10 Years Later - 9/11

With all the 9/11 media coverage this past week, it's been hard not to reflect on that day's events and how they intersected with my own life.

Ten years ago I was crashing for the night at a former roommate's apartment. It was a week before my senior year of college was to start and an InterVarsity weekend leadership retreat was scheduled to begin later that afternoon. I had just returned from a summer urban project in L.A. and was excited for what the year would hold.

I don't remember the exact details of how I learned about the event, but I do remember a neighbor came over and told us to turn on the TV. We watched reruns of the footage (I think we found out about an hour after it happened) and tried to understand what it all meant.

I remember how uncertain everything felt in that moment: What does this all mean? Is it safe? Do I know anyone in NY? Is family ok? Is the leadership retreat canceled? Where is God? Are we at war? Is there more coming?

We did have the leadership retreat later that day but I have to confess I don't remember much of it and was probably fairly distracted for most of it. It's hard to focus on the vision that God might have for the ministry at UCSB that year when you're grappling with what in the world God is doing and thinking with your country.

Out of all the media coverage this week, the most powerful documentary I stumbled upon was a Front Line documentary called Faith And Doubt at Ground Zero. It basically looks at spiritual elements surrounding that day and to sum it up in one word, it's haunting. Haunting both in the questions it leaves unanswered, but in the many testimonies of faith: faith and hope in a God when everything around you doesn't make sense.

I think questioning my belief in God will be the lasting legacy of 9/11 in my own life. To say I believe in a loving, just, and righteous God after such an event takes a lot more conviction for me now than it did prior to that day. If anything 9/11 forced me to reconsider if I really believe such verses as Job 19:25-17 or James 1:2-8.

I will never fully understand where God is in events like 9/11 or any of the hundreds of other acts of terror that happen during a single year in our world, but I do believe God is present even in such events and that he is not only mourning right along with us but at work in ways that we do not see or comprehend.

Jalapeno Regrets

A few weeks ago I decided to try canning salsa to try and use up all the extra tomatoes from the garden. I found a recipe online and was very careful to follow the recipe exactly. I know that with canning it's important to follow recipes as closely as possible. However there was one instruction that seemed a bit extreme: "we recommend wearing latex gloves while chopping the jalapenos".

I've chopped up one or two jalapenos in the past and never had any problems so I thought, that's great advice but not necessary. So I went ahead and chopped up 8 jalapenos without gloves.

An  hour later, my hands were on fire. I washed them, I scrubbed them and went about the rest of my day trying to ignore my pulsing hands. 8 hours later as I sat in bed trying to ignore my hands that seemed to only heat up even more as I laid still trying to fall asleep, I thought there has got to be something to make it stop.

I turned to google and tried everything. One site suggested trying lime or lemon juice. So I rummaged through the fridge and found some lemon juice and rubbed it all over my hands. It helped for a little bit but within 10 minutes my hands were heating up again. So it was on to attempt number two: heavy cream. One site suggested using a milk product to help stop the pain. We head some heavy cream in the fridge and so I soaked my hands in it for about 5 minutes.

To my amazement, the pain actually started going away. Just to make sure, I put some aloe on my hands and took some Tylenol too. 20 minutes later the pain was still gone from my right hand and only slightly there on my left (I think my left hand touched the jalapeno's more than my right).

All I can say is that next time, I'll pay more attention to the seemingly pointless instructions in recipes.

Homemade Brownies

The other night we were craving brownies but we didn't have any brownie mix on hand and neither of us felt like driving the .25 miles to the grocery store. I don't remember why, but I wondered if there was a way to make brownies from scratch. And low and behold, brownies don't have to come from a box. Who knew.

Here's the recipe we tried based on a quick google search: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/best-brownies/detail.aspx

I don't know why I thought brownie only came from boxes. But brownies from scratch are pretty good. I followed the recipe exactly. They were a bit on the buttery side so the next time I substituted the butter for oil and they tasted a lot more like the brownie box mix brownies. (Matt liked them better with the butter however.)