Last night I baked some holiday sugar cookies. This morning I baked a pumpkin pie for our Christmas Eve Dinner. Both experiences got me thinking ...
The cookie dough doesn't become a cookie until it goes into the heat of the oven ... the heat causes the cookies to cook, puff up and reach their state of cookiness.
Likewise, the pie goes into the oven all liquidey. You turn the heat up high to settle it, and then turn it down so that it has a long slow cook to becoming the pumpkin pie you dream it can be.
At prayer this morning, I had a random thought. Both baking processes are analogies for the experience of discernment, particularly in the context of the novitiate.
It's often said that the novitiate experience has a hot house or pressure cooker element to it. The heat is turned up, you come to terms with yourself and your relationship to God and community. I think I prefer the baking analogy!
That's your random thought for the day. Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas Eve!
4 comments:
Funny... last week when I baked bread, I had the same thoughts... plus the idea that baking bread, kneading the dough to the right consistency before hand takes PATIENCE! A lot of patience, actually. That's something else that has to do with discernment (especially in the context of novitiate).
Have a blessed Christmas!
I guess if you can't stand the heat stay out of the kitchen. Merry Christmas!
And you might think of baking that requires yeast to be added. The taste of raw yeast is nasty but added to the baking recipe and heated as part of the mixture it contributes to rising of the bread and the finished product. In some ways, you might think of the yeast as an analogy for the directed formation (or the challenges/unbloggables) during the novitiate. It is indeed a blessing but not always easy to "taste."
Mmmm... Cookies. :) Hehehe. You know, we call them "biscuits" in Australia. ;)
Em -xxx-
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