life support."

The power of music, whatever one's preferences....

Book: The Cyanide Canary by Joseph Hilldorfer and Robert Dugoni

There is a young man named Scott Dominguez. He lives in Idaho and used to work for a man named Allan Elias in Soda Springs, Idaho. On August 27, 1996, Scott was told by Allan to clean some sludge off the floor of a large cylindrical tank, a tank lying horizontal and accessible only through a 22-inch diameter hole in the top. (This tank looked like those everyone has seen on long trains.) Allan had always scoffed at safety regulations and was remiss in all aspects of protecting his workers or in properly and safely and conscientiously disposing of toxic wastes. He was also a lawyer and a slick con man, a man who would do anything to protect his self interests. He was glib, a liar, a criminal.

Scott was overcome by cyanide fumes while working in the tank and, though he survived, he was and is severely brain damaged due to the exposure.

This book recounts the nearly 4-year-long investigation and eventual court case that followed that August day when Scott's life became irreversibly compromised. The acronyms generally get sorted out (OHSA, EPA, HAZMAT, CID, DEA, ECS) over the years spent on this case. There are lawyers, investigators, physicians, law enforcers, Scott's coworkers, family and friends....and his boss, Allan. It was revelatory to me how environmental abuses and the prosecution for these abuses is such a long tangled tale, often with political shenanigans and meddling. The authors explain that often these crimes are considered "white collar" and therefore are not taken as seriously nor is the punishment as onerous as blue collar crimes.

It is a sad story, but also a story of the men and women who did not give up and who were passionate about bringing justice. It was a difficult book to put down; I read it in a day or two. Environmental crimes and the punishment of those responsible is still far from a certainty as this story made very clear. As we citizens become aware of possibilities for pollution in our communities and of the hazards for ourselves and, more specifically, for those who work in potentially toxic environments and ask questions, such abuses will become more difficult to conceal, ignore, dismiss.....

I have also been reading Sacrifice Zones by Steve Lerner about similar issues. His scope was more broad. He wrote about 12 towns which have had the misfortune to live with contaminated air, water and/or soil. These towns have been horrendously polluted by either the military or corporations, and the residents (often the poor, disenfranchised and without many resources) have had to organize and fight for years to effect cleanups and be compensated for significant medical issues resulting from the toxicity and for the costs of moving to less dangerous neighborhoods if the pollution is too massive. These towns are:
1. Ocala, FL (charcoal factory).
2. Pensacola, FL (dioxin).
3. Port Arthur, TX (refineries and chemical plants nearby).
4. Corpus Christi, TX (benzene).
5. Addyston, OH (plastics plant).
6. Marietta, OH (manganese).
7. Tallevast, FL (high-tech weapons company contamination).
8. San Antonio, TX (contamination from Kelly Air Force Base).
9. Daly City, CA (contaminated soil).
10. St. Lawrence Island, AL (former US military bases).
11. Greenpoint, NY (oil spill beneath Brooklyn neighborhood).
12. Fallon, NV (naval air station and tungsten smelter).

Environmental pollution is real, lethal and will continue. Pay attention locally.

Book: Little Bee by Chris Cleave

Little Bee is a young Nigerian girl who had lived in her delta village until oil was discovered. Most of the villagers are killed to make it easier to access the oil, and Little Bee and her sister run away finally reaching the beach where they hide until the soldiers who are tracking them arrive. They know they will be killed since they were witness to the atrocities in the village. Coincidentally, a young couple from London is vacationing near this same beach, and the worlds of the sisters, the killers and the couple collide.

Little Bee ends up in a detention center in England; the book begins there. It is a novel that makes one aware of the institution of detention for "illegal immigrants" along with exposing the brutality of modern Nigeria. It's an amazing book, full of poignant scenes, edgy modern society scenes, scenes of horror, scenes with an adorable 4-year-old who refuses to wear anything but a Batman costume, scenes of flashbacks to LIttle Bee's natal village in the jungle; real-time scenes of busy London.

While the story is huge and sophisticated and of our times, the author manages to narrate it through the seemingly simple words and viewpoint of Little Bee. It is truly worth reading.

I did find, though, that the book seemed to meander off course somehow, somewhat, in the last part. Not enough to lessen the impact, but for me, it became not entirely plausible. Often books don't end quite as smoothly as they begin and as they move through the middle parts of their stories, and I felt this was one of those books. Not perfect, but very good.

