The .Plan

I.

There isn’t much in Tohatchi, New Mexico. A clinic run by the U.S. Indian Health Service, a cute post office, 4 churches (Assemblies of God, Mormon, Catholic, and CRC), an elementary school, a school for the developmentally disabled, a few scattered homes and hogans, and lots of red clay mud. With the exception of the clinic, Tohatchi closely resembles many of the isolated communities on the “Res”.

One weekend I interrupted my work to visit a rug auction in nearby Crownpoint. These rugs are beautiful. But not perfect. The corner of the rug has a flaw. They say that is where the spirit moves in and out.

My own religious tradition teaches me much the same. It is exactly in those flawed places where the Spirit of God moves and where we can catch a glimpse of grace.

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body of of the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
–2 Corinthians 4:7-11

II.

The easiest bruschettas to make are the ones with tomato, olive oil, and basil. There isn’t even any cooking involved. Any fifth grader with a knife and a chopping block can do this. I’ve been doing it for years.

Last year, my favorite inpatient attending in Seattle gave a bruschetta recipe. Only this one was made out of eggplant:

INGREDIENTS:

1/3 c. olive oil
1 sm. red onion, diced
1 clove garlic, thinly sliced
1 eggplant, peeled and diced
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1/2 tsp. dried red chile flakes
1/8 tsp. freshly cracked peppercorns
6 mint leaves, chopped
extra-virgin olive oil for drizzling

PREPARATION:

1. Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add onion and cook until soft, about 4 minutes. Add garlic and cook another minute, then add eggplant, salt, chile flakes, and pepper. Turn heat to low. Cook, stirring every few minutes, until eggplant is soft, about 20-30 minutes.

2. Stir in mint. Spoon onto bruschettas and drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil. Serve.

I’ve never liked cooking with eggplant. Aesthetically, it doesn’t please me; the skin is smooth and shiny but also rough, and the interior is coarse and bland. Functionally, it is difficult to work with; the alkaloids in the pulp carry a bitter taste, and the spongy flesh soaks up oil too easily.

The secret to working with eggplant is that you need to salt it first and let it sit. The salt draws out water, leeching some of the bitter juices and also collapsing some of the air pockets in the pulp thereby rendering it less prone to absorbing excessive amounts of oil during cooking. When you see liquid beading on the surface, perhaps an hour later, only then is it time to rinse the eggplant, squeeze it out, and start cooking. You can’t rush it.

I can’t imagine what it must be like for the eggplant to go through this.

Eggplant is clearly not the ideal fruit. Yet despite its shortcomings, the final product is nothing like the coarse, bland fruit that you pick at the store. It takes time, but it is possible to coax out of it a mixture of bright mint, spicy chile, and rich, creamy eggplant bruschetta, cooked to succulent perfection — eggplant bereft of the dross, savored it in all its changeability.

III.

There is an old Puritan prayer:

O God, may Thy Spirit speak in me that I may speak to Thee. I Lord Jesus, great high priest, Thou hast opened a new and living way by which a fallen creature can approach Thee with acceptance.

Help me to contemplate the dignity of Thy Person, the perfectness of Thy sacrifice, the effectiveness of Thy intercession.

O what blessedness accompanies devotion, when under all the trials that weary me, the cares that corrode me, the fears that disturb me, the infirmities that oppress me, I can come to Thee in my need and feel peace beyond understanding!

The grace that restores is necessary to preserve, lead, guard, supply, help me. And here Thy saints encourage my hope; they were once poor and are now rich, bound and are now free, tried and now are victorious.

Every new duty calls for more grace than I now possess, but not more than is found in Thee, the divine treasury in whom all fullness dwells. To Thee I repair for grace upon grace, until every void made by sin be replenished and I am filled with all Thy fullness.

May my desires be enlarged and my hopes emboldened, that I may honour Thee by my entire dependency and the greatness of my expectation.

Do Thou be with me, and prepare me for all the smiles of prosperity, the frowns of adversity, the losses of substance, the death of friends, the days of darkness, the changes of life, and the last great change of all. May I find thy grace sufficient for all my needs.

So Gad came to David that day and said to him, ‘Go up, erect an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.’ David went up according to the word of Gad, just as the LORD had commanded. Araunah looked down and saw the king and his servants crossing over toward him; and Araunah went out and bowed his face to the ground before the king. Then Araunah said, ‘Why has my lord the king come to this servant?’ And David said, ‘To buy the threshing floor from you, in order to build analtar to the LORD, that the plague may be held back from the people’. Araunah said to David, ‘Let my lord the king take and offer up what is good in his sight. Look, the oxen for the burnt offering, the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for the wood. Everything, O king, Araunah gives to the king’. And Araunah said to the king, ‘May the LORD your God accept you.” However, the king said to Araunah, ‘No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price, for I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God which cost me nothing’. So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. David built there an altar to the LORD and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. Thus the the LORD was moved by prayer for the land, and the plague was held back from Israel.