2013 is off to a wonderful start! We returned home, from time in Arizona with family, and jumped straight in to celebrating one of my favorite days of the year: Theophany. Do you love Theophany too? All the water, and the splashing, and the rejoicing with creation?
In Santa Barbara, we bundle off to the beach each year and sing, and the little ones splash into the waves after the cross. It’s always a day of joy! And sandwiches.
This year there was a downpour, so the crowd was a bit thinner, but I came prepared, wrapped in my Irish wool cape, complete with hood. (A definite Saint Brigid moment…) My husband found a neighboring umbrella, and my little one licked the raindrops off his lips. Lots of people were getting soaked. And then the Gospel was read–and the clouds parted–and the sun came out–and the rain stopped! No joke. The photographer for our local newspaper caught the moment as we all laughed and marveled.
Sandwiches came next, and to my delight I was then presented a gift. Several friends had been conspiring over the holidays and they stood around and told me to open the gift–right then.
First the card
Which was so sweet. Then the wrapped box, which revealed this! A beautiful cast iron, prosphoron baking pan!
(And only the day before I had opened another card and gift, from another very special friend.
I do feel loved. )
So now I have a very special baking pan for the communion bread I make for the church. Do you remember when I mentioned this a while back when I posted my recipe for prosphoron?
But more than a pan, I have confirmation in how love travels, person to person. Whatever it is you are giving, whether it’s bread, or a baking pan, or a trip to the moon, what matters most is the friend.
Thank you, my dear friends…
Kate, Seraphima, Joanne, Judy, Carla, Obadiah, Sara, Kristi, Father Nicholas, and Kh Tammy…
The Woman and the Wheat 
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Sounds like Heaven! You surely are loved!
By the way, when my father, who so happens to be a priest, saw those pans, he had to have 2! It’s a very interesting process. The seal comes out beautifully. Keep us posted and make sure you take a pic.
Hugs to John Ronan for me!
Love in XC,
Kh. Tammy
Wow Jane, you deserve it, all the giving you do, God has rewarded you. I like that pan, and have seen it on the internet.
Oh, that moment when the sun came out during reading of Gospel sounds like miracle!
What a wonderful pan…I look forward to seeing photos of your prosphoron that comes out of it! ♥ Sweet friends you have, Jane.
Yes, dear friends… I look forward to baking prosphoron with this pan and sharing my experience. Should be an adventure… I will post photos.
I do love my friends more than the pan, though. 🙂 They are dear, loving people who bring light wherever they go. I know you all do the same!!! Bless you
I was glad to help bringing you the pan. It will be blessed along with the Church.
Yay! It’s always fun to surprise someone with something you KNOW they have been wishing for. Kind of like getting to be St Nicholas for a tiny moment. 🙂