Lemongrass

I found a visually appealing cookbook (Wagamama) at Barnes and Noble the other day for $5. So I bought it and the first recipe was delicious: Marinated Chicken Stir-Fry. I bought a wok, seasoned it and have used it twice now. For this recipe I needed two ingredients I hadn't used before, fish sauce and lemongrass stalks. So I went to the Asian market with its pungent smells and its 8 foot tall orange (?) tree near the cash register. There were dozens of fruit on this tree and a small sign asking customers to not touch. It is worth a trip just to see this tree, and I wondered about its provenance.

The market had fish sauce (lots of bottles, mostly anchovy based) and lemongrass of course.

The lemongrass has a flavor that (for me) was a cross between ginger and lemon. It looks a bit like scallions. I trimmed the outer leaves and ends, sliced thin and added to cut up chicken breast and marinated overnight.

Book: Sun Going Down by Jack Todd

This is the first book in a trilogy. The second book is Come Back No More which I read a few weeks ago and very much enjoyed, not knowing it was part of a trilogy. I don't think the third book is published yet...maybe not even written yet.

Sun Going Down is a wonderfully rich and sweeping novel covering the years 1863 to 1933. It starts on the Mississippi with Ebenezer Paint and Lucien Quigley, a white man and a black man, working together on Eb's boat, up and down the Mississippi, selling and trading whatever they happened upon. But the Civil War makes river travel risky and Eb has his eyes on the newly opening western lands, so he sells his boat and heads up the Missouri. Lucien and he part ways, Lucien to look for his wife and two small children who were sold into slavery. They never meet again, but these early chapters are introduce us to the character of Eb while also acknowledging the very different perspective of a black man at this time in our history....a small separate story within the book as a whole.

Ebenezer marries and has twin sons, Ezra and Eli. This book is mostly Eli's story, but with rich detail about so much else: the prairies and lands of Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming, cattle drives, horse rustling, hangings, the weather, winters, spring and summer, meadowlarks, childbirth and children, good times and hard times, the atrocity of Wounded Knee, the small towns and small town diners and banks, the scourge of tuberculosis and the sanitarium in Denver. And there are the big events of history that reached into America's heartland..WWI, the depression, the lure of gold..the displacement of the Native Americans from their homelands.

"On November 8, 1932, they all gathered around the radio at the farmhouse to listen to the election results....Surely Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt would put the country right again. All those poor men out of work would find jobs, farm prices would rise, and the nation would be strong again..."

It is somehow especially gratifying to read the author's note at the end of the book: He writes, "In this case, 'based on a true story" is entirely accurate....the High Plains were not settled without bloodshed, conflict, tragedy, and sorrow; triumph for the white man meant disaster for the First Peoples; and the ascendance of powerful men with the skill, imagination, and implacable will to thrive in such a hostile setting often meant a commensurate degree of pain and suffering for those they loved most.....All the major events in his novel are based on truth, or at least that truth handed down in family lore either through the diaries and memoirs or through the stories my mother told. The truth here is in the lives of four generations of Americans over nearly a century of headlong expansion from the Mississippi River to he High Plains."

I am eagerly waiting for the final book....

Great Blue Heron

I was walking the Stu Visser Trail (aka Pine Creek). It was late afternoon with a lot of heavy slushy snow underfoot but still lovely out there along the alder-lined open water. There weren't many birds but I did see chickadees, mallards and a noisy belted kingfisher. Then, near the Horseshoe Pond, I watched a pair of golden-crowned kinglets, flitting and jittering as they do, quite tame, and very easily identified. In fact, they were exceptionally well seen as there was no foliage to hide them as they flew about, never stopping for more than 3 seconds. They would often fly to the base of trees and rummage a second or two in the snow.

I had flushed a heron earlier and was walking along the far western part of the trail near Ottawa Beach road. All at once I realized I was looking at a Great Blue Heron on the thin ice at the edge of open water, standing perfectly still on one leg. It didn't fly off even though I was close. As I watched through the binoculars, I could see incredible detail, like the navy color of the head feathers and numerous grayish plumes which were very obvious as they moved in the slight breeze. As I watched, entranced once again by this bird and once again noticing its formidable bill and yellow eye, it very slowly lowered its other leg and stood briefly with toes splayed. Then it moved very slowly but deliberately to the edge of the ice, hesitated a second and suddenly dipped its head in the water and came up with a silvery fish sideways in its bill. The fish was about 5 inches and was flapping its tail violently but within 5 seconds, the heron gulped it down. This was incredible to see. I could actually hear the heron gulp a couple of times, as I was that close. Jeepers....how long does a fish survive in the gullet of a heron? I watched a few minutes longer and the bird moved in a totally zen-like way placing its 3 long toes precisely and perfectly as it turned in a slow circle. Even as I walked away, it stayed in the same spot.

