This is one of my new favorite recipes, so I thought I'd blog it in case I lose it.  I like that it uses wheat bran instead of some kind of bran cereal.  You may have to check more than one store to find it, but it costs like a buck a pound and weighs very little.  So, it's cheap and you don't have to soak stupid cereal for an hour.
    Of course, you can leave out the chocolate chips, or replace them with walnuts, but come ON, you're eating bran muffins already, you're a good person.  And, trust me, they make them really good, the chocolate with the banana works really well.
Anyway.
 
     1/2 cup margarine(or butter) softened
     1/2cup brown sugar 
      3 ripe bananas, mashed
      1/4 cup milk
     1 teaspoon vanilla
      2 eggs
      1  1/2 cups flour (I use whole wheat. Look at me!)
      1/2 cup wheat bran  (make it a generous one)
      1 tsp baking powder
      1tsp baking soda
      1/4 tsp salt
       Chocolate chips!  (1/2 bag, or so---I usually double the recipe)

Heat oven the 375 F.  Mix this stuff together in whatever way makes sense to you. (Try a potato masher on the bananas)

  I like to spray the muffin tins. I'm not a big fan of the papers.  It seems like more muffin sticks to the paper than sticks to the pan.  Even if you have to use the same tin over, it doesn't really matter if there are still crumbs from the last batch.   They will come out easy, really!. Just run a butter knife around the edges turn them upside down and give them a tap.  Or, if you like the papers, do whatever you want, I don't care.
   Ok, so spoon the mix into the tins.  I make mine pretty scant--they're easier to remove if they don't rise over the edge.  Bake for 20-25 minutes.  The toothpick/raw spaghetti trick works on this, just make sure that, if it comes out dirty, you are seeing muffin goo and not just melty chocolate chip.  :-)
    Eat them all week long with coffee, tea or milk.
                                                                                 THE END

I had a little laugh at  the expense of the elderly.  Well, not really the elderly, a government pamphlet written for the elderly----which is better, but perhaps not entirely fair.

   My mother and I were perusing a pamphlet from The Office of the Aging.  It was about how to keep warm and save on energy during the winter months.  Pamphlets written by too many government "cooks" are inevitably chock full of awkward, obvious, and poorly-phrased tips that can be unintentionally(I assume) hilarious.  One such suggestion read along the lines of:

"You can save energy by turning on a radio for companionship rather than the television."

The jokes just flew.  Still cheaper than getting married!  Me, I use a toaster!  Not, me I use a little battery operated clock to keep me company and tick away the precious seconds I have left!  Not, me, I use one of those little glass birds that dips its beak into a glass of water for companionship! I just leave the phone off the hook! You need a BearCat Scanner!...

  Really though, that's not so far off.  There are a some objects that have companion-like qualities to me, namely candles, pots of tea and vinyl records.  

   The roots of the word "com-pan-ion" suggest one that breaks bread with you. This, of course cannot literally be true of non-living things.  A candle, however, breathes oxygen with you.  It has a life in that way.   A lit candle in a room also needs some tending.  It is unsafe to just leave it and go away.  In this way it is also like another life.  

  At one point in my life, I was sleeping in an unheated, un-insulated house in the middle of winter.  The door literally would not stay shut in the wind, and there was no way of fixing it or bringing materials to the house.  My bed was a mattress on the floor, but more specifically one bent over in an L shape because the floor space was small.  I had to curl up like a puppy in a nest of blankets, but that was just as well since the small space locked in the heat.

  The conditions were hard, sure, but the hard part really was the guilt, shame and wondering.  If this was surely something God put me into and would take me out of, I could wait.  But if it was all because of my laziness, my weakness, my frailties, my ineptitude, my poor study habits it highschool....I don't know....if it was me, to the degree that it was me....It drove me boogots.   My mother, a sick woman, slept down the hall.  If this was God's will, fine.  But the degree to which it was my inability to take a second job, keep a car on the road, fix houses, fix cars, torured my frozen brain.

   One night, the house being silent except for the cold wind, no electricity, nothing to do, and too cold to get out from under several blankets and do it anyway; I wanted to sleep but sleep would not come.  I lit a couple candles and tried to read a bit.  It wasn't really working, that hands-outside-the-covers thing hurt(frostbite) and I WAS dog tired.  I had one of those tall "catholic" glass cylender candles, along with two or three others.  They hold up well in the wind, and can be turned sorta sideways and almost be a flashlight in a pinch.  It was flickering beautiful orange on my ceiling.   The wax was dark forest green with just a crown of th the white light around the top and on the rim of the glass.  I had placed it up on a box a few feet above the floor where I was bundled.  I blew out the others, but left that one flickering.  I knew very well it would have to go out before I slept.  But, I didn't listen to reason, and I rolled over and fell asleep.  I didn't want to get up, sure, and I also didn't want the candle out.  It was like it was watching and worrying for me.   Sometime later I woke up and glanced up at its flickering.  I could have blown it out then, but I was convinced that I couldnt sleep without it.  Maybe my mind was telling me that it made the room 1 degree warmer, I don't know.  I rolled over and went to sleep again.  I said I rolled over.  By that you can understand that I was not WATCHING the candle as I drifted off.  I was, rather, curled up tightly on the side, head entirely covered with sleeping bags and blankets but for the smallest air hole, eyes clenched.  When I woke again in the actual morning, a little blue flame still remained treading a nights worth of its own juices inside the hot glass.   It didn't start a fire or anything, which was good.  I was tremendously thankful for its companionship the night before.

