Autumn - a time to sloe down

I love this time of year. 

OK, so the clocks go back on Sunday but we have some clear, crisp days and Guy Fawke’s Night to look forward to. It is also the season for picking sloes for sloe-gin. We were out at the weekend and collected 4½ lbs (slightly over 2kgs). Don't expect me say where - people guard their sources!

We first started making this warming and delicious drink when we moved out of London 5 years ago.  The first year we tried a small batch made in a large glass coffee jar but, as demand from family and friends has grown, production has increased.

This year the ‘foodies’ have tried their hand at sloe-gin, both online and in the media, and are already complicating what is a very simple recipe. So how do you make it?

First pick your sloes. These are the fruit of the blackthorn: the last of the English fruiting trees to produce in the year and the one with the bitterest fruit.  Sloes should be plump, marble-size, black-blue in colour, often with a white bloom on the surface. Avoid other black berries which are shiny and which cluster together as they may be poisonous. 

Traditionally you wait to pick sloes until the first frost, which breaks open the skin ready to release the juice. But if they are plump with ripeness, pick then rinse and stick them in the freezer overnight. When you defrost them they are mostly already split and ready to infuse the gin.

You will need an air-tight jar or demijohn. Kilner jars (with the rubber seals and metal clips) work well, but you can use any glass jar that seals.  Sterilise the jar by washing it and then leaving in the oven for 20 minutes on 130C/Gas Mark 1.

Pour the sloes, sugar and gin in the jar.  To 500g sloes, add 230-250g sugar (some like their drink less sweet) and 1 litre of gin. Use really ordinary, basic gin – Sainsbury / Tesco / Asda own brand.  Although Jamie Oliver and others will argue for using more expensive gin, we have found the cheaper the gin the more the end flavour is truly sloe. (TV chefs may be able to afford lots of expensive gin but who else can?). Seal the jar and give it a jolly good shake. Shake it daily for a week, then every other day for a further week, then weekly for two months. Then put it away in the dark somewhere and leave it there for a year.  

Yes, a year.

If you’ve picked the fruit in October, some very impatient people will be drinking the product at Christmas but it really does pay to wait at least a year before drinking. Strain the mixture (try using a coffee filter paper) and then enjoy. We are currently drinking 2012 sloe-gin but know of friends who allow theirs to mature far longer, apparently with excellent results.

Remember that it has a very high alcohol content.

If alcohol is not helpful to you, another autumn favourite is an excellent Ginger cake, for which the recipe is here in a blog from September last year.  

Enjoy!

Death and friendship

On Friday evening my sister telephoned to say that one of our childhood friends had died. He was my age.

We had not kept in touch. Whole decades of his life were a mystery to me. Now gone.

I am fascinated to discover how life has turned out for those with whom I grew up, went to school, studied or worked. Why will two lives rooted in the same soil grow so differently? Why – given a shared start – did their life take that turning; mine another? 

And then the phone rings. In the midst of life, we are in death.

It seems to me that life holds very few deep friendships. We overlap briefly, owing to shared time, location or circumstance.

Not knowing quite what to think about William’s death and how to react, I was glad of an opportunity yesterday to spend the morning helping more recent friends to move house. We shared the morning disassembling furniture, filling the van and then bringing a first load round to the new home. Five hours where time was spent purposefully together in a shared space; a finite time counting far more than a shallow and casual acquaintanceship.

Then, for the afternoon and early evening, some time spent with a group of friends with whom we had shared a journey of 28 years: reminding, listening and dusting off old jokes. Telling heartrending stories of what had happened since we last met but knowing that, despite the pain, the stories are safer in the telling.

Some were there who had lost touch with us and now promised to come soon to have fish and chip suppers with us in Southend. And for us to visit them – making that slight detour from the A1 that we had always promised to whenever passing. 

This was a time to note with much pleasure that, for the Cranbrook family, at last ‘the lines had fallen for them in pleasant places’ as it says in Psalm 16. I saw the next stage in the mending of broken things beyond, perhaps, what I had thought possible.

“Life is made up of meetings and partings. People come into your life everyday, you say good morning, you say good evening, some stay for a few minutes, some stay for a few months, some a year, others a whole lifetime. No matter who it is, you meet and then you part.”

Important, then, to be mindful of the people in our lives who matter most. For all times seem short when they have gone.

While earth abides

“While earth abides, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter and day and night shall not cease. ” (Genesis 8: 22)

This is the season of Harvest Festival - a good point in the year to look back, take stock, count our blessings and be thankful for all we have and enjoy.

Every culture has their own tradition of celebrating what is most basic to their survival: the food that comes from the earth.  For those of us who do not make our living from the land, we have some distance to travel to connect the meaning of harvest to our daily life. Without thinking, we may end up believing that we are what we are, and have what we have, because of our own hard work, a good education and a decent upbringing. Yet achievement and possessions are not why we are welcomed and embraced by the God who offers sunshine and rain to all people.

I believe that each of us is created and loved by God regardless of who we are, out of love alone. At harvest time, we come simply to say "thank you". 

So what are you thankful for?  How about jotting down a list each night before falling asleep?  

Being mindful of all the things for which you can be thankful boosts your well-being and immune system, research suggests. In a series of experiments detailed in a 2003 study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, listing all the things you are thankful for is linked with a brighter outlook on life and a greater sense of positivity.

To close, a Franciscan blessing: 

"May God bless us with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that we may live deep within our heart.  May God bless us with a righteous anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that we may work for justice, freedom and peace.  May God bless us with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that we may reach out our hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy.  May God bless us with motivation to believe that we can make a difference in this world, so that we can do what others claim cannot be done. With God's help, Amen."

When did we forget that church is for broken people?

When did we first forget that church is for broken people?

When did we start to think that church is for people who are sorted and OK? 

Two men go to worship God. 

The first is a good man. He is respected by his fellow worshippers. He is familiar with the patterns of worship. Above all, he is confident because he knows that he has done everything expected of him. He is not like the scumbag next to him. No, it is from his confidence and the way he lives that he now prays to God.

The other is not a good man. Everyone else going to worship that day is astonished to see him there. They hate him. This man collaborates with the enemy. He fleeces people of their hard earned money, turning over the bulk of it to those who have invaded their country but keeping a good margin for himself. He is ill-at-ease with worship, for he has not been to worship for oh so long. He is far from confident. In fact, he is quite literally beating himself up, smashing his hands against his chest.

Which of these guys truly encountered and engaged with God in that place?

You can read the story here and listen to the full talk here.

Please....de-baptize me

"Please de-baptize me," she said.
The priest's face crumpled.
"My parents tell me you did it," she said.
"But I was not consulted. So
Now, undo it."
The priest's eyes asked why.
"If it were just about belonging to
This religion and being forgiven,
Then I would stay. If it were just
About believing
This list of doctrines and upholding
This list of rituals,
I'd be OK. But
Your sermon Sunday made
It clear it's
About more. More
Than I bargained for. So, please,
De-baptize me."
The priest looked down, said
Nothing. She continued:
"You said baptism sends
Me into the
World to
Love enemies. I don't. Nor
Do I plan to. You said it means
Being willing to stand
Against the flow. I like the flow.
You described it like rethinking
Everything, like joining a
Movement. But
I'm not rethinking or moving anywhere.
So un-baptize me. Please."
The priest began to weep. Soon
Great sobs rose from his deepest heart.
He took off his glasses, blew his nose, took
Three tissues to dry his eyes.
"These are tears of joy," he said.
"I think you
Are the first person who ever
Truly listened or understood."
"So," she said,
"Will you? Please?"

                      - Brian McLaren