Saints and pancakes

I have an empty maple syrup can on my desk to keep spare pencils in, but in the local grocery store maple syrup comes in small glass bottles with weird little round handles near the top. My friend wanted to know what the handles were for, so of course I told her that in Ontario we hang our bottles from our belts, nice and convenient for anytime we need sweetening up. I don’t think she believed me.

When I did a little research, I discovered that the useless handle is called a skeuomorph, an object that imitates the design of a similar artefact made of a different material. There was a time when maple syrup would be stored in earthenware jugs that had large round handles near the top to make pouring easier. Today’s small handles are memories of how things used to be, similar to the useless grills on the front of electric cars and the paper file image on your computer “desktop.” A bit nostalgic, a bit of design shorthand, these skeuomorphs help make the new feel familiar. They trigger something in our collective awareness and help us to adapt to changing designs.

Time to stitch a new saint

This reminds me of another recent conversation, this time with friends from church. We have handmade banners in our sanctuary, featuring a range of figures from throughout history. Barefoot Mary Jones and her Welsh Bible, Dietrich Bonhoeffer sitting writing, Sojourner Truth with broken shackles. When the banners were made 20 years ago, there was a series of talks about these people and their stories, and some people think it might be time to share these stories again. Others wonder if it might be time for new stories. Neither side is the only right answer. I think we need to remember what we know and find new stories, too.

Which brings me back to pancakes.

Two eggs or three?

I make pancakes every Saturday morning and have since my kids were little. I started with my mother’s recipe which called for two eggs but, as kids grow, they tend to get hungrier, so I had to rework the recipe for three eggs. This year, my eldest left home. For several weeks, I kept on with three eggs. Call it generosity, call it a tired habit. Pre-coffee on a Saturday morning, frugal decision making isn’t my strong point. My still-at-home boys were pleased but overfed, so I switched back to the original recipe. Then Christmas came along, and my daughter came home (three eggs) and then went back to university (two eggs). So, Saturday mornings now call me to remember and recalculate. Who is under my roof? What do I need to feed them?

That is how I think tradition should work. Of course, it feeds us and reminds us of our histories. But tradition also needs to be translated to answer today’s needs. Sometimes that means we need to find new stories and new designs. Sometimes, we need gentle reminders of what came before. Like any translation, it should be a creative process that engages our current context as well as our cultivated pasts.