Triumph Muffins
Simple pleasures are the last healthy refuge in a complex world.
Oscar WildeI try to infuse my life with beauty and simple pleasures as much as I can.
Like my previous post where I talked about flowers by my kitchen sink add a touch of beauty and bring pleasure to a mundane and sometimes dreaded task.
I think the world is just to full of yuck, hate, separation, stress, worries, pain, etc. And our home should be a refuge. A place where we can rest, breathe, find solace. When we are at home our souls should be at rest, or as much as possible, I don't think we'll ever be at rest until we're united with God like St Augustine writes in his confessions “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You". But you get my point.
One of the ways I like to infuse my home with beauty and make it comfortable to be in is by trying to always have baked goods for snacks.
Baking is something I find infused with pleasure from the moment I put an apron on, measuring the ingredients, the feel of the flour in my hands, my dress covered in flour (happens even with an apron), the mixing, the warmth of the oven, the aroma that fills the whole house, the cleaning the counter with lavender spray, seing something created from basically nothing, and ofcourse that first bite... oh that first bite...
I have a friend that says my house always feels cozy and comforting. I think part of it has to do with making the atmosphere inviting and infused with beauty. But also part of it is we have purposefully removed anything that can bring a yuck feel (or spirit) into our home. We are very careful of what we bring into our home and feed our minds and souls with... the music we listen to, books we read, we don't watch tv unless it's an old movie every once in a great while (to be honest stuff now a days feel like fluff, dumb down, ranchy, and waste of time) why bring the world into our homes?... have you ever heard we are the sum of the people we surround ourselves with? I like to think we are not only the sum of those who we surround ourselves with but also what we surround ourselves and with and feed ourselves with...
I like to ask myself who do I want to be? Is what I am doing/watching/etc bringing me closer to or does it align with the person want to be?
I'd rather spend my time reading good books those you can't seem to be able to put down or have to stop and ponder and chew on something you just read, having deep, smart, meaty and meaningful conversations you know like the ones you can keep discussing until the wee hours of the morning and not notice time passing by, eating delicious foods even better if shared with loved ones, baking and cooking, being in nature and breathing the fresh air, learning new things, growing in my faith...
As we got rid of those things that did not align with who we are called to be, want to be, and quite frankly that will help us get to our end goal Heaven we have seen a shift our home and in us... we can't keep our eyes on what's above like St Paul says if we are constantly looking and filling ourselves with the world.
So we have been mindful what we put in place of what we have removed because if not the world has a way to sneak back and derail us. We brought to our home the classics, old movies, beautiful inspiring magazines not gossip magazines, faith filled podcasts, leaning hobbies/history/etc. Home cooked meals, baked goods, fresh flowers, beautiful music...
And most importantly we are being purposeful to infuse our faith into everything we do for example we call tidying up blessing the home instead, say prayers of gratitude as we work/clean/cook, listen to Gregorian chant or Christian music along with the regulars Jazz, classical, French Cafe. We listen to daily mass readings while having breakfast as a family and read about a saint each day this allows us to have conversations about bible passages and our little one gets to ask questions, we also try to do something or add a fun spin to celebrate or keep the liturgical calendar in mind, etc...
All those things I think bring a certain energy into our home that is palpitable and people notice when they come in because I think it resonates with their soul, it finds a reprieve, it can breathe...
One of the ways I like to bring faith to life is by baking something to go with or with a spin inspired in the liturgical calendar... normally I like to bake from scratch but sometimes life happens and I don't mind using a boxed cake and tweak it because having baked goods is more important to me than it not being 100% home made.
So for Corpus Christi, I tweaked a box of Devil's food cake and turned it into Devil's muffins... why did I pick that for Corpus Christi? Because it's the celebration of the institution of the Eucharist and in Venezuela we have the dance of the Devils of Yare (Los Diablos de Yare) where they get kicked out of the town when good triumphs over evil, when Jesus triumphed over the Evil one, over death, on the cross... normally Corpus Christi is celebrated in the Christian Catholic Chruch with a procession of the Eucarist but the Anglican and other protestant churches celebrate it differently.
I also like to use Devil's boxed cake for St Michael's feast day it's a fun play on words, makes me smile... I know some people use it for Mary's feast day since she trampled the snakes head with her humility and fiat... just some ideas... if you have other ideas for feast days please share them on the posts!
Here is my very simple and somewhat healthy Triumph muffins... I swapped oil and eggs for Yogurt! Ps I'm sure you can do this with any boxed cake flavor
Triumph Muffins
1 box of Devil's food cake
5.3 oz (1 small container) of yogurt
1 cup of water
Chocolate chips on top
Mix and bake 350° for 18-25 mins until toothpic comes out clean
Hope you enjoyed my post for today!
And there is still time to make them for Corpus Christi since even though it was the 8th the church will celebrate it on Sunday...
Luz
