My Lovely Dwelling Place

A Luau Devotion or Purpose to Our Pits In keeping with the theme of a Hawaiian Luau, I was asked to present a talk about pits to the lovely ladies at my church. Now they could have asked me to talk about surfing or leis or the hula or poi or volcanoes – but it was pits…I’m not sure if they are trying to tell me something… Now there are all kinds of pits – the Hawaiian one for roasting pigs is called an imu, where the traditional Kalua pig is roasted, but the one we think about when we are talking about our personal pits is the one Webster defines as: Hell, or a place or situation of futility, misery, or degradation . We don’t want to be there, we don’t choose to be there, and we can’t wait to get out of there. My favorite depiction of a pit – is the ‘pit of despair’ from the movie Princess Bride. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBaDcOBoHFk The albino enjoys telling Wesley that he is in the pit of despair and to not even think of trying to escape. And tha...

Home building I am blessed with a husband who enjoys the kitchen. He’s the kind of guy who can open the pantry or refrigerator doors, survey the contents, choose a few random items, and put together a meal that folks want to eat. I call this the ex nihilo gifting - making something out of nothing. I, on the other hand, need a plan and a recipe. Frankly, being in the kitchen has never been my favorite haunt. If the food doesn’t make itself wonderful in the crock pot or cook well frozen, I really don’t want anything to do with it. Although I appreciate my husband’s prowess in the kitchen, I often feel guilty. My evident failure in this area of domestic engineering, and the obvious fact that my lovely face will never adorn the cover of a Betty Crocker cookbook has led to transient feelings of inadequacy. After all, good food warms the cockles of the average young man’s heart - and we have plenty of young men around here.   Order and calm, as well, make for a pleasa...