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Theology of Food w/ Kendall Vanderslice · A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Well, hello everyone and welcome again to a Matter of Faith, a Presby podcast.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: A podcast where we respond to your questions around faith, justice, and church life.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Don't forget to write in and send us your question, and why should the lovely listeners do that, Lee?
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Because if it matters to you, then it matters to us and it just might be, I wanna say it this week, a matter of faith.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: did.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Hello everyone.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Hey Simon, how are
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: You?
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Yep, I'm good.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: I'm doing all right Lee.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: And just as a reminder to all of our listeners, uh, we'll be having a little bit of introductory conversation, some news catch up, and Lee and I will respond to a question if you're not interested in that.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: And just wanna skip to our conversation with our guest for this week, Ken Kendall Vander slice that timestamp will be in the show notes in the description.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: But we hope you like listening to us.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: You know, because, you know, Simon says that we're fun.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: So yeah, it's a good time.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: You should stick
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Around.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: I think people enjoy us and I am in the windy city.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: I am in Chicago right now and I'm here for work.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: So I am elsewhere than where I'm normally at.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: But I prepared.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Well this time I got my microphone in my book bag and I'm here.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: And fun fact, I was one of the last planes out of DC on Southwest because their system went down again and news.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: So y'all, let's pray for Southwest.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: They need our prayers really bad.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: But
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, just an example of when you don't update your infrastructure and just hope that nothing bad, the one bad thing will not happen.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: And then it does.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: And maybe it happens more than once.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: It always happens.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Always happens.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: It happens in condo buildings, it happens in churches, it happens in church organizations.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: If you don't do something about it, when it does happen, it's worse.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: It's called maintenance.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Maintenance and infrastructure.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: A faith issue.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: There you go.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Put it on the headlines folks.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Put it on the headlines cuz issue maintain.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: And if you can't maintain, then you need to figure out why Andy might have to make an adjustments.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Well, speaking of news and adjustments, there's been some adjustments in the sports world that I think is pretty neat and yeah, pretty cool to be following.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: So just so folks are aware, Nicole Lynn is a, a sports agent and she is the sports agent for Jalen Hertz.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Nicole Lynn is also a black woman.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Back in 2019.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: She became the third woman and the first black woman to represent an N F L first round draft pick, which at the time was Alabama, Alabama's, uh, Quinn and Williams.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: And most recently she just negotiated the largest contract and total value in N F L history for Jalen Hertz as well as the first no trade clause in the team history for the Philadelphia Eagles as a part of an extension to Jalen Hertz's, uh, rookie deal.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: And I just think that's great for representation.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: For folks that aren't aware, Jalen Hertz also has, I believe, in all female, uh, team that supports him from his agent to his marketing team.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: So that's pretty Nate.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: And just wanna, once again, champion that representation matters and opportunities matter.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Opportunities matter.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: And this is amazing for Nicole Lynn and we hope that we see more women and women of color in the sports world as well as in the ne uh, sort of agent and negotiating side of things.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's pretty awesome.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is awesome.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: And all about representation too.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: And, and I just wanted to mention in news this week, uh, you know, we constantly have to talk about gun violence and shootings, but like there's, there's a few that have happened in recent week that have been kind of that, I mean, obviously very sad and something that we all should be talking about, but you know, Ralph, Ralph Yal who was shot just because he went to the wrong house and looking for a sibling, and then another shooting happened to where a young woman was like in a driveway, I think, and wanted to just turn around and and got shot.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: And so it's, it's also these instances that we all need to be talking about and lifting up that not, are not necessarily these mass shootings, but it is these individual ways in which people kinda live into this fear.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: And because of accessibility of guns and how we acquire them, how those fears are then manifested and in the intersections of racism, but also in the intersection of just a constant fear of differentness and, and otherness that people have and how we act on that.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: I think we all need to just keep lifting up and keep talking about, and keep figuring out how we do what we need to do to stop these things.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: And so I just wanted to mention that too, because it's sad when somebody's trying to pick up their brother and they end up almost dead because someone has shot them.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: Um, and I think that that is, that is the world we're living in and it, and, and those stories are becoming more and more prevalent, so we need to keep those out there.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Thank you for mentioning that.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: And once again, prayers for victims and families feels like the umpteenth time.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: We've said that.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: And we've only been podcasting for a couple of years now, but
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's constant.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: So I think we can all do our part and take the lead of like these young folk that are out on the street and listen to them and, and keep doing that work, so.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: And it's hard work.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: It is hard.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: And speaking of hard work, you know what else is hard?
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: The topic of our first question for today's podcast episode, this is about making friends.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: So the question reads hard.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: The question reads, it's hard to make friends and new meaningful relationships as an adult.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Do you have any thoughts on how to make friends as we get older?
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: How does this relate to faith and opportunities for faith communities?
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: That's real.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: It is real.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: I think one of the things that's really hard when you get older with regards to making friends is that everyone's time is so much more limited and you just have fewer opportunities to be exposed to other people unless you're really seeking it out when you're in college, when you're in high school, maybe if you're in graduate school, you have something that brings you together.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: And you know that you all share something in common, whether it be a course and experience, whatever it is.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: And then when you get older, it's a little bit harder to do that because people have jobs, they have maybe other family members that take up time and so they're just not available as much and it's hard to just get ahold of people, let alone spend enough time to feel like you've made enough of a meaningful connection.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: And I, and I think that's something we're seeing in our churches right now in our faith communities, is that churches are not always doing the best job of that.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Some are, but we also see the aging demographics of mainline denominations like the Presbyterian Church USA and the lack of young people.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: And I think part of that, it creates a, what we all understand as sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy in a cycle where you show up if you're the only young person, you may not wanna stay because it's hard to make meaningful relationships already, but it's also harder when there's no one else that's even sort of in your age range, let alone factor into other things like race, gender identity, sexual orientation, and a myriad of other things.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: It's a, it's an issue that I, I mean, we moved, not that, I mean we moved almost two years ago, which is hard to believe.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: And when I moved to Nashville, I moved there because of the Yaf program.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: And so you kind of had like a built-in system of meeting people.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Like you were already kind of around people and people were in your group and cohort or the young adult volunteer program.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: And, but when we moved, it really did kind of hit you.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: It really does hit you of like how intentional you have to be, but it's also being very honest with yourself about what you need and why do you, why do you want to be around people and like what is the motivation of that?
