April 10, 2013
Clean-Up on Aisle Three
We had family visit us for the weekend and my 30-something nephew, who
loves to cook, volunteered to do all the cooking. I didn’t feel I could turn his
offer down, but I jokingly ask if he also did the clean-up. His answer was ‘no’
to the clean-up, but that the rest of the family would rally around for that
chore. Turning over my kitchen to someone is no different than a guy handing
over his keys to his woodworking shop and then just watching from the sidelines.
By default the kitchen clean-up chores fell to me because I knew where
everything was, where things went when they needed to be put back, where the
cleaning supplies were located, and which kind to use. The large stockpot
cooking on the stove boiled over, there was BBQ sauce on the screen door, and
salad greens on the floor. I found myself having a major Martha Meltdown, but unfortunately
it was only after I had put the house back in order that I could hear the Lord
saying, “Martha, Martha, you are worried
and upset about many things….” (Luke 10:41 NIV)
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----I batched it for about ten years before I married Char. I like to eat. So I learned to cook. But I also learned that a full tummy has something to do with psychology. It is similar to that “Don’t grocery shop on an empty stomach” thing. But this was more of an “I’m most likely not going to do the dishes on a full stomach” thing. A full stomach is for settling back and watching the Rockford Files, or some other waste of time. Nor did it take me long to learn that by the time Jim exposed his perp and dished out the closing line to his dad, the marvelous abilities of proteins and starches and sugars to mimic epoxies and glues were beginning to show up on my pots and pans. A good soaking was pretty much an assurance they would be there in the morning, where they would still be when the dust of that day also would settle around another dinner time. Learning to draw a sink full of hot water while cooking and wash utensils, pots, and pans as they became unused didn’t take long to become a part of my culinary activities. Now, when I cook, only the “fastest paced procedures not releasing a moment’s attention or the dish will be ruined” kind of things will keep me from finding thirty seconds to wash an emptied pot thoroughly instead of just setting it aside.
-----We cook up life, too. That kitchen is in our heads. But there, mental stuff almost continually passes across the top of our stoves, cooking into new perceptions and shifting attitudes. This kitchen is little different from the one which busies our hands and feet. Its pots and pans and knives and spoons and countertops also get all gooied up with the proteins and starches and sugars of thought foods. Once finished with one mental dish, these cooking processes must be free of its remnants before starting the next, or some pretty odd tasting ideas begin to take shape. We see the effects of mental cuisine done in filthy kitchens all around us. Abortion. Pornography. Constant vulgarity in the great portion of entertainment. Foolish notions in the boundaries between science, metaphysics, and epistemology leading to subtle deceptions in textbooks and social norms, then leading to treacherous evasion of obvious truths having immediate impacts (such as borrowing our way out of a financial collapse caused by borrowing our way into spending more than we make) as well as eternal impact (thumbing noses at God, so to speak.)
-----Each thought is a building block within an unending project. Each has a proper place and attitude amongst those it arrives with and others it leaves with. What the thoughts together make will effect mixtures to follow. I learned the difficult way, overcoming manic-depression, that the truth of every thought is critically important to the truth of the entire porridge. And not just the truth of each thought, but also the truth of their associations, and even the truth of the reasons why they are being included in certain associations. I learned that if a continuous process of clean-up was not engaged as thoughts cooked together into conclusions, incredibly sticky, confusingly clumpy, hopelessly glued and set messes of thinking, feeling, and responding form. Jesus talked about washing the business end of the pots and pans - their insides. After seeing sanitary mental culinary clear up the effects of wild and inescapable mood shifts, I gained a fuller and completely abiding appreciation for the Truth, the Way, and the Life being an actual process.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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