lenten thoughts on taste
Lent is a season when followers of Jesus intentionally try to move closer to God, so this year, we will try to move closer by considering the countless ways we encounter God through our senses.
This week, we are focusing on taste.
Our reflections are from Sue Ellen Spotts and Alicia Anderson.
Sue Ellen and Alicia share some thoughts on the prompt:
“What taste helps you feel the love of God?”
thirst
My friend explained to me that there are two seasons in the Tropical Lowlands of Bolivia: the rainy season and the rest of the year. It was now “the rest of the year.” Traveling, by bicycle on dirt roads, was a hot, dusty experience. I had traveled to the home of the village health promoter. We were meeting to plan some education sessions for the community. The community had a well, but we still needed to teach about water safety. There was a cholera outbreak in the region, and people needed to be vigilant. The best practice was to boil the water, even when it came from the well in case between the pump and the containers there was some contamination.
We were in the countryside, with no electricity. Cooking was done on an open flame. For places too remote (or too poor) for propane, the energy source was wood. The water was boiled in an open kettle and then left to cool. The coolest it might get was room temperature (the “room” being the outdoors on a tropically warm day). To “freshen” the water that had been boiled, flavoring was added; basically, a variation of Kool-aid. Grape was a popular flavor.
When I arrived, looking like a bandit with a bandana across my face to help keep dust out of my lungs and mouth, I was hot and dusty. And thirsty. I was offered a drink and gladly accepted a tin cup of grape refresco. It was not cold, but it was liquid. It was very grapey. And…smokey tasting.
Hospitality was offered in the cleanest, safest way they had to serve me a drink. The taste of God’s love is the taste of guarding the health of your neighbor. To me, it is the taste of tepid, smokey, grape refresco.”
–– Sue Ellen Spotts, Penn State LCM Alum and
Director for Evangelical Mission for the Allegheny and Upper Susquehanna Synods
sweet abundance
To be perfectly honest, my mom was not a particularly good cook. She grew up in a big family on a small farm and they didn’t have much. Meals were simple and designed to fill their bellies and taste was not terribly important. My mom learned to make tasty food, but nothing spectacular. Veggies were always overcooked, seasonings and spices were very limited, and our meals were always enough but never particularly exciting.
Cookies were a whole different story. Christmas cookies are where my mom excelled. Every December of my childhood, she would guide our family as we made dozens and dozens of cookies. There would be 8 – 10 varieties of cookies to share with teachers, neighbors and friends. By the week before Christmas the buffet in the dining room would be stacked with cookie tins filled with home baked holly cookies, fruit cake pieces, pecan tartlets, spritz cookies, mocha logs, snowball cookies, rolled out sugar cookies, toffee bars, and others waiting to be arranged on plates then covered with plastic wrap and delivered the week of Christmas.
The sweet and wonderful taste of those cookies certainly was about Christmas, but they were also about working together in a labor of love for people in our lives. They tasted like abundance, because the cookie tins were so full and ready to be shared. Even now, Christmas cookies taste like love, community, and abundance to me.”
— Alicia Anderson, Campus Minister for Lutheran Campus Ministry at Penn State
O God,
You provide such a wide variety of flavors for me each day.
My tastebuds enjoy while my body is fed and nourished.
Creamy, rich, salty, savory, sour, yeasty, earthy and sweet mix in an ever-changing medley.
I am refreshed by the sweet taste of an apple and empowered by the rich creamy taste of coffee.
I notice that the yeasty bagel is enhanced by butter or hummus or peanut butter.
I delight in briny pickles, savory meat, fresh veggies, rich ice cream, and even clear water.
Whether new experiences or memories from my past, your creativity is in each mouthful.
Each bite is filled with your presence.
Amen.
God created our bodies and gave us marvelous senses through which we engage with the world around us. Every day, whether we think about it or not, we encounter God’s presence through sensory experiences that are holy or silly or powerful or unremarkable. This Lent we will move closer to God by noticing and reflecting on these sense-driven experiences.
We invite you to share your own thoughts and observations on what touch helps you feel God’s love on this link to our Instagram thread this week.
You can share an image or a thought or just a word or two.
Blessings to you this Lent. May we all sense God’s loving presence.
Peace,
Alicia
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