Occasionally, my Facebook memories remind me of a younger version of myself. These memories often involve theological or scriptural references from my college or seminary years.

One recently came across my screen quoted G.K. Chesterton: An open mind is really a mark of foolishness, like an open mouth. Mouths and minds were made to shut; they were made to open only in order to shut…The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.

In my younger years, I found these thoughts profound. But now, I see more meaning in breaking the metaphor open and exploring it further.

I now disagree with Chesterton.

Minds, like mouths, are not made just to shut. They are made to process what we take in, to metabolize and integrate it so we can grow.

We can do better than a “mama bird” theology, in which we regurgitate half-digested platitudes and principles we received without knowing where they originated. We can do better than the theological equivalent of a stubborn toddler who won’t swallow their spinach.

As we hold our theology in the tightly closed mouth Chesterton describes, our beliefs become increasingly bitter and repulsive until we eventually spew them out onto others unfortunate enough to be within range of our firmly held convictions. This does not provide nutritional value or culinary enjoyment to anyone. It only makes a mess.

Instead, we should apply the childhood lessons we learned about eating to our faith. We can chew and swallow our food well, eat a well-balanced diet and be willing to try new things and risk expanding our palates.

Sadly, many of us were not taught to do this with our beliefs. This failure of spiritual pedagogy left us hoarding collected baskets of maggoty manna, rather than exploring wide open landscapes each morning in the dew-cleaned freshness of God’s new mercies.

As the work of cooking is to food, the work of theology is to faith.

The point of cooking is nutrition; it is joy and life in both the mundane and the extraordinary; it is connection and community. A culinary theology is experimental and experiential; it is sensory, sensitive, and sensual; it is creative, curious and relentlessly relational.

Creativity and flexibility do not imply a lack of truth or structure.

The rules of chemistry and physics still apply to cooking. These principles are important and worth learning. The Maillard reaction involved in searing, the chemical properties of salt and how it enhances flavors, the mechanics of a sauce being emulsified—all of these are pieces of information that can be learned with precision and exact numbers.

But if I have one friend who learned how sausage is made from a book and another who can prepare a nourishing meal, I know who I would rather visit for dinner.

We do not grow in cooking by memorizing procedures. We learn by trial and error and by using our eyes, ears, tongues, fingers and noses. A good cook’s compassion and care outweigh their commitment to recipes.

The skillset required to bake bread changes when the person you want to feed cannot safely ingest the flour you are accustomed to using. Similarly, the basics of brewing tea are simple and straightforward: 212°F water + teabag + x number of minutes = brewed tea. But beyond that simplistic understanding, there is a world of diverse flavors, cultures and craft.

Some leaves will respond poorly to such high temperatures and need a more delicate steeping. Others require room to expand in response to the hot water, which the restrictive teabag does not allow. Some can be steeped for as little as ten seconds and produce delicious results.

The simple rules are all well and good for a mass-market, standardized product, but they simply do not apply to the wider world of tea.

Not everyone has to be a chef at a Michelin-starred restaurant. We do well to remember that for many, daily finding and preparing food is a matter of survival more than delight or artistic expression.

Cooking is a never-finished work. Each day, our bodies and those of our loved ones require sustenance. Cooking is often an exercise of pushing through physical and mental exhaustion or practical and financial restrictions to somehow put food on the table.

The teachers I have found most helpful in my cooking journey are those who invite me to understand better how cooking works, and also those who provide me with skills and recipes to make food in ways that are plausible for my schedule and budget. What good is someone telling me about a recipe that requires tools I cannot afford, ingredients unavailable in my city or at this time of year, or techniques that my apartment kitchen cannot accommodate?

Likewise, theology is not something done on the sidelines or from an armchair. Instead, it is about how we all “live, move and have our being.”

What if our theology can become something we create and share, an ongoing journey of tasting and seeing that God is good?

Perhaps we can learn to discern when an ingredient or idea has gone stale or become moldy and must be removed. We can also learn the history and culture that shape our values, much like we can grow to better understand the land from which our food comes and the impact of seasons and ecological change on how we feed one another.

We can see various worldviews and traditions as cultural treasures to expand our world, additional leaves expanding the table and dishes on the buffet, not invasive or corrupting forces. If we dare to try unfamiliar foods or learn new insights about God from people whose life experiences differ from our own, we might discover new beauty and delight.

There was a time when I thought learning about faith meant finding someone else who could explain things to me, whether Chesterton or another teacher. There was a time in my cooking journey when I thought learning about food meant following a recipe or video point by point, carefully rereading and replaying to ensure I “got it right.”

However, my growth in cooking required me to think more creatively and experiment more thoroughly with the resources available to me. My growth in theology required me to ingest, digest, and metabolize thoughts, feelings and actions.

Food is not about finding the correct solid object to hold in one’s mouth forever and faith is not about finding the correct solid idea to hold in a consistent mental and emotional state.

Both are really about growth and sustenance, exploration, curiosity and joy.

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