advent soup as prayer...

One of the Advent commitments we have been practicing this year involves soup: simple, earthy, and savory soups born of a batch of recipes from The Twelve Months of Monastery Soups cookbook. It has been a wonderful Advent spiritual practice for a few reasons. First, making fresh soup has put me back in touch with root vegetables - a connection to the season I have long avoided. This year, however, I am discovering something very satisfying about physically slicing leeks and onions, chopping potatoes, carrots and rutabagas, reconnecting with the mystical magic of herbs, and all the rest. It's way more fun than shoveling snow (which has its own unique charism, but gets old very fast.) 

Second, unlike so much of the work I've done in my life, cooking offers an almost immediate pay off: we get to eat it as well as smell and savor it. So much of what I have done in ministry and organizing is about delayed gratification: seeds are planted that someone else will harvest. And while that is a faith commitment for the long haul that I celebrate, there's NOTHING like slicing freshly baked bread, slathering it with real butter, and taking that first ecstatic taste! Same goes for my encounter with winter vegetables. Once again, the kitchen and our cutting counters have become portable prayer altars overflowing with the bounty of Mother Earth. What a treat!

Third, making monastic soups has helped me stay in touch with sister faith communities all over the world. Tonight I'll prepare a pot of St. Nicholas Soup that claims a Turkish origin; last week I worked on soups from France and Italy. It's a small thing, to be sure, but even in these semi post-Covid days we still spend most of our time in solitude. To eat with monastic sisters and brothers across the globe is a gentle way of staying connected to the international community of Christ.

And fourth, my kitchen prayers have made me curious about poems about soup. I don't know many but enjoyed this one from Daniel Nyikos. I am just beginning to look for others and will keep you posted.

I set up my computer and webcam in the kitchen
so I can ask my mother’s and aunt’s advice
as I cook soup for the first time alone.

My mother is in Utah. My aunt is in Hungary.
I show the onions to my mother with the webcam.
“Cut them smaller,” she advises.
“You only need a taste.”
I chop potatoes as the onions fry in my pan.

When I say I have no paprika to add to the broth,
they argue whether it can be called potato soup.
My mother says it will be white potato soup,
my aunt says potato soup must be red.

When I add sliced peppers, I ask many times
if I should put the water in now,
but they both say to wait until I add the potatoes.
I add Polish sausage because I can’t find Hungarian,
and I cook it so long the potatoes fall apart.

“You’ve made stew,” my mother says
when I hold up the whole pot to the camera.
They laugh and say I must get married soon.
I turn off the computer and eat alone.