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Is it community or if you're like maybe just scared to be by yourself or, or there's all these like inner things that I know I've been asking of myself because, you know, I play like an extrovert, but I'm really not.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: And it takes a lot of energy for me to be around people and I had to come to the realization that I don't necessarily need a lot of close friends.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: And I used to feel weird about that and feeling that way.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: But I think, I think it depends on the person.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: Like me, I like to be close and if I get close with other peop like if I, if it just happens that I get close to somebody, I think that's, those are the best situations that happen organically.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: I think if you're working too hard at it, that's something that is also something to investigate, like why that is.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: But I'm not one that needs a lot of like close, close friends.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: I have people in my life that I go to and know me on a, on a deeper level and, and all those things.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: So I think it's also kind of a boundary thing.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: And I see that a lot in churches.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: You know, some churches try too hard and it's like, it's almost too much and then, and then you're kind of put off by it.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: And, and I think that there is just a lot to say within the authenticity of it all and like being yourself.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: And I know that's like a vulnerable thing too.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: It takes vulnerability to, to make friends.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: It takes a a lot of energy and yeah, some people just don't have it.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: Some people just don't have the energy to do it.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: And I think that that's okay sometimes.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: And to just kind of live into that, that space where, I mean, I think the church should live into that space more because it kind of gives you time to breathe.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: I don't know why people are in such, I look, I think about it sometimes.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: Why am I in such a rush to like make friends?
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: I think that that is a, a thing that the church could also be asking itself.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: Like why are we in a rush or why is it based out of fear, you know, based out of, of not being like relevant or based out of we're losing people or based out of, we have to hand this thing off.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: There's all these pressures that I think in some ways are made up that we kind of think are important and so important that it's almost forced.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: And when things are forced, they're inauthentic.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: And I think that's when, that's when it gets iffy.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: It's already hard to be vulnerable, but you don't wanna swing on the other end and be something you're not.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: And I think that's where people get weird by, and that takes practice too.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: It takes practice not to like overwhelm somebody, um, and to find an organic connection.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: And if not, that's totally fine.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: You can't be friends with everybody.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: That's what I say.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: You can't, you really can't.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: So yeah,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: I think that also going back to the contrast with when folks are younger and for example, they're in college, they had their sport, they had their classes that bring people together.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: I think something that is important to do and hard to practice is to say, I'm gonna go try to, I'm gonna show up to an event or I'm gonna say, Hey, I want to try the local community band or orchestra, or I'm gonna sign up to be a substitute on the adult soccer team and hopefully that will give me a chance to meet people.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: Or I'll show up to the park and I'll just see who's playing and ask if I can join.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: You know, trying to seek out opportunities that bring you together with other people around some sort of shared activity or interest just to at least get some initial conversation and experience together can be really helpful.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: But again, it requires a certain level of boldness and courage to do that because you are walking into the situation blind,
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: You don't know these people, you don't know what they're going to think about you maybe and not saying that it always should matter, but to some people that really does matter,
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: .
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: And like you were saying, you don't know how much of yourself to necessarily show to those people, especially in that first time, maybe even the second time.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: It, it's gonna take a couple times to get to be comfortable enough with someone that you can sort of be yourself.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: And some people you will just never get to that point with them and that's okay.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: You might be okay with having just this shared experience every week or every couple weeks, and that might be enough to at least help you feel at least a little bit more grounded.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: It, it's, and it does take practice.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: I do think not everybody and it's, I think it's also how, you know, a lot of it has to do with how your dynamics are too.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: Like I have a very friendly family now.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: Some of their beliefs, uh, are not so friendly, but they are very, it's very easy for us, I think because of how we were raised and the amount of people that we were around, we all became naturally good at jumping into a conversation, if that makes sense.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: And, and I do think it takes practice.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: I think it takes, yeah, knowing yourself and, and that's all analogous to the church I think in some ways because of a tailspin that we've kind of created within the church world.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: I think in some ways we've kind of created this, like we've created the chaos and now the chaos is forcing us into things that like, I think really does make you want to speed up things and makes you do things that may not be like in the character of the church.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: So I, I really do think this is a great question because I think it is a reality and churches are great places to meet people because people are there and especially if you're a person of faith, you go to these places having kind of a baseline idea of what you believe and if you've done your research and that's kind of where that church lies with your like morals and everything else.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: But I think there are great places for people to meet people.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: It's just that there's also that added layer of this is the church and then we put so much on membership and we put so much on, you know, the church is declining and we put so much on all these things.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Like we put so much pressure on ourselves that I think in the end it's gonna come to bite us again because we've, we've kind of, we've kind of given into this, I mean it's like white supremacy, culture of scarcity and, and all these things that we put on ourselves.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: And I think we do that to ourselves too.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: When we meet people, we never think we're enough.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: Some, some of us don't think that we're enough.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: And I think it takes reminding and the church is a great place to remind people that they're enough, but when the church doesn't do that, you know, that's where this all stuff comes into play, all these vulnerabilities and everybody is scared and, and kind of co self-conscious and you know, that's just kind of where everybody's at.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: And I think if we all realize that too, like a lot of us also have all these things that we're self-conscious about.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: So when in reality a lot of people are just waiting for someone to make, to make the first move, if that makes sense.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: I think that's more, I think we give that more, I don't think we give that enough credit within it.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: And so, so yeah.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: It's hard though.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: I don't like to be vulnerable all the time,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: But Yeah.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: It is hard.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: And it, it also makes me think back to the podcast conversation we had with Dr.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Carolyn Chen.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Which was about how the workplace is replacing church and faith communities for a lot of people because the people that they're hanging out with are the people they know from work.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: It's not the people they know from church.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: Especially in a world where, well, it's actually a little bit different now.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Lemme take that back.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: I think for, for some folks, if you are working remotely, it's a little bit different because you might not have as much immediate access to people for the after work happy hour or doing things outside of work.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: But in general, that is a trend as in a, in a lot of places where the workplace and the work colleagues are one of your primary sources of community.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: And it's really hard to compete with that when someone is already spending at least 40 hours a week with those people.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: But making the effort to Yeah.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: To work together is a whole other thing.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: But now with more remote work options, I do think that some people are running into the issue of not having that same sense of grounding with their work colleagues because they, they just can't hang out after
