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Tag Archives: taste

On Food, Tears, and God…

05 Wednesday Jul 2017

Posted by jandrewsweckerly in Uncategorized

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Tags

comfort, community, emotion, familiar, food, God, intimacy, memory, power, relationship, taste, tears, worship

IMG_5249About ten years ago, I traveled with a group of seven seminarians to Myanmar, or Burma.  The purpose was to learn about, develop relationships with, and support the Anglican Church in Myanmar.  I could talk for days about that four-week trip, but one of the experiences that lingered with me was the food.  Part of why the cuisine lingered with me was because each of my three years in seminary we had one or two Burmese students at the seminary.  After the trip, we took to having reunions at a local Burmese Restaurant.  We found the meals reminded us of the flavors of that trip, the food comforted our Burmese friends, and the fellowship kept the experience vivid and meaningful for years to come.

This past weekend I was traveling in the area of my seminary and made a trip to the restaurant for lunch.  I ordered my two favorite, most potent memory-invoking dishes:  mohingar, a fish-based soup, and pickled tea leaf salad.  I had been looking forward to the food for weeks – so much so that I was salivating by the time I pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant.  What I was not expecting was the wave of emotion that accompanied the food.  As the heat of the salad opened my sinuses, I was reminded of multiple episodes on our trip where funny food-related experiences happened – a too-hot pepper eaten, the presentation of tiny birds as an appetizer, an avocado milkshake.  As I sipped the mohingar, the warmth in my belly reminded me of all the times the food, though foreign, was exceptionally comforting – like discovering a comfort food you never knew you missed.  As those memories and feelings emerged, I became overwhelmed and found myself fighting back tears.  The rush of emotions was completely unexpected and disorienting, and I could not be sure whether I was sad or profoundly happy.

I have talked a couple of times about the power of food, taste, and memory (both here and here) to connect with our spiritual life.  But what I realized this weekend (as I tried not to cry into my mohingar) is that food and taste point to the powerful experiences that can happen in faith communities.  For the team that traveled to Burma, the food was a tool for bringing us together and sharing memories.  For our Burmese friends and fellow students, the food was an opportunity to experience intimacy and trust that I do not think would have happened in the classroom alone.  The taste of the familiar dishes were not simply familiar tastes.  They were also tools for creating and sustaining community, and honoring that community through the senses.

This week, we will be starting a new summertime worship service at Hickory Neck.   Though rooted in our Episcopal and Anglican identity, the service is a departure from our Sunday morning services.  We are using different prayers and music; we are settling into a more casual style of worship and preaching; and we are even changing small things like the type of bread we eat for communion.  Part of the changes are certainly meant to shift the sensory experiences of worship.  But another part of the changes is meant to shape community a bit differently – to create a sense of intimacy, familiarity, shared spiritual journey.  I am not sure if pita bread will be able to accomplish all of that, but I hope you will come out and give this new offering a try.  Who knows what memories, relationships, and encounters with God you will create?!19264649_1524550660934522_2960725217281690693_o

Comfort food…

30 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by jandrewsweckerly in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

church, comfort food, Eucharist, God, meal, nostalgia, senses, taste

Courtesy of https://www.flickr.com/photos/lorikay/172625272/

Courtesy of https://www.flickr.com/photos/lorikay/172625272/

Whenever my family and I travel to familiar places, there are required food-related stops.  When we go to San Diego, it is El Indio, Rubios, and In-N-Out.  When we go to Delaware, it is Capriotti’s and Rita’s.  When we go anywhere South, it is Krispy Kreme, Chick-fil-A, and Waffle House.  Somehow our trips do not feel complete until we have made it to our special food establishments.  In fact, in San Diego, the very first stop after the airport is not home – it is straight to El Indio.  We look forward to the food for weeks before our trips, and we make sure that whatever agenda is planned, those food stops are figured into the master plan.

Not only do we make the stops because the food is amazing (because it is!), we also make the stops out of a sense of nostalgia.  Because many of those establishments have not expanded to where we currently live, there is a way in which the food brings us back to other times in our lives.  The sense of taste overwhelms the mind with memories, and we find ourselves savoring not just the food but the treasured experiences as well.  Food has a tremendous power to create a sense of home – sometimes even more so than a particular house.

I have often felt that same way about the Eucharistic meal.  Though I celebrate Eucharist multiple times per week now, every once in a while, powerful sensory experiences overwhelm what could be the mundane.  The flavor of the host (yes, those bland wafers actually do have a taste), whether or not the host is stale or crunchy in your mouth, the sharp taste of communion wine at a time that would not normally be acceptable for consumption of wine – all of these sensory experiences can make communion powerful over and over again.  And sometimes, the familiarity of the taste and texture is also comforting.  When all else in my world seems out of control, that moment of receiving the body and blood of Christ is centering like nothing else can be.

I wonder what you have done lately to connect on a sensory level with God.  Maybe you have missed church these last couple of weeks (or months, or years).  Maybe you come to church, but you disconnect during the familiar Eucharistic prayer because it is just too familiar.  This past Sunday at St. Margaret’s, we sang “Taste and See,” one of my favorite communion hymns.  The words are based on Psalm 34.  Like a familiar dining establishment, whenever I read the psalm, I think of the song.  And whenever I think of the song, I am reminded of the many powerful times that holy meal has shaken up my senses in fresh ways.  I invite you reconnect with God this week on a sensory level.  Perhaps you will remember another place you call home.

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