Taste and see

I wandered out into the rain earlier this week to pick rhubarb for a rhubarb pie. My small daughter and son galloped along with me in their boots, my son shouting merrily that he looked like a cardinal in his bright-red raincoat. We stopped and threw some vegetable scraps in the compost heap, and I tried to instruct my son on how to carry a knife (he had jammed it into his coat pocket with the blade pointed up) and prayed that we wouldn’t injure ourselves before we even reached the rhubarb patch. But we made it with all digits intact, cheerfully chopped down an armful of red-green stalks with big leaves, and returned to the house to make the pie. As we measured and mixed, I marveled at the passed-down knowledge of the human race. Whoever thought to take such unwieldy stalks and chop them up, to add sugar and flour and heat? Who would have guessed something so sour and stringy could bake into something so good? I feel wise with wisdom not my own. I feel thankful that someone before me tinkered with ingredients and methods, grateful for that creativity and courage.

Most days the only courage I can muster up is to follow a recipe, let alone create one, especially with my children cooking with me. I am committed to baking and cooking with my children, and so I do. I do because I think they need to learn these things—how to hold a knife and how to measure a cup and how not burn yourself when stirring hot liquids over a hot pot. But if I am honest, I will tell you that it’s almost always messy and often downright stressful, and sometimes I want to slam all the cupboards and announce that I am cooking this dish by myself, thank you very much. And sometimes I do.

But deep down, I enjoy having my children work with me. I want them to learn how to use tools and mend clothes and grow food, and even more than that, I want them to cultivate a healthy sense of joy in doing work, a way of peace in a world of toil. Whether or not we like it, being a grown-up involves heaps of hard work. I remember one night early in our marriage, when my good (and funny) husband flung himself on our couch and began what he called “a lament for my childhood.” We had gotten married right out of college, and we were surprised by how much we had to worry about out there in the “real" world. Suddenly we needed to be concerned with things like appliances and accounts, cars and contracts. Life was full of opportunity but burdened by complexity, and we mourned for the simplicity of childhood.

When I think of the word toil, I think first of the curse that God pronounces over disobedient Adam: “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life” (Genesis 3: 17). For her part, Eve is cursed with the pain of childbirth and a desire for her husband, so all is fair in the fall. But I’ve birthed three babies and tended gardens and wondered how else we bring beauty into the world but by effort. Somehow the hard work makes the end result all the more satisfying. The spring greens—lettuce, spinach and baby kale—we harvest now from our garden taste better, sweeter, for having grown them ourselves. My children are dear to me in part because they are mine, the fruit of my labor, loved with the sweat of my brow and the cries of my heart.

I will never know if an obedient Adam and Eve could have enjoyed weed-free gardening or pain-free childbirth. But I suspect that weeds and pain are not our enemies, and perhaps they never were. Work was given to Adam and Eve before the fall, not after it; God asked them to tame vines and tend trees, to have babies and harvest food and take time to walk with him through the garden. Surely he knew that loving other things and people is always a risky business, full of potential for pain as well as joy.

When I was in high school, my beautiful mother pointed me to these verses: “When God gives people wealth and possessions, and the ability to enjoy them, to accept their lot and be happy in their toil—this is a gift of God. They seldom reflect on the days of their lives, because God keeps them occupied with gladness of heart” (Ecclesiastes 5:19-20). I think she knew my tendency to over-analyze my life, and this was her encouragement to me:  rather than reflecting quite so much on the days of my life, I should instead be occupied by gladness of heart. I should accept my lot with gratitude and go and do good in the world.

I am still learning how to make peace with messy counters and toy-strewn floors, with piles of dirty clothes that never stop growing, with parts and hearts that never stop breaking. But I hear this call like an evening song:  come, taste and see that the Lord is good. Come gather sour rhubarb and taste sweet pie; come be happy in your toil and know that your good God, he is toiling, too.