Shrove Tuesday

Pancake Day! Pancake Day!

Don't let your pancakes frizzle away!

                                                                                                   -- Traditional

 

We went on a little outing to our fancy health food store in search of a Shrove Tuesday snack. I am always in mind of a little photo-copy a friend sent me that comes from Hints on Child Training by H. Clay Trumbull, wherein the author describes ways to make the Sabbath day stand out in a child's mind, even from their earliest days. I am usually a little suspicious of things that talk about "training" children. I worry that they are geared more towards the convenience of adults rather than the good of the child. In this case, however, I think "training" actually means "building a foundation" rather than "eradicating unwanted behavior". Trumbull gives delightful descriptions of saving a child's best clothing, toys, and foods for the Sabbath day so that the child actually feels in every activity that the day is special.  He says,

It is for the parents to make clear the distinction that marks, in the child's mind, the Lord's day as the day of days in the week's history. The child may be differently dressed, or differently washed, or differently handled on that day from any other. . . . There may be a sweeter song sung in his hearing, or a brighter exhibit of some kind made in his sight, . . . which links a special joy with that day in comparison with the days on either side of it.

It seems quite apparent to me that one can expand on this idea to guide the celebration of the seasons as well as the weeks. Having never read the whole book, perhaps Trumbull does just that, but it has become a guiding light for me as I bring the liturgical seasons to these littlest of children. One of the most basic things we all take part in is food. Changing the kind of food one eats is a very simple and all encompassing way to mark one season as different from another. And so we went to our fancy health food store to find cookies, but also to find beans.

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." John 12:24

I was super excited to find a bean called the Christmas Lima. It's the second one to the left. I don't think it gets more poetic than that: the Christmas Bean must fall to the earth, become food for us, and rise again with new life! It's like everything Lent rolled into one! We will have to plant some of those! So, with a cupboard full of beans, a refrigerator full of stock, and pancakes in the making I think we are all set. Happy Shrove Tuesday!