Muffins and embodied prayer

Do you ever have moments when you just have to do something? When you can no longer sit and meditate and think? When you need to physically work out the things you are thinking about?

I have those moments quite regularly.

I woke up far too early again this morning. The curse of one who is grateful when a night of sleep extends to 5 or 6 hours. While I love days off, it can make for a very long day when you rise before 8:00 and don't return to bed until midnight or later.

Days of mostly solitary thinking and reading and processing and praying - of pushing in - have left me antsy and lonely. That feeling of waiting for the other shoe to fall, for the breakthrough to come. I was feeling that this morning.

I tried various methods of distracting myself. Watching a bit of television, or an episode of Scrubs available on the internet. Conversation with my roommate and our houseguest as they prepared to head out the door for a half-day of skiing at Lake Louise.

Finally I got up off the couch.

Clothes. Put some on. There's something about wearing things that are not what you wear to bed that lets me focus more clearly.

I began to download a documentary on spirituality and depression. You can listen to it here.

This morning, I am letting my thoughts, my creativity, my need for structure, my prayers play out in baking. I am making muffins. Something that's been on my schedule for over a week. Since before I began a fast that wouldn't permit me to eat them. I'd purchased the ingredients just before God began to call me to fast, and they sat in my fridge while I engaged in that.

Today, I am making muffins. Simple white muffins, using a recipe of my mom's from my growing up years, with just a dab of raspberry jam in the middle.

I'll take some to my brother when I go to see him later today, to watch a movie with him as he recovers from his surgery on Thursday.

Some will go to church tomorrow, for the light buffet brunch that will follow the Easter service.

Some will go with my roommate and our guest, as they make a road trip next week, visting the West Coast and enjoying the waves and water.

Some will stay with me, and I'll enjoy them, and remember how baking them let me embody my thought and prayer life in a way that soothed my soul.