Angel Hairs

Satellite photo of Wilma

He’s snickering at me.

That roly-poly little man wearing a white apron and a tall puffy cook’s hat stands in our kitchen snickering at me.

As tv news issues dire warnings about Hurricane Wilma approaching the Florida coast Ginny and I continue our meager preparations. Although the storm path is projected to only brush Jacksonville, past experience with these things leads us to suspect we’ll get some downed tree limbs and have to live without electricity for several days.

No, we don’t board up our windows with plywood; I just don’t have the strength to lift sheets of plywood so we take our chances there.

But this is a nervous time which calls for comfort food and one of Ginny’s favorite comfort foods is spaghetti. She asked me to make a big batch so we can eat on it throughout the stormy days ahead.

He’s snickering at me.

I think I’m a good cook, but my family claims I have but a single recipe: Take What You’ve Got And Mix It Together.

For my spaghetti, I crumble a couple of Vidalia Onion Burgers into a pot and fry in olive oil. I slice the ends off a couple of Italian sausage, peel off the skin and crumble the meat in with the burgers.

The peeled sausage skins look just like used… Well, never mind.

He’s snickering at me.

I chip up a couple of onions and celery stalks to add to the frying meat along with a couple of cans of mushroom caps and stems. I add a can of diced tomatoes with basil and some Ragu sauce. I sprinkle the lot with garlic salt, black pepper and chili powder.

Then comes the tricky part.

While my sauce simmers, I boil water and force the noodles to drown in it.

I bought my own spaghetti noodles at the grocery store. (Here’s an odd aside, for some strange reason, Publix does not stock grits on the pasta aisle; I don’t understand that.) Anyhow, as I surveyed the pasta shelves I spotted something called Angel Hair Spaghetti. I read the box.

We religious fanatics are suckers to buy any product with the words “Angel” or “Elvis” on the package. So I bought the angel hair spaghetti.

That little man is still snickering at me.

When I tried to break this angel hair stuff into manageable lengths, it snapped and crackled and popped and shot all over the stove, the counter, the floor and me. It splashed boiling water up onto my hands and arms.

I said some words not related to angels at all.

What the spaghetti box does not tell you is exactly where on an angel’s anatomy these hairs were plucked from.

I didn’t know angels had hair there.

This stuff burned the crap out of me! All the way to my elbows.

And Chief Boyardee just stands there snickering in that superior way of his.

And our kitchen looks as though a hurricane had already hit.

Not to be too melodramatic but on a more serious note, some great preacher of a former generation, I think it may have been John Donne, said that a Christian should always speak as a dying man to dying men.

Having a frivolous mind, I seldom speak seriously, but with a whirlwind bearing down, perhaps I should say what’s really most important to me:

Jesus Christ is worthy.

He came into his world to save us from whatever’s got us licked.

We tortured him to death for his trouble, but death could not hold the Prince of Life. He rose from the grave and ever lives in glory.

He has prepared a place for us if we chose to go there with Him.

He is worthy of every ounce of our strength and time and talent and mind and energy and resources – without exception.

For some reason within himself, He enjoys us. He wishes us well and wants to see us live in joy. He takes us from where we are at this moment.

There’s not a mean bone in his body.

He will judge us, but he never snickers at us no matter how bad we screw up.

There is hope. No matter what we’ve done, no matter what’s been done to us, there is hope in Jesus.

That’s the most important thing I have to say in case our electricity goes out and I can’t post again for a while.

Occasionally during our devotional time after supper, Ginny reads a prayer I like. It says, “Protect us, O Lord, from the dangers of this night -- and from the fear of them -- through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.