COLUMN: Grey Matters – Savour the flavour

‘How beautiful the leaves grow old.

How full of light and color are their last days.’

-John Burroughs

If we want to enjoy life and slow it down, we must savour the moment. As a teenager as soon as the Thanksgiving prayer was complete, I would proceed to voraciously eat the food before me. After a few years I realized that I was missing a major part of the meal – the food. I began to savour each bite. Not only did the food taste better, but so did the whole day.

Life is not to be devoured, but savoured. It goes by too quickly if gobbling is our approach. Life is to be enjoyed to the last sip, especially the last sip. What is there about the end of something that makes us all the more aware of how precious it is? When leaving a wonderful place or experience I find I need to take one more look and sigh a prayer of gratitude before driving away.

Holy Scriptures are also inherently beautiful and worthy of our time. Too often we read passages too quickly without reflection. We miss a lot of scenery when driving along a forest highway instead of hiking in it. Mystic Madame Guyon in her classic writing Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ explains how to savour the Scriptures: Choose some passage that is simple and fairly practical. Next, come to the Lord. Come quietly and humbly. There, before Him, read a small portion of the passage of Scripture you have opened to. Be careful as you read. Take in fully, gently, carefully what you are reading. Taste it and digest it as you read.

Madame Guyon encourages us to sit with a phrase or one verse for a while, to read it again slowly and not move on until we have sensed the very heart of it. She calls us to do something revolutionary in our reading – to pause! The goal of reading is not to get to the end of the text, but to be nourished by what is read. Mom was right! Chew. Taste. Swallow. Slow down. Eating quickly leads to malnourishment and heartburn.

One day there will be little else in life to quickly get done, but what will remain is learning how to live well. Life becomes more precious when we slow down and know its end is near. Today and every day may we take time to pause, and savour the flavor of whatever we are eating, seeing or reading.

This Thanksgiving whether with one friend of 50 family members consider slowly saying this Thanksgiving Prayer by Rusty Smith Carnarius while holding hands and standing in a circle:

Encircled by Thy love we stand

And pass our love from hand through hand

All those who must be far apart

Link with us here in thought and heart

For just one moment, see each face

Each dear uniqueness touched by grace

Give thanks for food and those we’re seeing

And most of all, give thanks for being.