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: Work.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: And especially in a post pandemic world where at the height of the pandemic, I think a lot of people started realizing which friends they wanted to keep in contact with, and which friends simply didn't quite fit that innermost circle, or for lack of a better word, the highest tier of Yeah.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Folks you wanted to, you wanted to or we're able to keep up with.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: And that's not a, that's not putting blame on anyone.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: No.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: That's just a reality of the situation.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: But even if we look at
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: Jesus, that's a good thing.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Totally.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: And if we look at Jesus, Jesus had his, his circle of 12, right.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: And even that circle of 12 wasn't perfect by any means.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: And he had a lot of people coming to him who maybe weren't seeking deep connection, they just wanted what he could provide, which might be a miracle.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: And so I think there's some, there's some relevance to Jesus' story when we talk about friendship and closeness that is pretty apt for this conversation around relationships.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: And, and I just thought about something, it's not very entertaining to write about the ones that you're closest with, if that makes sense.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: It's, and I wonder if the 12 were his closest friends, I wonder if the, I mean, obviously there were more than 12, but it's not necessarily a good story or a good growing story if you don't talk about the ones that could have been better, if that makes sense.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Like the ones that kind of were more dynamic, you know, Jesus was around, what was it, John and James and Peter a lot, that was kind of his, his favorites.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: Um, and Peter has talked about a lot and not saying that if you're close, you don't have differences or anything like that.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: I think you should, and I think you should be able to kind of talk about it.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: And I think that was a great example of Jesus and Peter in a, in a situation to where they had these hard conversations together.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: But I also wonder, like we didn't hear a lot from Ja about James and John.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: We just know that they were his closest ones.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: And so I just wonder about that too, about, about the closeness that Jesus had with the disciples and, and what that means.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: Because not always is that like the best story to tell if somebody's just gonna go along with you and, and be there and do that.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: And I think those are beautiful stories, but they're not always entertaining, you know what I mean?
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: It's not always a good story.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: So I, whenever you said that, I just wondered about that.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: And I think there's also some similarities to the experiences of pastors and those in leadership of our churches and congregations.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, we've heard from pastors that being a pastor can be a very lonely experience because you are a leader for this congregation, for this community.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: And sometimes you, that means you can't be friends with them.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: And I don't think you should be
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Sometimes Right.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: There's some boundaries that probably need to be respected there with the result that the people you work with most closely may not be the people you are most closely in relationship with.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: The opposite almost of what of our conversation with Dr.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: Carolyn Chen, where those colleagues cannot be your friends per se.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: You can care about them, but there's some boundaries.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: And so you have to seek community elsewhere.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: And that can be, that can be lonely and hard as well.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: It can be isolating.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: But, but yeah, y'all, if you have friendship stories or friend advice, I think that would be great.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: I need some advice on how to make friends, not that I need a lot, but I need some, you know, I need some friends.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: So if you have advice or any other questions, just should write us at fake podcast at peace u s a.org.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: And you know, one way that you can always make friends, make acquaintances, bring people together.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: It's around a table with food.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Very
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: True.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: Very true.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: It's,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: And speaking of food, our guest on today's episode is gonna be talking about food and how food can be theological.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: So we hope that you will enjoy our conversation with Kendall Vander Slice, the founder of Edible Theology.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: And we hope that this conversation brings you joy, brings you insight, and also doesn't make you too hungry.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Well, we are so excited to be joined today on this episode of a Matter of Faith, a Presby podcast by a very special guest.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: Joining us is Kendall Vander Slice, who is the founder of Edible Theology.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Kendall, thank you so much for being with us today.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you for having me.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the podcast, Kendall.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: And before we got started, we have just discovered our mutual love of Beagles.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: And so shout out to Beagles out there.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: We love you and that's wonderful.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: We both have them.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: But thank you for being on the podcast with us and to respond to a question that we got about food.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: And so,
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: My favorite topic.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's, it's a wonderful topic.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: And our question reads, how can food be theological?
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: How is food important for both understanding and expressing faith?
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: Well, you want me to just dive right into it?
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: , dive right in.
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's, there is, there are so many ways that you could come at this conversation, but I love starting by looking at the, the ways that food, um, meals specifically are at play throughout the narrative of scripture.
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: Um, so from the very beginning of creation and the story of Genesis one through three, we see food as kind of this central aspect of creation.
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: That humanity was created and placed inside a garden that was filled with, you know, trees and plants and seed that like seed bearing fruits of all different kinds.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: Um, and humanity had two basic needs from the very beginning.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: This need to draw nutrition and energy from food and a need to share their lives with other humans.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: That the only thing that was not called good in this creation filled with wonderful edible things was a human being alone.
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: And I really love that kind of the only, the only responsibility really that these first humans had was to tend to God's creation, to delight in God's creation and to delight in God.
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: And this is done in sort of in and among these treats that are providing their food, that I think this process of eating is a way of caring for creation and finding joy in, in God and in God's creation.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: But I also love that kind of this, this basic need for food and this need for community are both met every single time we sit at a table and eat with others.
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: And so I think this need to eat and to eat with others is kind of aen a core part of what it means to be human and how we were created, um, to function.
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: And then I find it not at all ironic that kind of the only restriction that these first humans had was a restriction on what they could eat.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: And then the first kind of the story of this breakdown of creation is this consumption of the forbidden fruit.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: And the Orthodox priest, a Alexander Schleman, essentially he says that the kind of sin that took place that day was a ceasing to let their hunger sort of guide them into communion with God.
