Wow! My first couple days of Lent have been sooooo amazing! I’m just gaining so many insights into my faith and… yeah, I’ll just shut up now and move on to my Quick Takes.
Please help my friend Paula win an award from Circle of Moms. Her daughter Anna has Maple Syrup Urine Disease (MSUD) and has been waiting two years for a liver transplant. Their transplant blog was nominated to be in the Top 25 Moms with Inspiring Families. If you’re a mom, please go vote. At last glance, she was #26 or #27.
I have a mirror site for my Lenten writings on WordPress.Com. Want to read my Lenten writings (which are crappy thus far) but do not want to have to look at my eeevvvvvvvvviiiiiilllllll Obama button? Go here. You’re welcome.
Need some ideas for food on meat-free days? Priest’s Wife has a great entry on meatless means for manly men. My recommendations are Gardenburgers and various Morningstar Farms products (both in your freezer section). I can personally vouch for both brands’ iterations of Portabella/Mushroom Lovers burgers and spicy black bean burgers. I’m also a fan of Morningstar Farms Tomato & Basil Pizza Burgers and their veggie corn dogs. (Truthfully, I prefer them to regular corn dogs.) I can’t speak highly of Morningstar Farms breakfast products because the texture is just wrong to me and I’m also mildly allergic to eggs (i.e. no breakfast sandwiches) for me. My vegetarian husband, however, loves their veggie bacon and veggie sausage patties and links.
I know that the vast majority of you are Catholic but I have a source for interesting and worshipful music. Ron Pogue at Unapologetically Episcopalian posts Morning and Evening Prayer every day and includes a Youtube video of sacred music each time. Some of it is Anglican chant (which is incredibly beautiful) and some of it is classical music. He’s also on Facebook which means that you can get it in your news feed… if you haven’t given up Facebook for Lent. 😉 If I didn’t already have a devotional that I use, I’d totally do Morning Prayer using his site and my Book of Common Prayer.
Along the lines of interesting and worshipful music for prayer, I can’t recommend Pray As You Go enough. I used to use this (in addition to Our Daily Bread) during my hour-long commute to work in Montana. It was mostly silent prayer but there was always some kind of music at the beginning and it spanned the spectrum from Taizé to chant to Ladysmith Black Mambazo. I also used the silent time after I hit mile marker 379 on I-15 to pray for people.
My thanks to Kate for coming up with the idea of posting pics of our #ashtag loveliness on Twitter. (Thanks to Beth Anne for compiling them.) My tweets are protected so here are my pics of me rocking my #ashtag.
What I normally look like (with ashes)
Me attempting to look happy and not like I’m fasting.
Me with Mr. Uncooperative.
For want of a simple salt, a woman and her baby died today. What? You didn’t hear about that on the evening news? Oh wait… that’s because it happened in the Third World! Quoting the Preeclampsia Foundation website:
Globally, preeclampsia and other hypertensive disorders of pregnancy are a leading cause of maternal and infant illness and death. By conservative estimates, these disorders are responsible for 76,000 maternal and 500,000 infant deaths each year.
One of the treatments for preeclampsia (to keep it from jumping to full-on eclampsia) is magnesium sulfate (MgSO4), a simple salt that we refer to in the USA as “Epsom salt”. The shortage of a solution of that salt (the concentration needs to be specific) and the lack of a medical professional trained in its usage means the mother and baby die. Want to help combat that problem? Sponsor me in the Promise Walk for Preeclampsia.
For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.
I always forget Morningstar burgers are meat free! They taste so real! I need to remember them sometimes they go on sale Buy one get one free. Thanks for linking to the paper. I thought that was a good idea I was too lazy to dig through #Ashtag for all the pics. My sister saw me looking at the pics and shes all omg why are you looking at peoples ash wednesday ashes thats so morbid! (This comes from a girl that doesn’t go to church) I thought it was pretty cool!
The Ashtags were fun, weren’t they?
I’m really impressed that with everything you do you’re walking in the preeclampsia walk! That’s awesome! I’ll talk to Adam to see what we can do.
Wow, I had no idea that Epsom salt would help against preeclampsia!
Jen’s response: It’s the salt in solution that makes the difference. (The preeclampsia people are very specific about this.) The MgSO4 solution is given by IV and it halts the rising blood pressure enough for them to operate or transfer the person to a place where they can operate.
2- BAHAHAHA!! Loved that!
6- Yay for Ashtags! 🙂
whoa- I might have to get an mp3 player- that ap looks awesome
about veggie burgers- I did a TON of lenten food shopping and forgot to get veggie burgers! So I bought some yesterday- I like them because they seem to be soy free- I get a little squirrely around soy (except tofu)
This is my first year as a bona fide Catholic, although I did observe Ash Wednesday last year, when I was beginning to explore Catholicism.
I did better this year in not having an extremely penitential face while riding the trains. The whole world didn’t have to know that my stomach was growling nor did I need to look like a Saint in the running.
It’s sort of hard to look “normal” with a cross made out of ashes on your forehead, or in my case, a smudge.