Book: Bird Cloud by Annie Proulx

Bird Cloud is the name Annie Proulx gives to the home she built near the Medicine Bow mountains in southern Wyoming. It is on the North Platte River which comes out of the Rockies west of Denver, heads north to Caspar, Wyoming, before it turns east and south into Nebraska. Bird Cloud is near the town of Saratoga, Wyoming, about 20 miles south of Interstate 80.

I liked half of the chapters. She writes of things other than the building of this house, such as natural history, the history of Wyoming, her genealogy, and it seemed these were filler chapters and not especially germane to the Bird Cloud project. Actually, I liked more than half but at times felt disenchanted with the author and her restlessness and slight crabbiness for want of a better word. She has nothing good to say about The Nature Conservancy, for instance, and says that "I gradually learned that this organization is allied with ranchers and is more concerned with land acquisition than conservations. Ranch owners often hold large acreages and it is a feather in The Nature Conservancy's hat to add big chunks of ground to their holding, but they seem unconcerned with the actual condition of that land...I was completely disillusioned."

She finally realized that she could not live in Bird Cloud in the winter as snow drifts make the access road impassable. She had been told the road would be plowed when she bought the property which turned out not to be true. Yet, I suspect she wouldn't stay in one place even if weather were not a problem. While building this home, she traveled a lot and chose not to tell why she went where she went, so I wondered about that. She would make trips back to New England, to Newfoundland, to New York, to Ireland; often to Santa Fe or other parts of the West. She alluded to other books she was writing and perhaps she traveled for those connections. She is not forthcoming about her personal life, except she occasionally mentioned her sons and a daughter-in-law and that she had twin sisters. Of course, the book isn't about her family; it's about Bird Cloud, which name started to seem a bit precious as the tale moved along. Frank Lloyd Wright can have Taliesin and Falling Water but not too many folk can get away with that pretension in my opinion. And, while the book was about building a dream home and having definite ideas about how this was to be done, it was also difficult to picture the life or lives that would be lived in that home. Still, there were many interesting vignettes about the process, just not a particularly cohesive complete accounting.

She spent a huge amount of money, going over budget by at least $200K. This was definitely a custom home, another one on the western landscape. The cover of the book is a photograph of the view...not the house, but the river and the cliffs across the river and it IS stunning. In one of the last chapters, she describes the birds she watches and of course I loved that: prairie falcons, bald and golden eagles, ravens, hawks and the smaller feeder birds, the ducks and pelicans and mergansers. And there are lovely descriptions of this wind-swept open land and of the weather and flora. She writes of fencing to keep neighboring cows out; of a concrete floor that caused her much despair; of The James Gang, a group of guys who do most of the actual building, of various subcontractors and architects and water people; of porcupines, mountain lions, mice and midges.

This book is surely worth reading if one is interested in architecture, or in the issues of the modern west; or if one wishes to vicariously sit awhile in front of one of the windows in Bird Cloud and watch the amazing changes in light and color on the cliff as raptors wheel in the winds, or watch the stars or listen to the wind or just think about all those who moved through this land before Bird Cloud was built. And, of course, Annie Proulx is a wonderful writer, whatever the subject.

Book: The Gold Coast by Nelson DeMille

I like this writer and I liked this book. One reviewer said it is like The Great Gatsby meets The Godfather, and it was. It is a long novel but has a beginning, middle and end. It was written in 1990 but other than a noticeable lack of references to the Internet or cell phones and such, it is a modern novel. John Sutter and his wife Susan live on the north shore of Long Island, just east of Queens and The Bronx. They are quintessential WASPs and still live a very privileged, exclusive life with plenty of money and prestige and position, not that all that far removed from those who built the huge mansions in the early part of the 20th century. (If they don't have all the wealth of their forebears, at least the presumption of their superiority is still very much a part of the social structure.) It is a world of horses, clubs, sailing, flirtations, alcohol, pretense, traditions. Then Frank Bellarosa, a Mafia don, moves into the neighborhood. This is the story of what happens to Frank and John and Susan, and DeMille surely does know how to spin a tale.