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: It was a ceasing to see every aspect of this beautiful creation as something that guides us into communion with God.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: And instead as something that we can engage with kind of on our own terms or selfishly or disconnected from communion with God and communion with others, that it was a selfish act.
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: Um, and so it was this, this breakdown of creation takes place through a meal.
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: Kind of from that point on, we see the ramifications of that breakdown of creation and we see kind of the brokenness of creation expressed in our relationship to food and eating, to tending the soil, to farming.
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: Um, that all of all of kind of our relationships to food are ways that we experience this brokenness of creation.
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: And yet also it's a way that we experience the goodness of God's creation.
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: So then when we bounce ahead to the New Testament to kind of Jesus' final days, um, what does he do to kind of offer this sign of his death and resurrection, but offer another meal?
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: Um, and I think this, this meal, this communion meal, the Last Supper, but then also the communion meal that we share as Christians is a direct sort of corollary to this meal in the garden in Genesis three.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: But it was a meal that brought death into the world, but it was through Jesus' death that he then offers us a meal as this sign of new life.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: Um, and then when we skip ahead again to Revelation, we see kind of this new creation is once again a creation that is filled with trees and fruits and this process of eating that it's the imagery of a marriage supper of the lamb that we have the tree of life who bears its fruit all year round and whose leaves heal nations.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: That once again, like food is the central hallmark of the new creation.
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: This thing that brings healing.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: You know, throughout the entire narrative of scripture, we have food in a, as a significant character and we have meals as kind of this storytelling device of God's work in creation.
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: Um, and so I think then every time we sit at the table with others, every time we eat, we are kind of reenacting this story of both brokenness and redemption.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: We experience the pain of living in a world that's not as it's supposed to be.
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: And we also experience this constant reminder of the creation that God has called good and also God's promise to restore all things.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: That is beautiful.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: I love how you illustrated for us, food is agriculture, food is connection to creation, food is community, it is connection to each other.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: And food is also hope at the same time.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: And I think it's so easy to be like, food is sustenance, food keeps me going, or, or I think, and, and sometimes it's very easy, we all get, get into these situations where it's like, food is my salvation for right now because like, this is the one thing that I know tastes good and is going well.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: Um, and that's all.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: And it's there in all aspects of your life, which is really powerful.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: And I don't think we've ever really sat down and dissected it as well as you so clearly articulated that for us there.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: So thank you.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: I I really appreciate that.
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: I love, I mean, my whole life is committed to thinking about food and kind of the ways food is at play in the story of scripture, but it's, once you start digging into it, it's like it just continues to unfold further and further and further how significant food is kind of in our lives and also in scripture.
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: But I think this is beautiful because it's something so basic, like we can so easily forget about it because it is so basic, so central and to kind of our daily existence that we overlook just how powerful it is.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: It, it's powerful in a lot of sentences.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: Like for me personally, food has always been, you know, growing up in the south we ate and not only did we eat, but we also in many ways we over indulged.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: And in many ways, like food was seen as, I mean it definitely was seen as like a communal thing.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: We always got together and ate together.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: But it was also on the other side of it, it was something that like, we kind of over indulged in mm-hmm.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: kind of like, it, it, and then it became like something that for me was, is, is kind of, uh, a complicated relationship with food and I, along with my health, along with kind of a journey of like eating disorders and things like that.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: So I know a lot of the time in our churches or in faith communities, like we talk about meals and we talk about eating and we talk about food as, you know, communion and things like that.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: But then we have like the other side of it to where like we have toxic diet culture mm-hmm.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: , we have things like that I went through and a lot of people go through where that food, that relationship with food is, is hard to even like think about in just like a regular sense, much less kind of like a theological sense.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: And so it is very helpful, you know, as a person of faith myself, to constantly try to frame it in a very, in, in a spiritual way that really helps me kind of be able to have a better relationship with food.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: But I wonder what you would say about that.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: How do we, you know, how do we have that relationship that, that hopefully can be more life giving like it's supposed to be.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: But I do think in many ways it is very complicated for some people too.
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: It's, it is very complicated.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: And this is why I really love starting with this kind of genesis one through three that we, we have this picture of food is created to be good, um, and created as this means of drawing us into relationship with God, with one another, with God's creation.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: But then also in Genesis three we have this recognition that like food is also this way in which we constantly experience the brokenness of the world around us, the brokenness of our relationship to our own bodies, our relationship to food, our relationship to community.
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: And I think that is epitomized in kind of the role that food plays in our lives.
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: And everyone experiences this kind of, this brokenness in different ways.
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: For some people it is kind of really complicated relationships to our bodies and our kind of fears around the ways that the foods that we eat will impact our bodies.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: Um, so we see that in eating disorders, we see that in diet culture.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: Um, we also see it in kind of in food allergies.
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: The, the fact that food is actually a danger to some people, even kind of this, this food that is for me, central and food.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: And that is central to the Christian story, which is bread is also something that is actually dangerous to a number of people.
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: Uh, for others it's kind of an experience of food insecurity that like lack of access to adequate food is how they really experience this deep, deep groaning of creation.
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: Um, in other ways we see kind of food wielded as a power device, like in war kind of the withholding of, of food from a particular nation.
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: Like this is kind of a tale as old as time that like the withholding of food has been, um, you know, military tactic forever.
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: That kind of food is this, this thing that is so central to our existence, so central to kind of our ability to live, but also the ways that we express our relationship to place and our relationship to community that then also becomes this powerful place for kind of experiencing just how painful this world can be as well.
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: Um, and so I think my sort of response is to say, first we have to acknowledge that this is true.
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: We can't only treat food as this kind of good gift that's never complicated because that's ignoring reality.
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: Um, but it's also ignoring the ways that food is at play throughout the story of scripture.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: You know, we see right there in Genesis three that food is a complicated thing.
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: But I think that the way that I like to sort of go in is to say that it's still though through a meal that Christ offers, that Christ is constantly kind of extending forgiveness to, to people that Christ is building community, that Christ's ministry is left out through this ministry of meals, including culminating in this meal that Christ shares with his disciples at the Last Supper, and then shares with us each, each time we gather to take communion.
