Birthday Cake

When it was Russel's b-day in January, I asked him what kind of cake he would like. I have a number of favorite from-scratch recipes I wanted to make. But he said he wanted a marble yellow cake with white frosting like his mother use to make him. So I didn't make him a cake. I got chocolates out that I had bought on clearance, and put some cute candles around them. I refuse to waste my calories on packaged cake-mix cake. True, it wasn't my birthday.

When it was my birthday a week or so later I made whole-wheat (from freshly ground flour of course), walnut carrot cake with cream cheese frosting--lots of walnuts! Hmm, I love that cake. And it got better everyday. With no kids around after the birthday, it actually lasted a couple days after the festivities.

Happy Birthday, Lloya. I would have sent you a piece had there been any left.

Reb's Delicious Whole Wheat Carrot Cake

4 eggs

1 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup applesauce

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 cups whole wheat flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pumpkin spice (or cinnamon)

3 cups grated carrots

1 cup chopped walnuts, or more

Frosting:

1/2 cup butter softened

8 ounces cream cheese, softened

4 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9 x 13 inch pan.

In a large bowl beat together eggs, oil, sugars, and 2 teaspoons vanilla. Mix in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Stir in carrots. Fold in walnuts. Pour into prepared pan.

Bake in a preheated oven for 40 to 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes.

To Make Frosting: In a medium bowl. combine butter, cream cheese confectioner's sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Stir in walnuts. Frost the cooled cake.

WWJD

Budget Cuts and Bad Faith

Under the proposed budget cuts, deficit reduction will not come from the super-rich; it will come from the rest of us. And the poorer you are, the more vulnerable you become, and the more you will pay for the burdens of deficit reduction. For example, Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), a program that helps provide food to hungry mothers and their children faces a $758 million cut. Also, the proposed budget cuts $544 million in international food aid grants for organizations such as World Vision. AmeriCorps, a program that provides public service opportunities for our young adults, would be eliminated entirely. But our military and defense budget, which sends our young adults off to kill and be killed, would receive an $8 billion increase. It used to be very popular for Christians to ask, "What Would Jesus Do?" They even wore bracelets with the initials "WWJD." The bracelets acted as reminders that as Christians, our actions should always reflect the values and example we see in the life of Jesus. Already, in a first wave of response to the proposed cuts, thousands of Christians told their members of Congress that they need to ask themselves, "What Would Jesus Cut?" They believe, and so do I, that the moral test of any society is how it treats its poorest and most vulnerable citizens. And that is exactly what the Bible says, over and over again. I believe that vaccines that save children's lives; bed nets that protect them from malaria; and food that keeps their families from starving are more important to Jesus than tax cuts for the rich; bigger subsidies for corporations; and more weapons in a world already filled with conflict. I also believe that tested and effective domestic programs that clearly help to lift people out of poverty are more reflective of the compassion of Christ than tax and spending policies that make the super-rich even richer. And I don't believe, as the Republicans keep saying, that the best way to help everybody is to keep helping the super-rich. That's not smart economics and, as we say in the evangelical community,it's not biblical. So many of us in the faith community are ready to make a moral argument against the proposed budget cuts to our members of Congress, especially to those who claim to be people of faith. Organizations like Bread for the World and Catholic Charities advocate for critical nutrition programs that keep hunger at bay for millions of American families. Groups such as Habitat for Humanity, the Salvation Army, and the Christian Community Development Association deliver crucial health and human services around the country that hold neighborhoods and cities together. Government aid to programs like these is money very well spent, and many would have to shut their doors without it. Government funding is critical to the work that faith-based organizations like World Vision and Catholic Relief Services do around the world to bring millions of children and families out of poverty, and public-private partnerships pioneered by foundations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that are saving millions of lives.

In Great Britain, Prime Minister Cameron made the choice to delay a costly nuclear submarine program while also increasing funding for international aid. We can do the same. Look to leaders in the faith community to say that the choice to protect the rich instead of the poor in deficit reduction is an immoral one. Taking the cutting knife to programs that benefit low-income people, while refusing to scrutinize the much larger blank checks we keep giving to defense contractors and corporate executives, is hypocritical and cruel. I'll go even further and say that such a twisted moral calculus for the nation's fiscal policy is simply not fair, and not right. It is not only bad economics, but also bad religion. The priorities we are now seeing are not consistent with Christian, Jewish, or Muslim values. And if the super-rich and their representatives in Congress persist in this fight against the poor, they will be picking a fight with all of us.

Jim Wallis is the author of Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street -- A Moral Compass for the New Economy, and CEO of Sojourners. He blogs atwww.godspolitics.com. Follow Jim on Twitter @JimWallis

Happy II

I was feeling quite so completely happy that I thought I would blog about it. But then knowing how things change quickly, I worried that I might bring myself a bit of bad luck by crowing about happiness. I came home that day and found my daily email meditation was about happiness. So today I thought I would go back to that meditation and paste it here.

But try as I might, I cannot find it. Maybe I dreamed it. At any rate it was something about falling through happiness (maybe happy circumstances) and coming through on the other side of circumstance to find that one is happy even without the right situations. I don't think I have quite fallen through the falling through to that point. I'm still driven by circumstances. I have a general sense of peace and happiness, but that is not really the same as a bubbling up of happiness. (Do you remember the happy vs joy SS lessons? That's not what I'm talking about.)

Daffodils are happy. I was thinking of Wordsworth's lines about daffodils and ee cummings. So here is a poem, in lieu of the happy meditation:

in time of daffodils by E. E. Cummings

in time of daffodils (who know
the goal of living is to grow)
forgetting why, remember how

in time of lilacs who proclaim
the aim of waking is to dream,
remember so (forgetting seem)

in time of roses (who amaze
our now and here with paradise)
forgetting if, remember yes

in time of all sweet things beyond
whatever mind may comprehend,
remember seek (forgetting find)

and in a mystery to be
(when time from time shall set us free)
forgetting me, remember me

Glass Flowers

This past weekend, Russ and I went to the Museum of Natural History at Harvard to see the Glass Flowers exhibit. I had seen a glass art "installation" at the Knoxville Museum of Art--it was pretty over powering--pheonmenal, really! So I was expecting to see amazing glass art flowers at this exhibit as well.

But the flowers look so completely real, that you can't tell that they are even made of glass! At first I was a little disappointed, but then mostly amazed. And while you might think that such artistry and expertise must have been accomplished fairly recently with modern advances in glass working, these flowers were made in the late 1900's!

If you want to see the interesting story of how Leopold Blashka, a jeweler born in 1822 in Germany, and his son Rudolf, were recruited to do the flowers, you can click here.

Ah to be young and have a hollow leg or two!

So Mary and Jonathan went on a double date with another track couple to P.F. Chang's restaurant. The meal was so delicious that after they finished, they decided to order second entrees all around!

Happy

I'm happy. :)

pic: Me and Mary in her Cambridge apartment--just before Jonathan arrived to whisk her off to the Freshman Formal. More to come!