As clear as mud?

FMF: Clarify.

20:20

My first word association was of ‘clarified butter’ and, as I realised that I didn’t know what it was, I looked it up.

After watching an enlightening video on how to clarify butter, I saw a related video that made me quite excited! It was how to make a perfect ‘ghee’.

You see, I have a beautiful Indian cookery book, which I purchased after my amazing trip to India in 2017. In the book are many recipes that stipulate ghee as an ingredient, but I have always, (impatient as I am to do research or hold up the process) substituted oil for the ghee and carried on with the recipe, always wondering if the ghee would make it taste so much more authentic.

But I watched the video and it has answered my query and clarified a simple matter!

Ghee is made almost exactly the same way as the clarified butter – it is essentially the same thing.

And of course, because it is ‘clarified’ it is clear of milk solids and can be stored and used as and when needed.

image of homemade ghee

I love it when I have a clarification of questions, doubts, or misunderstandings (that usually leave my brain feeling cloudy and uncomfortable with the unfinished business somehow).

But now the question of clarified butter and ghee has been clarified, will I ever act on the knowledge and make some?

That is a different matter entirely!

This spoke to me about something important for me.

Often my excuse for not getting something right, or even being disobedient, is that I am not clear on the right path, or the truth.

An old default in me holds to the lie that ‘ignorance is bliss’!

So when the ‘light-bulb moment’ comes and I am then clear, and truth is revealed, I have a responsibility to make an effort and act accordingly.

Time’s up.

Have you had any interesting light-bulb moments recently?

Attempt: Courage or failure?

FMF: Attempt.

Is ‘attempt’ a positive, negative or neutral word to you?

The word ‘attempt’ is a good example to me of how positive or negative associations can become attached to words according to experience.

To me it was a negative word – like an ‘attempt’ was not good enough – it felt inferior to doing something properly, almost like I had signed myself up to fail.

image of electrical circuit showing failed attempt

Attempt in my mind meant ‘failed attempt’.

I used to find myself saying, ‘I’m going to try to make… or try to finish… or try to clean/write/draw…’ and felt already defeated before I started.

A well-meaning friend used to remind me – ‘You’re not going to try, you’re going to do it’. And I would mutter a half-hearted renunciation of the words, but not really believe it.

The most positive maxim was ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again’.

But I wasn’t really sure what success even looked like.

But now I see the word very differently.

I see life differently.

I see success differently.

I am now happy to attempt something – to me an attempt is a sign of life, hope and courage to try something new.

It is a sign of me embracing life, trusting Him who gives me life.

Now I will excitedly attempt to paint, or plaster a wall, or write a story, or cook a meal, knowing that I will try my best and that my attempt will be good enough.

Now I can try something new, have a go, and make mistakes and learn.

That is success.

Every attempt is an act of courage, perseverance, patience and hope.

Hope that the next attempt will also teach me something and be good enough.

Now it is fun to attempt something new – sometimes a bit scary, sometimes I get nervous, but if I inform myself and prepare as well as I can, the chances are that my best attempt will be worth something and it is an adventure.

Life is a series of attempts – attempts at work, at creativity, at relationship, at service, at worship, at play and at understanding the meaning of it all.

You my see my attempts as mediocre and inferior, but to me, my attempts at life bring me great joy and purpose.

Go on! Have a go!

FMF: Copying

12:46

Copy

I’ve been very excited about some recent copying I’ve been doing. You know how I love photos and have recently been sorting through a life-time of photo memories? Well, I also kept all of the negatives – and have still decided to keep them.

Last week, in my ongoing unpacking and sorting, I discovered a wallet of very old photos – they must have been from my mum’s collection and were old style films – 126/110 films.

I thought it would be good to share them with some family members, but despite having had a photo-shop myself for over three years, I now wasn’t sure how to do it; I no longer know where to take films for prints to be made.

photo film negatives

But God knew! So a customer came into the shop asking about old cameras, and in our ensuing discussion, I asked him if he knew where I could take films for copy-prints to be made. To cut a long story short, he has a gadget in which one can feed the negatives and save them onto a memory card. What a fabulous idea!

an ebay image of a similar film scanner I would like to purchase for myself

He lent me the gadget and I went to work immediately with these old negatives, making digital copies that I can take to a photo booth to make copies for my family members.

This is one of the digital copies I now have, of me (blondie on the right) and my lovely Nana and sister.

Of course they won’t be exactly the same as the originals – they’ll likely have to be on 6x4inch photo paper for a start, but they will still be good copies, because they come from the same, original negatives.

I am very grateful to this gentleman for telling me about and letting me borrow the scanner gadget!

I was musing about that kind of mechanical copying, through which almost exact replicas can be produced. I was remembering the old ‘bander’ machines where I used to make copies of work-sheets I had produced for my pupils in class – and now how much more advanced the technology of scanners and photo-copies of today are.

Then I began to think about a different sort of copying – not copying as in producing exact replicas, but copying, as in mimicking, or imitating another. We may mimic another in jest, or in acting, to act like a particular character.

We may also seek to emulate and imitate another that we admire and want to be like. We have our heroes – often people famous for excellence in a field we admire – maybe sport, music, art, politics or another particular career or skill.

Jesus called His disciples to follow Him.

He is my hero!

Paul tells us to be imitators of Christ. He even told his fledgling churches to imitate him.

We won’t be carbon copies of Jesus, but we can become more and more like the one we love.

We have His life in us, His Holy Spirit in us. We have the breastplate of His righteousness to protect us and by His word we are guided in the paths He has created us to follow.

Every day that we remain close to Jesus, we can be transformed from one degree of glory to another as we mature.

I’m reminded of the song I learned as a young Christian – ‘To be like Jesus… all I ask, to be like Him…’