   In Catholic tradition, they sometimes light those candles as a way of prolonging their prayers.  I don't believer any of that bosh.  When I'm praying I'm praying and God never asked for such a cheap token.  Still that night I somehow took comfort in having that little flame share my oxygen, having it live when everything around me seemed cold and dead, and I possibly dying, having something in the house be fire hot when I wasnt at all secure it my 98.6ness. 

    Cups and pots of steeping tea also have companionship qualities in my mind.  They are hot, they have lifespans, and they need to be watched somewhat.  They begin a cup of hot water with a tea bag, and they end either consumed or cold and dead.   They require commitment unlike food that you eat right away, or that you prepare and eat instantly.  And, they aren't really food.  They are cups of scented water, not sustaining, really, just being.   I remember the first time I discovered a strong cup of cold Sleepytime tea untasted by my bed after yet another fit of insomnia.   It was Christmas morning, I guess I was maybe ten (yes I could use the stove at ten)  I even burned myself making that stupid tea.  But even though it seemed a waste, it did, somehow help me to sleep.  Maybe waiting for tea to steep for five minutes, rather than anticipating the big day ahead in five hours is the trick. 

  Tea, like a candle, is another thing that happens. It has a life, with seasons, and it goes.   A pretty pathetic excuse for a companion, I'll admit, but pathos happens. :-)

   I don't know what it is with records.  They are fresh in my mind, because I just, Wednesday, got a little record player after many years of not having one.  They arent warm, and they don't breath air or die out.  They do spin though, and they do need to be watched (especially with the way that I have always kept my records---scratchy and needing to have the needly tapped at any moment).  They do terminate----well for me they do.  Most of my life I have had portable/kid record players with no reset thingly.  A record has a lifespan,you watch it slowly spin out, and, I think the old snaps and pops, which (embarassingly) I do love, give it a certain vulnerability--as does the care you try to take not to scratch the vinyl.

   How about a sunset? It lives and peaks and ends like many of these things.  Sometimes maybe a nice sunset stands with us in the way of a television show, or a pot of tea.
  
      People are good to have, no doubt about it.  I think it's a pretty hard life to have a television as your closest companion, and then be told by the electric company to switch to the radio (Then again, being a conservative, I might suggest if for other reasons).  On the other hand, solitude can be beautiful, and there are certain simple things that bless people who have nobody and almost nothing.  Our beating hearts yearn not to be the only warm, wanting, consuming thing around.   In the hours when people are gone, are meant to be gone, and need to be gone and when we are trying to save power, the Lord is ever showing us, in His gently way that He is everything our presently warm, presently lonely, presently living and presently decaying hearts are longing for.

 

   

Sometime last year, Katy Perry's song "I Kissed a Girl" topped the charts.  This being, ostensibly, a Christian nation, all of us Evangelicals rose to our feet and declared, "This song is an abomi--oh--never mind!" Ugh, abomination fatigue!  I think I've had it since "The Last Temptation of Christ" hit the theaters, and I was ten at the time.(I actually watched it when I was 20. If you're wondering, it is even more perverse than you are imagining that it is, I'm serious.)

       Well, let's take a break from offending the Evangelicals, shall we?  Check out this music video* that was realeased in Italy.  HooooBoy! This would NOT fly in the U.S. ! Wowza! I don't know how he got away with it in Europe, honestly.  Wow!  You can't say that!!!!



*Some scenes may be too creepy/need too much explaining for younger viewers.

http://www.crossroad.to/charts/1-Index.html

Sometimes a good chart can be just the think to get one thinking.  This link is a collection of simple charts pertaining to worldviews Christian and otherwise---very thought provoking.  I'd be interested to know if the ones pertaining to education inspire any thoughts or memories in anybody.

..

 
^{1 Corinthians 5:12-58
12}Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?  ¹³But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:  ¹⁴And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.  ¹⁵Yea,
and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of
God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the
dead rise not.  ¹⁶For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:  ¹⁷And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.  ¹⁸Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.  ¹⁹If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.  ²⁰But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.  ²¹For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.  ²²For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.  ²³But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.  ²⁴Then
cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God,
even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority
and power.  ²⁵For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.  ²⁶The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.  ²⁷For
he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are
put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all
things under him.  ²⁸And
when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also
himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may
be all in all.  ²⁹Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?  ³⁰And why stand we in jeopardy every hour?  ³¹I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.  ³²If
after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what
advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for to
morrow we die.  ³³Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.  ³⁴Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame.  ³⁵But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?  ³⁶Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die:  ³⁷And
that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but
bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain:  ³⁸But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.  ³⁹All
flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men,
another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds.  ⁴⁰There
are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the
celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.  ⁴¹There
is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another
glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.  ⁴²So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:  ⁴³It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power:  ⁴⁴It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.  ⁴⁵And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.  ⁴⁶Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.  ⁴⁷The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven.  ⁴⁸As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.  ⁴⁹And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.  ⁵⁰Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.  ⁵¹Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,  ⁵²In
a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the
trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we
shall be changed.  ⁵³For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.  ⁵⁴So
when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal
shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying
that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.  ⁵⁵O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?  ⁵⁶The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.  ⁵⁷But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  ⁵⁸Therefore,
my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in
the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in
vain in the Lord.