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: Um, that I think we can remember that food is, is this thing that heals us.
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: Um, and when we allow ourselves to hold onto that tension of food being really complicated, but also food being good and this means of healing, it can then encourage us to think, you know, how can we, we build communities that use food to address these complicated things.
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: How can we reorient our language around food to see it as a good gift from God?
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: Something that can bring us joy and delight and an interrelationship with God.
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: And then if our orientation is from this place of food is this good gift and it's meant to bring us into relationship with one another and into relationship with God's creation, how then can we act responsibly towards that end?
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: How does that change the ways that we, you know, talk about food, the ways that we purchase food, the ways that we share food with others, and how do we do that within kind of this tension of recognizing that once again, like the world is complicated and we have limitations on how we're able to do this.
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: Um, so I think it is kind of this just like on ongoing recognition that there is tension inherently involved in this, and yet somehow the table is uniquely capable of holding onto that kind of tension.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: I really like that and I appreciate also how you have outlined that, that that tension sometimes, sometimes it's sort of on one side of the coin, sometimes it's sort of on the other side, and that navigating that is a reality and that it's different for different contexts for different people at different times in their lives.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: I, I'll just share a very brief story that looking back, I laugh about it, but I also kind of wanna like kick myself.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: , uh, at one point I was trying, it wasn't even a diet, but it was just intermittent fasting, which, which many different people use for various various reasons.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: And I remember, um, I started my fast at uh, 8:00 PM at night.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: And then I would go, I, and I was doing like a 16 hour fast, right?
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: And we got to Saturday, that was Saturday night, I got to Sunday morning and it was communion Sunday.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: And I literally picked up the communion wafer and the literally the little juice thing.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: And I was like, so does this break my fast?
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: Hmm.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: And then I, and then I thought about it, I was like, this is the dumbest thing I've ever like, wondered about.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: Like this is not important.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: This is about participating in the Lord's Supper and in communion.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: But I had that moment and I was like, what matters more here?
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: What really matters?
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: And that doesn't even have anything to do with like body image.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: That's just, like I said, I was doing this thing and I'm doing this.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, is this gonna like ruin my thing?
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: And I was like, wait a minute, calm down for a moment.
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: .
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: But I think that that's just an example of times where we, we have different relationships, different ideas about food, about what's going on with our s with ourselves, and sometimes we get caught up in it and then it's like, wait a minute.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: Sometimes taking that step away helps to, to change their, our perspective and change maybe that relationship.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: But as you said, it is ongoing and it's not, it's not easy, especially for people who have experienced food insecurity or other types of, um, just difficulties.
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: I do love that.
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: In that story, it is kind of the, the communion meal itself for it forces you to question kind of your relationship to food and to fasting to say like, wait, what, what am I actually doing here?
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: What's the purpose of this fast?
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: And how does this sort of, how does communion fit into that?
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: It, yeah.
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: I, I think that communion always should sort of shape our, we always, our tagline at Edible Theology is that we are building resources that connect the communion table to the kitchen table.
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: That we want people to understand how kind of what takes place when we gather for communion, reverberates into all of the meals that we share throughout the week.
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: And so I just love that that is a very clear example of how this communion meal, like recast your understanding of what you were doing in this intermittent fasting.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: And, and it's also, cuz I know a part of, um, edible theology too is, and, and I watched the video of you making bread
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: .
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: Um, and it, it's one of those like very like powerful thing.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: So if people have never like baked bread, I know in, in the, like I used to be a keto person.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: I didn't eat bread for a very, very long time, but when the pandemic came, you know, everybody started making sourdough bread and we started doing it because a friend of ours gave us a starter and she got it from I think her mom or something.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: And so not even thinking about the connection there of like something being passed down, like this was her mom's like, recipe from long ago.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: And I think like something about her grandmother had it and, and all this kinds of things like carrying on that same starter, which is could be very theological in and of itself.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: Um, but in the process of it, you know, of making bread and going through the process and, and kind of baking it and then like actually eating it and then realizing like, this isn't gonna make me like it, it was kind of liberating in a way because like after we, after we would eat it and really enjoy it, there was like a little bit of guilt there in any, even in partaking it.
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: But, but then realizing like, my body didn't change that much and, and it was something that was very connectedness and then we made so much of it, we just kind of like, we sat at on the porch and people would just come get it mm-hmm.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: .
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: And so it was like one of those things that was very cathartic during that time.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: And watching that video, I wonder like what is the experience for you when you make bread and, and how does that kind of, you know, connect you in a way to God?
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: Because it was a great, it, it was a great video and very well produced by the way,
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: .
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: Oh, thank you.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: If y'all need to go watch it,
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: .
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I, so for me, bread is kind of the what drives all of my work at Edible Theology.
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: I am, my background is as a professional Baker bread is what I really love.
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: Um, and I've dug a lot into kind of theology of bread specifically, but I do think on a theological level that bread is this way that God, um, proves it's a tangible way that God is present with us.
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: Like in scripture we see God using bread to prove God's provision for God's people.
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: We see God, um, using it as a way of showing God's presence with God's people.
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: We see that in the 12 loaves of show bread that the Israelites placed in the tabernacle.
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: We see that in communion and the last Supper.
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: We see that in the story of the path to Emmaus, that it was in the breaking of bread, that the disciples knew that Jesus was among them.
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: Um, and it's also this way that God is telling, like proving God's promises to us.
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: And so in kind of just a purely theological sense, I think we see bread all throughout scripture serving this really important role.
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: Um, but I don't think we can fully grasp that or understand that until we are actually baking bread that it is this very tangible way in which God is present with us.
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: Um, that, you know, when, when, whether or not we bake it, that that we are given bread and we are to consume bread in communion.
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: Um, and so in that way we can, I think, know God on our tongues.
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: We can know God with our taste buds.
