Seasoning with Silence

I have begun to think of silence as a seasoning - one that has a depth that infuses my soul  with Holy Presence and changes how I taste life. I can’t always define this ‘taste‘, that je ne sais quoi, but I feel it there and I long for it to my life hold an essence flavours actions and thoughts.  Those herbs or spices we add give us a beautiful flavour that we may not be able to identify but we know there is something hidden revealing a unique and even extraordinary presence.   While silence, the place of being still, at first may seem to have little connection to seasonings that release their flavours into food in the cooking process, for me they are inexplicably connected.   My heart longs for the deep places of silence where I “feel” the tangible presence of the Almighty,  my God who sees, knows and speaks to my deep longings.   My passion for cooking has me constantly searching for new ways to take an ordinary dish and let it become something grander through the addition of herbs and spices. 

Seasonings can be tricky ingredients - if you add too much it is overpowering.  Should you not add enough you may have a meal that is insipid, bland and unpalatable.   With most seasonings you add them in the initial cooking process so they infuse into the food and their flavour is expanded.   As flavours blend and meld together they become something more than what they would be on their own, and there is a richness to the flavours that come together.

There is that exquisite moment of silence at communion as I wait for that Holy moment when I receive the bread, am still, and then receive the wine.   It is a powerful potent life giving silence where we each partake of this sacred feast and in partaking of it we purpose within us once again to live, and love, as Jesus showed us.  I think it is a bit like adding precious strands of saffron and a pinch of turmeric to rice that will become the fragrant and vibrantly coloured bed upon which tender chicken pieces, spicy pungent chorizo sausage, salmon, prawns and mussels are combined to be my version of paella.  Paella symbolizes abundance, where this is enough for all at the table but we each must choose to partake of it and join in this ritual of eating together and finding life. The fine strands of saffron are highly flavourful and yet, by weight, they are one of the most costly spices, being harvested by hand, in the quiet of the day.  The moment of powerful inner silence waiting for communion, or the richly colourful and aromatic strands of saffron; both add a deep intense fragrance.   Seasonings such as cumin, curry blends, cardamom, or chilli, infuse colour and flavour and a glimpse of the exotic as they become one with  the foods to which they are added.

Silence can, and does, become a unique, even essential ingredient that moves my life more deeply into the space that gives a rich kind of aroma that feeds, nurtures, and transforms the inner part of us.   Those spaces within us where we let go and sink into the silence that changes the way  we view life, taste it,  feel it, mysteriously begin to ‘know’ how it flows and then trust the One who makes those spaces full of beauty. 

Benedictine monk, David Steindl Rast writes“Each one of us is called to become  that great song that comes out of the silence, and the more we let ourselves down into that great silence, the more we become capable of singing that great song.”

Silence has not always been my friend, just as it is not a welcoming friend to many of us.   Silence that isolates, humiliates and  can result in the destruction of another, is like a bitter herb, like seasonings that do not draw flavours together.   There are the spaces of creativity that go silent, and pieces of our heart retreat.   They may not be life giving spaces or they may be places of waiting and resting where the quiet inner work within us continues.  I am deeply grateful for those who have helped open spaces that have encouraged me to experience the sweetness of silence, a sweetness that has exchanged bitterness for gentle tender places that hold silence as a Holy place.   It becomes a place where our lament came become that great song that Steindl Rast writes of.

From a cooking point of view one could compare the exchanges to the sourness of the taste of lemon and yet if you finely grate some lemon rind, and add a touch of lemon juice into certain dishes, it will result in a gentle but noticeably exquisite flavour.  I have had the privilege of working with a wonderful Chef who creates amazing sauces by adding one or two special ingredients and then slowly and gently reducing the sauce until the flavours are not only perfectly intertwined but  have such a depth to them that they become extraordinary!

From a spiritual taste perspective, taking the painful places and sitting honestly with them in the silence of Holy Presence,  their bitterness can be exchanged with the love that we could not see within the stormy places.   If we are willing to allow it to take on a different form, it can be like the gentleness that has been hidden within the bitter places, the seasoning of courage and love that begins to change the flavour of those silent places.

Silence is a seasoning in my own life pilgrimage that walks my heart into becoming more spacious.  We experiment with seasonings to find new and rich flavours in the food that nurtures us.   As Macrina Wiederkehr writes, silence becomes our invitation to leap into the unknown mysteries that God holds out to us.

“Silence is like a river of grace inviting us to leap unafraid into its beckoning depths.
It is dark and mysterious in the waters of grace.
Yet in the silent darkness we are given new eyes.  In the heart of the divine we can see more clearly who we are.  We are renewed and cleansed in this river of silence.
There are those among us who fear the Great Silence.  It is a foreign land to us.
Sometimes it is good to leap into the unknown.
Practice leaping.”
Macrina Wiederkehr

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