PATIENCE SOUP

I love making soup. Typically when people think of soup they think of something that they eat in late fall or in the winter. In Arizona most people consider it too hot to eat soup in the summer. I mean who wants to eat soup when its 115 outside? I get that, I understand that, but I love soup all year round. I eat soup even when it is 115 outside. I stand over the pot stirring whipping the sweat off of my brow and then I eat it with more sweat pouring out. I just love soup. It probably helps that I also like hot weather, although sometimes 115 is pushing it. If I had my way we would eat soup every night I like it so much. The other members of my family though, are not quite as fanatically about it as I am. My wife likes soup. My kids are not big fans yet. I say yet because I am slowly working on their taste buds and they are starting to eat some of my soups. They particularly like my homemade chicken noodle soup. I have several soup books in my library. The books all have different approaches to soup. For instance I have one book entitled, “500 Soups”. It has a bunch of different categories like cold soups, meat based soups, and grained based soup etc… and then every soup has about 6 variations. The soups in this book are all very good and they usually only take at most 45 minutes to make. There is a soup in there called, “Chili beef soup with cheese topped tortilla chips.” I use lamb instead of beef and my family says it tastes just like the “Mexican Pizza” at Taco Bell. The difference the soup is healthy for you while the Mexican Pizza isn’t. The soups from the book are easy to make and don’t take a lot of time. We eat a lot of soup from this book.
I have another soup book though that takes a very different approach it is called, “The Best Soups in the World.” It literally has soups from all around the world and even from different time periods in world history. The recipes have ingredients that are sometimes hard to come by and the instructions can be very complicated and time consuming. Some of the soups in this book can take hours and hours to make and one mistake and you might as well pour it down the drain. Soups in this book have names like, “Basler Mehlsuppe” which is from Switzerland. “Armenian Trahana Soup” which is from Armenia and takes a week to make from start to finish. Then there is “Soupe de Poisson” from Marseilles which has recipes within the recipe. Whenever one of these soups is on the schedule my family takes a step back because they never know what is going to happen. They just know I am going to be obsessed with my cast iron Dutch oven over the stove for several hours and that I am not to be disturbed. I absolutely treasure this book. I don’t even let people turn the pages in it until I have a blood sample, social security number and their first born child as collateral. I usually only make two soups a month from this book, because of time constraints, I need to make sure there are no conflicts on the calendar and that I will have time alone to make the soup. These soups require preparation and great care and above all these soups require patience. With the “500 Soups” book you just kind of put it together and cook it and the soups are pretty good. With these soups though, much patience is require and the ending result is either something out of this world or it is horrible. The conclusion I have come to in the last six months is that really good soup, soup that causes you to forget where you are at and what you are doing and why you even exist, requires patience. Patience is a key ingredient.
The thing about a good soup is that it needs to slowly cook and certain ingredients need to be added at certain times. The amount of the ingredient is many times measured by taste and smell. You have to let it simmer, you can’t rush things, you can’t speed up the process and get really good mind blowing soup. Things need time to cook down, to cook together, and to release flavors. Spices need to be added in small amounts and herbs need to be stripped from the stems and crumbled just so between your fingers over the soup. If salt is being added, it can’t be put in until the last minute and then you can’t over salt because you can’t take it back. Pepper needs to be ground at the last minute also, but only to the point that its taste comes out and not to the point that people choke when they eat it. Patience and calm is needed in all of this.
I never have understood the concept of the angry soup maker that is sometimes portrayed on TV. After I get done making soup, I am the calmest guy in the room. All of my stress is gone and I am in a very good mood. I am also very patient at this point. I have taken ingredients and put them in a pot and added heat and over the course of a couple of hours I have added this and that, stirred endlessly with my wooden spoon, covered the pot and let it simmer on its own, checking every once in a while on its progress. If I have added wine, I probably I have also drank some, my hands smell of garlic and maybe mint, thyme, sage, pepper, basil and a few other herbs and spices. The house smells wonderful and now all there is to do is eat the soup that patience has created. The thing about this patience soup is that it seems to translate to other areas of my life as well. I tend to be more patient with people in general after I have been making soup.
Now I know the standard Christian response to this will be, pastor what you really need to do is read Scripture and pray if you want patience. I agree and I do that, but I also believe that God works through the common everyday things that we do. When we are in need of some quality like patience or kindness, he doesn’t just say take a couple of Bible verses and call me in the morning after you pray. He gives us vocations, avocations and sometimes vacations to keep us healthy. I need patience, therefore in addition to prayer and Scripture, I need soup. I think that is true of everyone. It may not be soup for you, but maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s a hobby or a craft like cooking, but everyone has something. How do you slow down and focus and develop things like patience? If you don’t have anything right now what are some ways that you can start to find them?

Pastor Fred