the 🍏 project
It all started about a month ago, Jen Lemen, over at Hopeful World http://hopefulworld.org/ showed up in my email inbox, which always makes me smile.
I enjoy Jen’s words, her heart, her search for love, her work in the world, and her vulnerability in being human. That day Jen wrote about baking her magic apple cake and sending one lucky reader a slice.
Well, seems like me, and about 45 or so others, were feeling lucky…and so we sent our requests to be selected!! Jen wrote a lovely response back saying such nice things and including, ‘You may have misread me, I only meant one person!’ and she sent the magical apple cake recipe (paraphrasing Jen’s words and loved her written recipe, which looked very interesting and yummy to the baker side of me).
I totally got her panic and it made me laughed and reply something like, ‘one lottery selection is fine, and that I felt very lucky and knew I was going to be eating apple cake soon’
Then…next day. I believe, there arrives another message from Jen and this one says something along the lines of, ‘All the responses had made her think about community and what if we could all eat cake? All of the people could get slices of cake and tea and we could all eat from the same shared cake and we could all be connected in this very special way. Wouldn’t that be a really good thing to happen in the world?’
To which I said, ‘YAY!’
Well, I like this all very much and I am totally inspired by Jen’s Let Them Eat Apple Cake thoughts and words. And I am inspired, at that moment, by my local apple orchard, Bishop’s Orchard http://www.bishopsorchards.com/ who is at the very same time, doing their yearly Random Acts of Apples and delivering apples to people who need them. And by my friend, Robin OK, who had just been to visit me and had experienced apple karma and we had gone for apples for her trip, taken pictures of her in front of the apple sign at Bishop’s!
And so…I write Jen and I ask if she needs me to help? I would love to be part of this project and bake a few magical apple cakes and send them out, with much love, on her behalf (per her vision and instructions), and, the short version of what Jen said is, ‘Yes, thank you, that would be lovely.’
Over the past few weeks I have slowly and steadily prepared and walked toward the magic apples and over the past three days I have executed Operation Apple Cake! On the two year anniversary of my descent into the dark night of the soul, two years from arriving at a place of no hope, I stood in the light and baked two yummy apple cakes with so much joy, gratitude and hope which connected me to people from California to NJ and many places in between. Yesterday I mailed out my 15 boxes of chucky magic apple cake to amazing women I may never know, but will always be connected to through loving prayer and apple cake, and, I must say, I have not felt so good in many a moon!
The post office people totally enjoyed the story of the apple cake for the world and have requested pieces for themselves, which is a wish I feel that I want to fulfill – they are a vital part of the cake delivery process, so, looks like I will be making more apple cake before this project is completed.
Not everyone gets it, of course. I was telling a girl at the cafe about my appley project and she said, ‘Why would you do that? What do you get from them?’
At one time in life I would have tried to explain to her about how important these things are in the world. Now I just smile and say, ‘I get to have a happy heart!’ and I go my way with said happiness trailing along like Pigpen’s dust trails. Yes, surely, goodness and mercy follow me all the days of my life! (don’t call me Shirley 😃)
I feel so fortunate to have been a part of this project, so blessed to be able to share, care and send love into the world one small box o’ cake at a time!
Thanks, Jen Lemen, for bringing hope and love into the world and allowing me to be a part of such a very cool project!
ACL 12/5/14
life: acoustic & amplified 