Kitchen Time: Tuesday's Reflection

Barbara Brown Taylor says in the introduction to her book An Altar in the World, A Geography of Faith, she hopes her readers will "recognize some of the altars in the world."

One of my altars is my kitchen. 

True, it is often a messy altar, because my kitchen is small, very small, but it is there where in the stirring, the mixing, the measuring, the cutting, and the chopping, I return to calm. I move away from myself and towards the tiny spark that is God within. I recognize my contemplative soul.

I have been in the kitchen frequently lately, which is often the case for me in the fall. Ah, the aroma of turkey chili simmering in the slow cooker, and the smell of apricot or applesauce bars or pumpkin bread pudding baking. Recently, we had friends for dinner, and I tried several new recipes to accompany a turkey breast: brussels sprouts with parmesan cream, sweet potatoes with pumpkin seed pesto, and a stuffing in which the main ingredients were pumpernickel bread, fresh spinach, and water chestnuts. During that two-day cooking marathon my kitchen did not resemble an altar, but eventually the dining room table did as we savored the taste and the conversation.

During the preparation I listened to favorite podcasts, usually ones discussing books, which meant my To Be Read list grew even longer, but I also listened to my inner conversation. What is taking space in my mind? My heart? I thought about a new friend who has initiated divorce proceedings, and I thought about a client who is beginning the retirement stage of her life, and about another one who is in deep stages of grief. I explored some ideas for the chapter I am revising for my spiritual memoir. I replayed some recent moments with loved ones. 

As I mixed another batch of pumpkin bread, I thought of the friend whose recipe I was following. We are no longer friends, and I miss her and the friendship the way it once was before it became unhealthy. I placed the tins of batter in the oven and sent her a blessing. 

I remembered a long ago neighbor, the mother of several young children, who said she didn't bake because "they just eat it." Clearly, kitchen time was not contemplative time for her, but sometimes I need to get away from my desk and making a mess with flour and sugar is more satisfying than messing with verbs and nouns. And cleaning up in the kitchen leads to as much contentment as a well-crafted paragraph.

Most of the time, the results of kitchen time taste good, and I feel pleasure in those moments of cozy and contemplative productivity. 

Kathleen Norris in a lecture she gave at Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame, Indiana in 1998, "The Quotidian Mysteries, Laundry, Liturgy and 'Women's Work,'" refers to the details in the book of Leviticus, "involving God in the minutiae of daily life--all the cooking and cleaning of a people's domestic life--might be revisioned as the very love of God. A God who cares so much as to desire to be present to us in everything we do."

Everything we do. Everything we create. Everything we serve. 

An Invitation
Where are the altars in your world? I would love to know. 

NOTE: My essay "The Comfort of Shawls," originally published in Bella Grace, issue 9, Sept/Oct/Nov 2016, has been reprinted in a new Bella Grace publication, The Cozy Issue. You can find this new publication on the newsstand beginning November 1.