Great Blue Herons

The Stu Visser Trail (or as most people call it, the Pine River Trail) is a green-space linear corridor between Lakewood and Ottawa Beach Road. There is a variety of habitats, and it is a wonderful birding venue.

Yesterday, late afternoon, I walked the trail in that lovely time of day when the sun is going down and silhouetting the trees. There weren't many birds, but I did see and hear (one always HEARS these raucous territorial birds) a belted kingfisher rattling down the creek and also watched a couple of song sparrows forage in a muddy bank. However, the best sitings were two great blue herons, one near the south end of the trail and the other in the middle. Both were standing silently in the icy cold water, hunched over as herons do, their large yellow eyes very aware of the surroundings. I am always in awe of the wicked looking bills and how dangerous they would be should a heron attack a human. Like it could easily kill with a well-placed thrust to the heart. I am a bit surprised they are hunkering down here in Michigan and didn't seek a sunnier, warmer clime. Oh well, my good fortune....

Book: The Weekend That Changed Wall Street by Maria Bartiromo

Oh really?? The weekend that changed Wall Street?? Perhaps it seemed that way but I doubt Wall Street has changed all that much. See the movie "Inside Job" which deals with most of the same material for different accounting of what went down.

Lehman Brothers, JPMorgan, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, AIG, the CEOs of these companies, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department, TARP, bailouts, buyouts...There was considerable movement of personnel in the higher echelons as everyone scrambled to stop or slow the train wreck which started the weekend of September 12, 2008. Do I understand it better? Only a little bit.

I actually am not very interested in the world of financial markets but would like to understand better what exactly happened/is happening. And how does the US government play into the game here? What power do they have? A lot, and it seems the taxpayers (you and me) bailed out the companies who messed up.

The author has a show called "Closing Bell with Maria Bartiromo" on CNBC and edits the "Wall Street Journal Report with Maria Bartiromo." so I suppose she knows how this all works but perhaps she is too close and too connected.

There are commercial vs. investment banks and the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act (a bank regulatory act) supposedly allowed "reckless investing by commercial banks." This is one piece of the puzzle. Bill Clinton supported the repeal and still maintains that making it "possible for commercial banks to go into the investment banking business...might give us a more stable source of long-term investment." Yet, common-sense dictates that almost everything in our world needs rules to run well. We certainly need rules regarding our personal finances, although, unfortunately, the banks told millions that the rules were not all THAT important anymore.

There was an interesting conversation that the author had with Garry Kasparov, the chess player. He asked Maria if she thought TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) was a good thing and she said she thought it was. Garry replied: "Then you are not a free-market capitalist...If you believe in bailouts, that flies in the face of free-market capitalism, which requires you to allow firms to fail. They made mistakes, they took on untenable risks and they should have failed, so new companies could emerge."

I am certain there are vigorous responses and counter arguments to Kasparov's words, and no doubt it is simplistic. No doubt letting the banks fail would have been disastrous for the country...I don't know, but it seems that a true capitalist country may not be what works the best. I think we should ask ourselves these questions. We know but seem to keep forgetting that fear and greed run the markets, which doesn't exactly promote confidence for the millions who have become victims. Theoretically, it all makes for interesting discussions but realistically, it means more and more Americans are homeless, jobless, in ill health, discouraged and losing faith in our systems. Politically, who wants the best for our citizens?

This book did try to put a face on the prime players but only superficially. The greedy got very greedy and then they got very afraid. So what is happening now? Again, go see the movie Inside Job for another look at "The Weekend That Changed Wall Street."

Book: Come Again No More by Jack Todd.

"Oh hard times come again no more." by Stephen Foster, which is the source of the title. I do think that choosing a good title seems to be difficult. As in this book. WhateVer..this is the second in a trilogy. At first I fell into this novel...relishing every word. An older gentleman is driving home to his ranch in Wyoming, in a big Cadillac in winter. It is the early part of the 20th century. He has an 100,000-acre ranch, called the 8T8. He loses control of his car and finds himself broken and bleeding in the middle of the cold night with a wrecked car.