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: We can know God in our belly in this like deeply tangible, tactile way, which is such a gift in these moments when we are, you know, have, have n we don't know if we can feel God's presence maybe or you don't know if like when it feels like I don't really know, you know, is God there is God's not showing up for me in this situation, am I, you know, do like, there's so many different forms of spiritual anxiety that we can feel that are all sort of based in our, our emotions, our feelings, and in our, um, our thoughts.
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: But God is giving us this deeply tangible thing that's like, you might not know that I'm present sort of emotionally or mentally or whatever, but like, here is this bread that you can place on your tongue and know that I have made these promises to you.
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: Um, but I also think that that in, in the actual making of bread, we experience this deep connection as well that in the very tactile process of making that bread, watching this flower transform, like feeling it transform in our hands, there's something just so meditative and, and grounding in that process, knowing that kind of on even a microbial level, this bread connects us to the people around us.
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: That sourdough starter that has been passed down generation to generation, these microbes are actually connecting you guys to one another.
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: That in kind of a metaphorical sense, this bread makes us one body in the church, but also globally and historically that, you know, in so many different ways, bread points to our connection to one another.
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: And I think the actual making of it is this, this ongoing reminder of this community that we are a part of.
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: And so to me it was just, just not at all surprising that at the height of the pandemic, everyone turned to baking bread, that it was this, this thing in the loss of community and the loss of control bread is this thing that kind of replants us in an understanding of kind of the, the world that we belong in.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: We baked a lot.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: It wasn't just bread, it was like everything that you could.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: And and it's funny because my husband got like to like the second round of like the American Bake off, like he did like a video and everything else and they ended up not for some reason they ended up not doing it, but like he got kind, he kind of got a little far in it, but it became something that really was cathartic.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: And something that we could both do, uh, during that time.
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: And it is, it is very funny to think about that we go back to that very mm-hmm.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: kind of basic foundational thing that is breaking bread and the smell.
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: I mean the smelling of itself can also connect us.
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: Like sometimes when it comes to food and it can not only connect us to God, but also like our ancestors and the people who have gone before us.
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: Like there are sometimes where I can smell my grandmother's biscuits with like a little hint.
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: She was a smoker and I'll tell you she smoked in her house too.
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: And you can kind of have that, I could get a whiff of that sometimes Uhhuh.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: And a lot of it has to deal with food and a lot of it has to do with that aroma that comes with it that also connects us in those ways.
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: And I'm like a full believer that those things can kind of like open up us to the spirit of those who are around us as well.
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: So, so yeah.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: It is, it is very powerful.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: It's, yeah,
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: You know, our, our foods always kind of tell stories that they, um, because eating is always a deeply sensual thing in that we experience it with all of our senses.
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: We experience it with our sense of smell, with our sense of touch, of taste.
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: You know, it's of with sight, with hearing that all of our senses are involved in this process of eating, um, our, our senses, kind of the ways that our brain processes senses and the ways that our brain processes memory and emotion are always deep co closely together.
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: So the fact that food ignites all of these senses in some way means that it's going to very easily connect us kind of in a, in a sense of memory to these different moments in time and people that we have shared these same foods with, but also the foods that we eat are oftentimes kind of developed out of relationships between our family and our family to the places that we have lived.
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: So they kind of tell these stories of like generational movement, um, and the places that we've called home.
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: And so it, it does literally connect us to a place and to people kind of through our senses, um, and through time and the ways that it tells these stories of where we have come from and, and where our family has gone.
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: I was just thinking about that, uh, on one side of my family for the, the Chinese part of my family.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: It's very, I have very specific associations with a specific restaurant, a certain day during the week, specific types of foods, specific smells.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: And it always, it takes you back to a specific time.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: Uh, there's a lot of nostalgia.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: It also reminds me of the connections and the sense of community that you f that you feel, um, in these different situations.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: So that's that's really relatable.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: I, I wanted to ask a question about something actually that is, um, on your website for Edible Theology, which we will have a link to in the show notes cuz we've talked a little bit about community and sort of the, the bringing together around the table.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: But you have this point here that I think is really interesting.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: The very first, uh, sort of step in your approach with edible theology is to identify barriers to gathering at the table.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: And I'll just read this for folks real quick.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: It reads, are you too busy?
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: Do you have a fraught relationship to food due to allergies, eating disorders or diet culture?
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: Are you overwhelmed by where to start dialoguing with those who disagree with you?
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: And I think that that is so insightful because it's not just calling in calling one in to reflect on their own experience, but that, that question about disagreement, I was wondering if you could go into that a little bit more, because that is not something that I think we talk about and see as an opportunity when we gather together around the table.
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: So I, our kind of work at Edible Theology, our goal is to use kind of storytelling about the foods that are meaningful to us and the meals that are meaningful to us as an inroad into conversation about these harder topics.
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: Um, so having people tell stories about food around the table to talk about hard things.
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: Um, but we realized that to even do that we had to go a couple steps fir back and to say like, well, what keeps us from even sitting at the table to have these conversations?
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: Um, and so identifying these barriers of, of, of even what keeps us from coming to the table but then wanting to point out that the table can be a really powerful place for having these conversations that are hard.
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: Um, there's on the one hand, like the table itself provides a physical barrier between us that makes us feel a little bit safer.
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: Your body is like physically protected, which makes it feel a little bit safer to enter into hard conversations.
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: There's also a level of kind of commitment that happens when we agree to sit down together.
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: There's kind of this commitment to one another.
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: There's a vulnerability that comes in sitting down together and eating together that says like, I have to open myself up to hear you because I'm also opening myself to up to be heard by you and to be seen by you in this kind of very vulnerable process of eating.
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: Um, so there is kind of ways in which the table itself is very well suited to having these harder conversations.
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: But then also, you know, I think we have to have a commitment at the table to say like, if we're going to enter into these conversations, we're going to do it respectfully with the goal of better understanding the people around us.
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: And I, I think that the table is just uniquely situated to being able to, to do that well.
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: So much of what, what makes our conversation conversations so charged, I think, um, especially in the midst of these deep disagreements is that usually they, they hit on something that is very personal to us.
