Feast or Famine

A discussion of flavor and satisfaction

Recently, I made an orange sherbet that was, quite possibly, the most refreshing and delicious thing I’ve eaten in a very, very long time. The first bite, a small teaspoon in case I didn’t like it, melted across my tongue in a soft explosion of dissolving ice crystals made of fresh orange juice, sugar, cream, and milk. Warm vanilla tones and a pinch of salt offset the slight tang of buttermilk. Bliss. Absolute bliss.

Yet, instead of jumping up to eat the entire container of freshly frozen sunshine? I found myself content with the small scoop. Taking tiny little bites just to make it last longer, I savored and relished my entire 1/4 cup. I am not known for being content with small quantities of deliciousness. It’s a problem.

Am I simply maturing as a person? Have I overcome the binge-angel of my personality?

Or are complex flavors and high-quality ingredients simply more satisfying than the mass-produced, substandard production, cheap ingredient products that fill our fridges and pantries? What if the thing missing in our obesity epidemic isn’t less food but just better food?

Like a slice of the “Queen of Sheba”, a flourless chocolate cake laced with coffee liqueur, espresso, and dark, rich chocolate. A dense, fudge confection draped in a buttery ganache, garnished with chocolate leaves, and dusted with cocoa powder. And not the kind that comes in a yellow can. The kind that feels like velvet and turns black when it gets wet. Like the orange sherbet above, a little bit goes a long, long way. Your taste buds are subdued and quiet in the aftermath of one small slice.

Nothing like a Chocolate Thunder Mountain of Cataclysmic Size and Diabetic Coma that you get at the chain restaurants that sell bottomless French fries and burgers smothered in salt, sugar, and regret.

Quality matters when it comes to the things that feed us. The richness, the process, the elegance of delivery, the care given to the components that come together to plate an offering that satisfies while still leaving room for movement. The intent is to inspire and ruminate. The temptation to devour is tempered by a languid drive to savor.

Not addicted in a frenzy to the haphazard mash up of sugar, fat, salt, you find yourself comfortably sated by the careful crafting of a thing that nourishes.

Suddenly, I’m not talking about food anymore.

I am talking about books, sermons, and social media posts. A collective loss of a vocabulary sprinkled with Oxford commas and complex compound sentences made of connected clauses. I’m thinking of vanity and compliments that overwhelm with falsity and self-importance instead of the deep satisfaction of a quiet, “It’ll do, Pig” from a farmer who doesn’t hand out praise like Dollar Store trinkets at a Mardi Gras parade.

It has happened gradually, over the decades, this slow dissipation of intellectual wealth. In our pursuit of industrialized and repeatable success, we have lost the homogenous capability to understand the allusions. Implied connections to Sisyphus and his rock confuse and perplex us instead of expanding our awareness in unspoken understanding. We have abandoned three-syllable words and the cadence of poets for sound bites and laugh tracks.

All that was lost has been filled by an excess of empty words we’ve created to fill its absence. Minds and hearts are fat, yet starving. Our appetites are voracious and never satisfied. Our minds are full and empty, simultaneously. We devour empty challenges and listen to the mindless nail tapping on products we don’t need for issues we aren’t even sure we have, so we become appealing to people we don’t even know.

Click. Like. Subscribe is not synonymous with See. Hear. Love.

Churches, once the last hope for those lost and searching, have become polarized. Some have become cardboard cutouts of religious insignificance. High-tech cathedrals dedicated to the ego of a man behind a plexiglass pulpit. His value depends on how much his popularity contributes to the size of the building fund. The fear of being too much… anything makes the fog machine a more substantial part of the ministry team than any vague admonitions permitted. No offenses given. No payment method denied.

Other sides of that coin harbor lock-step rule-keepers shrouded in obligated respect and demanded political fealty. No time for dialogue when the words are already scripted and the lines laid out in iron, wrapped in suits and head coverings. A kaleidoscope of white faces set against the weathered stone of tradition and bi-laws. The history of decades is touted as foundational ways.

Both facades hemorrhage congregants as the diet of cotton candy or gruel no longer keeps them quiet. Searching for a feast in the stable instead of a famine in the pew. They pursue a path that leads onward and upward.

We have found voices, quiet and ancient, that resonate. Truths that whisper so loud they echo are no longer welcome in the relentless worship songs sung on endless loops or sermons twisting a message of hope into chains so tight that freedom looks like submission. We can be found to the voices of kings and shepherds, monks and philosophers. To women who prophesy and the men who listen to them. We seek identity with the Disciples who followed the One who serves.

It is in this quiet space that the stories of a miracle done for a woman and her child become a banquet. Tangible love in single verses. The flannel graph gospels have become aspirations of lives lived in kindness, goodness, self-denial, and a thing called love that looks nothing like the full color, glossy brochure handed out in the foyer next to the coffee cart. Next to the boy with autism, who no one wants to talk to.

I sat at my table this morning. My chai steaming, a toasted bagel, still warm, melting the cream cheese just a little. I thought of all the things I’ve done that were supposed to matter. The work, the words, the music. Burnout, like a cloud of ash, is still fresh in my soul. Grief from all the kinds of loss holds my shoulders. My constant companion. I don’t have a verse or an answer. Most of the time, I look at the way the world around me spins, and it feels empty. Just beyond my reach.

Some words echo, fading slightly with time. Memories that float to the surface gently in the quiet space where voices used to bounce off the walls. I am learning to embrace the liberty and the compulsion to release the surplus of words and hold onto the hands nearby and the kindness of a phone call taken, a video message that rambles, the brief text exchange that reminds me I’m not alone in this mayhem. In the absence of think-tank spiritual additives, a silence I guard with some ferocity, I can still hear the phrase that has sustained me in the chaos. A message I’ve heard all along.

“Trust Me.”

It’s not much. It’s just a taste. But it satisfies.

Because it’s real.