He is returning from the funeral of his daughter Velma whom he has not seen for years. His name is Eli Paint; he has a twin brother Ezra and many children and grandchildren. It is the Depression, and dust and drought are threatening their livelihood, their way of life, as it is for thousands across the country.

It is also the story of Velma's daughter (and Eli's granddaughter), Emaline, who lives in far western Nebraska.

This is the third novel I've read lately that takes place nearly 70 and 80 years ago, all wonderful family sagas. When the story moves from Wyoming to Nebraska, I wanted to stay on the high prairies with Eli and Juanita and the ranch. Still, Emaline and her life were also compelling, and I very much enjoyed this book. There were many, many vignettes of small town life, of the endless dust and failed crops, the constant wind, of traveling to Oregon to find a better life, of life in a lumber town west of Portland; there were tales of the bright lights in the bigger cities and many lesser but lively characters. It is a period of our history not so far removed and not forgotten if authors continue to write these great stories.

The first book in this trilogy is Sun Going Down.

The author has been favorably reviewed and compared to Larry McMurtry and Cormac McCarthy. It is another tale of horses, a sky full of stars, bitter cold winters, the smell of sage, creeks, small towns, cowboys, Indians, mountains in the distance, and the people who choose to live on this land.

The author says, in his acknowledgments, that. "...the fourth section of this book is, in part, a homage to Annie Proulx, whose work has put a different slant on the state of mind we call 'Wyoming'."

Emaline has recurrent dreams of The Burning Man and this is a thread that recurs. Sometimes the lesser parts of a story are as lovely as the broader sweep. Her Burning Man, the wild Black stallion, the Indian Two Spuds, Colonel Amen....this is a rich book.

Book: Leaving Church by Barbara Brown Taylor

Eunice loaned me this book and Bill has also read it. Both liked it.

It is subtitled "A Memoir of Faith" which seems a more accurate title to me than Leaving Church. Still, Barbara did sort of leave her church. She was an Episcopal priest, first in a large church in Atlanta, and then for 5-1/2 years at Grace-Calvary Episcopal, a much smaller congregation in the small town of Clarkesville, Georgia. It wasn't her faith or her belief in God that wavered; it was the institution of Church that caused her to question if she really did want to remain in her priestly role. She tells how "faith in God has both a center and an edge and that each is necessary for the soul's health..." The center is each traditional church with its faithful church members and staff; the edges are all the rest of humanity. She became more and more concerned about those at the edges. She came to feel that the Church "lavished so much more attention on those at the center than on those at the edge." She didn't choose to stop attending church, but she began to look around at the larger world and the people who live in that world and who either worship in different ways, who struggle with their personal history with churches and doctrines or those who live beautiful lives, full of grace and giving, but who do not attend church.

At first, she greatly missed her position, her power and her prestige as a priest. She is very honest about her pride and then the sorrow and sense of loss that she experienced on this journey.

Soon after her decision to resign, her husband. Ed, offered their land as a place for the Cherokee North Georgia Sun Dance, which caused her great angst and fretfulness, with with the Porta-Potties and drumming and general milling about, and she kept her distance until the last day when she brought a blackberry cobbler. She was asked to offer a blessing and, while taken aback since she had been aloof and at a remove throughout the week, she also again understood that this event and these people were a part of her decision to leave her church.

Perhaps I am not explaining her decision very well, but it seems to fit with what I think of as "preaching to the choir.." not that there is anything inherently wrong with that, but it seems to sanction particular ways of behavior that are often distant from the truly needy and troubled in our world. Going to church is usually a safe and relatively easy activity, but sometimes it provides a perch from which those who are not in the pew are judged. It is often a community of like-minded souls. Barbara did not dismiss that but was also bothered by it. I think she wanted church to be more, and some churches do and work very hard at reaching beyond their walls to help others. But, certainly, not all of them.

She now teaches religion at Piedmont College in Georgia. She says the her students "were going to know better than to step on their roommate's prayer rug or to order a ham-and-cheese sandwich at a kosher delicatessen. They were going to know how to tell the difference between a Greek Orthodox church and Roman Catholic church just by looking, and they were going to know the name of the elephant-headed god behind the cash register at the Indian restaurant. They were going to understand why the First Amendment made the United States such an interesting place to live. They were going to be better citizens of the world....There was no mastering divinity. My vocation was to love God and my neighbor, and that was something I could do anywhere, with anyone, with or without a collar...All that had gone before was blessing, and all yet to come was more."