spicy soup

There's a certain therapy in making soup.

Being Tuesday, that's how my day began. In the aftermath of Saturday's event, I settled on something green. At least for one of the soups.

Lettuce soup.

One of the guys who was with us on Saturday, Gus (you can read and see some more about his work at http://www.earthcalling.org/) - he'd produced for the day some nettle soup, which everyone thought was great.

This wasn't quite some nettle soup, but the same idea. It didn't taste too bad.

I also made a spicy carrot and lentil soup, though we played down the 'spicey' part when letting folk know what it was. Anything slightly different and they're often just not quite so keen.

It's in part the creativity involved I like. Conceiving the soup, then bringing it into being.

It's like a gastronomic sacrament - a reminder to me of what it is I'm about. Feeding the people of God and making that food nutritious and interesting and fresh.

It's also, as I think I've said before, an act of humble worship. Praising God in sleeves-rolled-up activity to serve the needs of others.

But it's strange how averse to all change we can be. And the soups are a constant reminder of that as well.

Soups are somehow symbolic. A good, old-fashioned broth, for instance - well, there's something reassuring in that bowl of soup. Thick and warm and strangely reminiscent of a cosy, homely past.

They somehow carry memories, most soups. Or conjure up their own distinctive 'pictures' in the mixture of their fragrances and tastes.

'Spicy' spells adventure and uncertainty. For some that's not what soups are meant to be. They like their soups to be a source of reassuring comfort in the midst of all the turmoil in their lives.

A bit like some wish the church itself to be. A picture of the past. A place of reassurance in a troubled, complex world which seems to change so very, very fast.

Stick with the old, traditional, trusted soups! Such is the unspoken cry of the heart in regard to the way church should be.

Except Jesus himself is really rather 'spicy' (in the parlance and language of soups).

That's why he ended up nailed to a cross. He was way too 'spicy' for some.

And yet there was a reassuring comfort in his simply being around as well. The two-soup combination that we try to go for here.

It's the balance that's hard to sustain in the way our life is lived.

The balance between the reassuring comfort of his kind and gentle leadership - and the spicy, almost 'racey' sort of radical adventure that he leads us on, upsetting old conventions and hitting the tastebuds of our hearts with the heat of the love of God.

The meeting of the leaders here at night reflected just how difficult that balance really is. But it's one we have to work at and sustain.