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: Um, that feels very kind of central to our experience of the world.
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: If, if we hit this point of disagreement that rubs up against this thing that is so, so central to our existence.
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: It, it just makes hard conversations that much more painful.
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: It's painful on a visceral level, but when we sit at a table together and we have kind of this, this deep visceral need for community met through conversations at the table that kind of loneliness this, this need for belonging met through this kind of shared commitment to eat together.
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: And then we have this also the second very basic need of, of food being met.
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: We have kind of our two core needs for community and for food being met while we're sitting at a table.
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: Um, and with those two kind of core needs met, it allows us to a little bit more safely navigate that next level of like, difficult conversation because we do know at the very least, like our most core needs are provided for.
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: And so now we can take this next step and say, okay, we're gonna talk about things that are uncomfortable and we're going to know that like we have already committed to taking care of one another's core needs through our very gathering at a table to eat together.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: And then let's hope that through the stories that we tell when we are sit seated at this table together we can get to know one another a little bit more and commit to trying to understand the experience of someone else that leads to such a different sort of perspective than our own.
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: Um, so our, our hope is that kind of, we can use tables, we can use stories about meals, um, you know, the, the stories that get us talking about the places that we've come from, the family that we're in, the people that we share our meals with, using those conversations as a way to get into these harder conversations.
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: Um, so I'm a big believer that like tension is a really good thing and learning how to navigate it responsibly is our task.
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: Um, and this is where I love kind of returning to bread that I think bread itself gives us a model for this.
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: Um, that bread is made up of this protein network called gluten, which is made up of two amino acids, gluten and, and gliadin that have opposing, um, they have opposing qualities.
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: One of them has this like need to stretch and the other has what's called the plastic equality, the need to hold its shape.
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: And bread is able to take form through this tension built between those opposing qualities.
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: And as that tension is built, it traps the carbon dioxide gas and allows the dough to grow.
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: Um, and the job of the baker is to learn how to build this tension and to kind of navigate both the needs of the, the tension to build strength and also the needs of the gluten to relax and to rest so that it doesn't sort of fall apart.
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: Um, and so bread is this model of tension is a good thing, but also tension is something that has to be handled responsibly or else everything breaks down.
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: Um, and I think I take that same posture to the table to say that our disagreements are important.
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: Our disagreements are how we can sort of build strength, build structure, build community, and grow as a community.
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: But also that tension has to be navigated really carefully because if we don't rest, if we don't step away, if we don't, you know, acknowledge the exhaustion and sort of the cusp of breakdown when it's there, then we're just gonna have a mess on our hands.
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: Um, and especially I think for the church, that's just such an apt picture because like tension and disagreement is inherent in living as, you know, the body of Christ made up of such diverse members.
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: But also learning how to navigate that carefully is, is central to what we're called to.
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: And I think that, you know, Christ gives us the table as the, this primary place where Christ draws us into conversation with one another.
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: And so I think that, um, we would do well to follow heed and say like, maybe the table itself is well, is well suited to this in a very sort of practical way as well.
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: .
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I appreciate the, like, the attentiveness of like the tension and the navigation of it because I mean, it is just, I mean, it is just like bread, like if you're not attentive and you, if you don't have patience, I think that's another, you know, that's another thing about like faith communities and churches and like faith institutions.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: Like for some sometimes there's not enough patience or not enough space.
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: Ano not enough ways of, like you were saying, rest for people to actually do this type of work because, you know, like being a part of like the community or if we have people of color who have been traumatized by the church and by institutions, this work is hard, it's hard to sit at a table often and kind of sit in that tension.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: But knowing that, you know, that table has per, we have the permission to step away or we have the permission to know, to acknowledge that some of this is re-traumatizing for us, or we have the space to say like, all right, that's enough.
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: Maybe y'all should sit at the table a little longer and do that work and then we'll come back.
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: I think that there is like this, you know, like this, this nimbleness, but also this kind of strategic flexibility in a way because, and it is just like baking.
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: I mean it depends on the temperature in the room, it depends on if your oven is running hot or not.
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: It depends on the humidity in the room, whether or not something is gonna work out or not.
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: So it is very, very contextual and that's what I appreciate about the analogy.
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: And I mean those are the best bakers.
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: They know all that kind of stuff.
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: And they can navigate it all.
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: And kind of find ways to, to like, to kind of insert and say, well, this is what we need to do because this is happening in the room.
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: And I don't think we often have that in spaces.
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: It's all about, like, sometimes for me it feels like a suffering servant type thing.
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: It's like, oh, you just have to sit here and get through it.
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: I don't care if you're crying.
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: I don't care what you're doing.
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: I don't care if you are re-traumatized.
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: Like, we're just gonna do this because we're the church.
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: But this seems like, you know, a very like, nimble, flexible way of going about having these types of things.
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: And that's what I appreciate because sometimes it feels in a way, forced and mm-hmm.
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: , you really can't force it.
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah.
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: But you can have, you can have these ways of navigating it, which I appreciate about, about what you were saying.
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: I think it's also easy to get caught up in the process or the production and not focus on the opportunity, as you were saying, for conversation to sit down at the table together.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: I know folks, whether it's this is both metaphorically and literally, whether it be in the church or just just in life, who they will make sure that the food is good.
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: They will make sure that it is paid for, that they have paid for it or made it.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: They will make sure that all the dishes get done.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: They will literally focus on all the other aspects of the process, except the actual sitting down together part.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I think they're just avoiding it because they don't really want to deal with that tension.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: So they keep themselves busy.
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: With the other aspects.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: But they're missing that
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: Be awkward, right?
• 58:09
  Speaker 3: Like, meals are awkward.
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: They are, especially meals where we're having hard conversations.
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: They're awkward, they're uncomfortable sometimes, as you said, Lee, we just have to step back from them.
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: Like we have, we know intrinsically that meals are not always just this deeply comfortable thing.
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: Um, and so it, it is compelling to say like, I've done, I've done my duty of kind of providing hospitality.
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: Now I don't have to step in the discomfort of it.
