Sunday 8th October - virtual walk, cooking, Collect for Trinity 18

Good day, so far (it's still afternoon)

Yesterday I walked about 1200 steps, no, to be strictly honest I accumulated 1200 steps on my step counter.

So I'm back on the road at Yosemite, walking between sequoias again along the top of the valley.

Most of the tomatoes I left on a sunny windowsill ripened, and there were various bits and pieces of vegetables in the bottom of the fridge, so I got chopping;

Two pans and a crock pot looks like overdoing things, but there was method in my madness; I sweated the celery, onion, carrots and garlic in the big pan, then transferred some to the smaller pan for lunch. I was tempted not to skin the tomatoes, but managed not to be lazy, so while the veg in the big pan was doing its stuff, I put the prepped tomatoes in the crock pot. Then I added the remaining veg and some stock, a bay leaf, sprigs of rosemary and thyme to the crock pot and set it going for a couple of hours. Once it is cool I'll portion it for casseroles and soups.

Meanwhile, lunch was the rest of the veg, simmered with seasoning and herbs, and, brainwave, some chopped balsamic tomatoes from a jar, plus the last of the chicken we had earlier in the week.

After about 10 minutes I added some chopped chard stalks (from the garden), followed by the leaves a coupe of minutes later, and zapped a Tilda 'Indonesian Fried Rice' sachet in the microwave rice.

 

It might not be even close to a proper 'nasi goreng' but made a very good Sunday lunch.

I was reading the list of ingredients on the back of the packet - for a processed ready meal food, it's not too bad. Not to salty either, maybe a bit sweeter than I like.

It's the 18th Sunday after Trinity today. This is the collect for the week in my old prayer book; 

LORD, we beseech thee, grant thy people grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and with pure hearts and minds to follow thee the only God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I was pondering this prayer; for many people the words 'follow thee the only God' could be anything from irrelevant to offensive, depending on what they believe. Should I therefore even post this? 

But yes; there is something to take from this prayer, for everyone, whoever, however, even if you need to skip over some of the words.  

We all struggle with temptations, however we frame them. Money, power, addiction, untruth, injustice - no, not just as things that happen 'out there' but things that we have to deal with inside ourselves. And surely it is a good thing to want to have pure hearts and minds? I'm not talking about the trivial stuff, the odd bit of vocabulary that gets used under stress. It's those dodgy moments when we do or say something that, on reflection, would have been better not done or said. Or the reverse - missed the opportunity ('through weakness, negligence, or our own deliberate fault') to do or say good.

Well, I hope we all manage to 'withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil' this week.