The dog has four feet, but he does not walk them in four roads.
- Haitian Proverb
Some of the lyrics of the eighteenth century American Christian hymn, “How Firm a Foundation” have been weighing on my heart and mind as of late.
How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said—
To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?
We talked about scripture study in Sunday school yesterday and I thought of these words. How firm a foundation is laid down for our faith in the scriptures, indeed? Though I know the great power of prayer I look at the next line which seems to say, “What else do you want Him to tell you? What more guidance do you need?”
My struggle right now ties in not only with this week’s lesson but last week’s as well. Last week, some may remember, was on God’s will where we talked about being a part of God’s story not trying to make God a part of our stories.
I think that my life is too full. I don’t know if I can empty it of clutter. I have family and faith, work and ambition. Obviously of the group the latter should be the most easily removed. Still I can not let go.
Often as a chef people ask me what is your specialty. It’s a frustrating question because it comes from a limited view of the culinary world. Not every chef has the luxury of focusing his career on one particular cuisine or specialty. As a catering chef I have to cook whatever is desired from the bride who wants hamburgers and hot dogs at her wedding to the customer who wants the historical cuisine of the 1800 American Pioneers recreated as finger foods and hors d’oeuvres. I have to cook Italian food and Chinese food and Indian food, and on and on. Never perfecting or understanding any one thing completely. The problem for me now is that I want a specialty. I want a more firm culinary foundation from which I cook.
My family too is a priority in my heart. All of my kids and my wife too are so different from one another and each need a different level of attention and guidance from me. Often I’m not even sure how to give them what they need and find myself falling back on work and ambition as my alms to them. By saying, “See all the hours I work all the ambitions that I am cultivating. Those are for you so that you have what you need today and can have what you want tomorrow.”
I feel in some ways like Jacob of old wrestling with God. (Genesis 32:24 -30) My frustrations and confusion often take on a physical sensation where I literally feel a weight and a panic on my mind. I am never able to step away from this sensation or move past it just like Jacob could not overcome nor was defeated by the “man” that he wrestled through the night. Clearly “the man” was the greater of the two but he allowed Jacob to wrestle with him until daybreak. How long, I wonder, until daybreaks for me?
I have the desire to be a business owner, to cook the food that I want for the people that I “choose”, and to share my experiences with others through the written word. But what if that is not the story God wants to tell. My current fear is that the answer to my prayers maybe the same as for poor Teyve, the fiddler on the roof.
Japanese cuisine is one of the world’s most distinctive cuisines because of its unique history. Japan underwent a period of self-imposed isolation from the 1600s until the mid-1850s, during which time it was impervious to outside influences. It was not until the mid-nineteenth century, when borders were re-opened, that…Western practices…were adopted. – THE NEW AMERICAN CHEF, Dornenburg and Page
Is the way to rebuild a foundation personal isolation? Do I make like Japan and cut myself off from the world for 2 ½ years? 25 years? Or is it more by following the ways of Thoreau?
No matter how far you’ve gone down the wrong road, turn back.
-Turkish proverb
Either way I am forced to consider that I am in a position of needing to return to a previous place from where I must begin my journey anew. I must consider that I may need to demolish a portion of my life’s foundation in order to build it stronger.
