Saturday January 17, 2009 Each month, as I go into final layout week, I don’t want to think too much about meals and in that final week I may not have much time to cook. I used to cook a pot roast or a meat stew during final layout week back in my more carnivorous days, and I’d eat the same thing a few times a day for days in a row. Now on chilly days, a vegetable soup is the more popular final layout fare.
It usually starts out with me thinking I don’t have all the ingredients I need, or enough of them. I make a lot of salads and soups, so every few days I go out to the local produce stand and buy onions, garlic, ginger, carrots, scallions, celery, parsley and apples. I run out of these things on a regular basis. I keep vegetable and fat free chicken stock on hand, as well as canned tomatoes.
Today I thought back to my soup of earlier this week and wished I had some more of it. But I had only 2 small onions, one carrot, 2 stalks of celery, one can of tomatoes and a can of chicken stock. I had about a cup of split peas left, and half a bulb of garlic. I wasn’t sure if that would turn into a decent soup. Hmmm, deja vu…
I found a sweet potato in the refrigerator and decided to go for it. Everything into the pot, and for good measure, a handful of regular frozen peas. I put my typical favorite seasoning: a teaspoon each of ground oregano, cumino, thyme, basil, garlic powder, tarragon, coarse ground pepper and salt.
I noticed as I added the can of tomatoes and stock, that I had once again unestimated how much soup I was making. I had to split it into two pots to accommodate all the vegetables and liquid. An hour later I had a giant amount of amazing vegetable soup.
What I thought was barely enough turns out to be more than enough and much more than I anticipated.
I’ve done that so often in my life as well. Even now that I know better. I may think I don’t quite have enough for something I want, yet in reality I had more than enough all along.
It would be like me wondering why my bank account is empty but never going out to check my mailbox. Or wondering why I never have any luck but not buying a weekly lottery ticket.
I find that if I can get my body into motion behind whatever I want to bring to fruition, then – always – what I think is barely enough will turn out to be more than enough.
Just like today’s soup. At first all I could see was a handful of vegetables, some dried peas and a can of tomatoes. Two hours later, I have enough soup for a week.
I didn’t grow up with the Bible but know there is a story about a widow to whom God has sent Elijah. Elijah tells her her flour and oil will not be used up, but give to God first, and God will take care of the rest. So that is what the widow did. And day after day there was water to drink and food to eat. The flour was not used up, and the jar of oil did not run dry.
One day at a time, Elijah and the widow were provided for. They received their daily bread. Now, the thing is, God didn’t deliver 20 giant stone jars of oil to the widow’s door the next morning. She couldn’t open her pantry, and find it filled with jars of oil. Elijah and the widow couldn’t see where the oil was going to come from. They just had to trust that each day somehow there would be enough.
They didn’t put their trust in what they could see. They didn’t say, “Everything will be okay because, look we have lots of oil and bread.” Instead they learned to say, “Everything will be okay – because God will take care of us and I trust that it will be so. Even though right now I don’t know where it will come from or what form it will take, I know it is on its way to me, because it is my Father’s good pleasure to give me the Kingdom.”
Like my soup today. I should have just trusted that whatever I could put my hands on would be enough for my needs in the moment. Instead, thinking I had barely enough gave me two giant pots of soup.
Like me thinking what a brat fink Ms. X is for not paying her bill on time, yet not knowing it has been sitting in the mailbox for 3 weeks that I’ve just not checked.
One phrase I learned from Alan Cohen years ago and synchronistically he used it in his February column in Horizons Magazine: A master teacher told me that one of the secrets of success is to “take whatcha got and make whatcha want.”
I’ve often thought how, when I am chopping produce for a soup or salad, that even as I peel the ginger – I am aware that what I discard would be welcome in someone’s soup pot somewhere on the planet. The tiny hard tops of garlic and onion tops and carrot ends. The tiptop of the celeries. The hard knobs of the ginger.
And actually I think that’s what it’s all about anyway, taking what we have right now, and making what we want out of it. We can choose to fret about our lack of ingredients or we can just begin to make a delicious soup from whatever we happen to have on hand. It’s our choice.