“Mom’s going to help me bake for German class,” I hear my daughter announce as we enter the house.
We have just returned from a performance of the Messiah, in which she played trumpet in the chamber orchestra. It is 9:45pm. I have no memory of this baking agreement.
“You are the best, mom,” she says as she starts to pull ingredients and utensils out of the cupboards for her recipe that involves, among other steps, making pastry from scratch. And she’s decided on a triple batch.
There is nothing for it but to dive in. Oh, for the enthusiasm and audacity of a teenager who thinks nothing of starting to bake when the rest of us are ready for bed.
I take an advisory role, and then watch with burgeoning awe as she takes it all on. Checking on the recipe, which she has as a photo on her iPhone, she adjusts without a hitch when something needed is not at hand. It is not my kind of preparation. Not at all. I would have set aside a different kind of time, and measured out the steps in a distinctly different fashion. But as she dances from mixing to sautéing to rolling out dough, it all comes together. And in the end, I am along for a glorious ride.
Advent is ending, the hour is late, and there is nothing for it now but to dive in. Others will have prepared the way, made paths straight, where I have been unable or uninspired. And God watches over all, bemused perhaps when I forget our agreed upon plans, or think there is only one way ahead, one path to the manger. And I realize that my unpreparedness is its own kind of readiness.
Image credit: / 123RF Stock Photo
Copyright Anne E. Kitch 2014
