The kitchen is a holy place...

Last night I baked my first successful loaf of bread in a LONG time.  I used to bake a lot 40 years ago.  Hell, I used to bake a lot when the children were small, too.  But over the years I lost interest and time.  Not that I lost interest in bread - even working at the Atkins diet from time to time - it just wasn't a priority in my life.  The same thing once happened to music, too if you can believe that!  After seminary, as I got busier and busier, it seemed that I only played periodically. By the time we got to Cleveland music-making was sporadic for about five years.  Hmmm....

And in some distinctive ways, baking bread last night was like picking up my guitar after a long absence.  It felt a little odd but also familiar at the same time.  I had to follow the recipe very carefully, too because I'd forgotten some things about baking that used to be second nature.  And I was humbled by how much time it took... and that was a good thing.  Joy Mead writes:

Because bread won't be hurried
we have to learn to let it be,
to do nothing, to be patient,
to wait for the proving.
Because bread won't be hurried
and is a life and death process,
we find out in its making
that time is not a line
but a cycle of ends and beginnings,
rhythms and seasons,
growth and death,
celebration and mourning,
work and rest,
eating and fasting,
because bread won't be hurried.

So there was sauteing the onions in real butter, sifting the flour (what a lovely process) and kneading the blob of ingredients into a loaf.  And waiting - lots and lots of waiting.  By the time I took the bread out of the oven there was a heavenly aroma throughout the house and a healthy does of anticipation in our hearts and bellies.  Lord, there is nothing better in all creation that fresh, warm bread made at home.  Nothing!

Gunilla Norris puts it like this:

Familiar and strange,
the kitchen is a holy place -
alive with possibility.

A place for the elements.
Water in the tap,
fire in the stove,
earth in the food,
air - between, around, above and below.

Behind the cupboard doors
are the pots and the pans,
the bowls and the dishes,
the measuring cups
and the the measuring spoons -

holy things
that lie ready for use,
much like our dreams
that lie waiting
behind our eyelids.

The kitchen is alchemical,
a place where we cook - actually
and spiritually. We come to it
for nourishment and ease.
We come to it as to a center -

the heart of the house,
the heart of dwelling.
In the kitchen we are one,
linked by hunger -
actual hunger and spiritual hunger.

We go to the kitchen to be
nourished and revealed.
It is a holy place.

That's how I felt - connected, grounded, rooted in tradition and open to possibilities - in a very earthy and holy way.  There is nothing abstract about kneading 100 times, or waiting 2 hours or adding butter to a steaming slice and savoring it in your mouth: nothing - it is all real and satisfying.  Embodied.  Dare I say incarnational?  I am going to try a Welsh recipe later this week that includes fresh herbs and baking the loaves in a clay flower pot.  But now it is time to tend to some weeds outside before the day evaporates...

Oh yes, here's a picture of MY loaf (partially consumed.)