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: Um, and, but I think it, it is the actual sitting down and talking and navigating those awkward or uncomfortable moments that that's where the goodness really, really comes.
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: Um, and you know, there, there are times for these like really beautiful sort of well thought through meals that mean a lot to us and also kind of just like, you know, those can be like really incredible occasions.
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: A wedding where you have this beautiful, fancy, delicious food is an incredible occasion.
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: But every meal that we share doesn't have to be like that.
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: The, the soup and the salad and the bread that you share at your kitchen table while the kids are running around and the house, you know, the laundry's on the couch, but you've just like invited neighbors in because you know, they, you know, you both needed some community.
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: Like there is also deep goodness there as vulnerable and uncomfortable as it as it might be.
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: I do think, you know, part of what makes meals work that, that allows us to build this deeper community is the inherent vulnerability involved.
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: And I think we sometimes just wanna avoid that vulnerability.
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: We want to have the meal, we want to have kind of the good food, we wanna have the beautiful sort of setting, but we don't wanna step into the vulnerability because it's scary.
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: Um, but, but that's where, that's where the depth of relationships are formed.
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: I think there's also an aspect of how, how you people view contributions towards the, like the setting of the table towards the meal itself.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: Uh, because if, if you're the host, there's sort of an assumption about what that means.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: And if you're the guest, sometimes there's an assumption about what that means.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: And sometimes those things are great, and that's exactly what is needed to promote that kind of conversation, to walk in that tension.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: And sometimes I think that that instead that power dynamic is used to set the situation in such a way as to avoid that tension or to, uh, what's the word I'm looking for, to make it so that the one that is doing the hosting, for example, sort of always has the power so that they can control whether it's a conversation or just the environment, because they feel that they need that if they wanna sit down at the table in the first place.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: .
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: Well, so I, I do, I'm really glad you brought up the topic of power because I think that, um, power is always at play at the table, and the host typically is the one that has power in this space.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: And I don't think that that's necessarily a bad thing.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: I think it's a, it's a neutral thing.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: It's just what is that the person who has set the table that has brought the food, that has invited the people together has power in this space.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: Um, and so it's on the host to then understand how to utilize that power in a way that builds community rather than breaks it down.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: And so part of that is kind of making sure people are comfortable.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: Part of it's making sure people are fed.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: Part of it is trying to kind of get a handle on conversation to make sure that it, it's directed in a fruitful way, but also kind of, it's, that can become an excuse on the part of the host to kind of, to try and be the one in control when there's a certain level of lack of control that always comes into play when you're inviting other people in.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: Um, and sometimes kind of the desire to be in control is a desire to make sure your house is perfect, because you don't want people to see the messiness when in reality sometimes that messiness, that lack of control, those like hiccups that are natural to having people over is what makes people comfortable inside your home and what makes you able to have the better conversations.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: So I think, you know, you're right that that power is always, is always at play and it's kind of a matter of it's the host trying to maintain control, or are they trying to use their power to kind of help others feel invited into the home and a participant in this sort of gathering?
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: For some reason, it always happens.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: I bring up the Real Housewives.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: I am a big fan.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: It's kinda a, it's kind of a guilty pleasure of mine.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: Great.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: But this fits because all they, a lot of the times all they do are eating.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: They're around these like big tables that are very elaborate.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: They're either hosted in their homes or like, yeah, there's a lot of dynamics there.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: But no matter the beautifulness of the table, no matter, like anything, like they're just terrible communicators and they were terrible.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: They're like terrible at having hard conversations because of the ways in which they can't necessarily navigate that power that some of them have within the dynamics.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: And it just, it, it's just like a, a pop cultural display of the, these, these women have a lot of financial resources and they can have these elaborate tables and they can do these elaborate things.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: And at the same time, you know, that power dynamic, no matter who you are, if you, if there's not a way to kind of like navigate it, it, it turns out usually by the time the episode is done, everybody's mad, everybody's falling out, and it's just all over.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: Like, there's nothing, yeah.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: Nothing is helpful.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: And I've seen that, like in, I mean, even in family dinners, I mean, it's not a family dinner unless somebody gets in an argument.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: .
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, and at least that's just how it was with my family, and it was never done in a way, you know, like things just kind of pop up, you know, when you're with family and when you're around that dynamic, there's like generational things.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: And I've seen in the church too, there's just like generational relationships with people and people have certain relationships with one another that I might necessarily not know, but other people may know.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: And so there's like these complex like things that are going on and it just naturally make, they, it just naturally comes up at a dinner table too.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: And so there's like that other side of it to where a dinner table just invites Yes.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: Invites these things to come up.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: You know, you are in an intimate space and things have just built up.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: And for some reason food, I mean, and there might be like some drinking going on and, and like, you know, your, your things, you're like, barrier just comes down for some reason when you're eating together.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: And so that also happens too, in that I've noticed in these spaces.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: That's just an observation.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: I don't even know.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: So I, I do think that the, the fighting that kind of naturally happens at the family table, like the Thanksgiving table, we always point to that.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: I do think that's a slightly different thing than maybe the drama that's happening at the Real Housewives table.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: .
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: Um, I think they are, I do think they're connected in the sense that like there is, when we're eating, like these things arise more easily.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: That, um, that I think that like physical barrier of the table allows our kind of other emotional barriers to come down.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: But I think what's happening at the Real Housewives table now, my my awareness is somewhat limited.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: I have like, you know, watched episodes while I'm getting my nails done, and that's kind of the capacity of my, my knowledge.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: But the tables there, I think they're not, they're not being set with the intention to build community.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: They're being set to show off wealth, right?
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: To show off power.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: So the table is kind of set with this assumption that like, this is my way of showing kind of where I'm at and what I have and what I can do.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: So it's, it is like very explicitly this desire to be in control of this situation because the situation is meant to show what I have, not to sort of lay down what I have and say, let's come together in community.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: Um, so that's almost like asking for the drama to arise because the goal itself is that drama, not the deeper kind of relationship building.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: And I, sorry, I just can't help myself sometimes bringing it up.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: But, but I also wanted to give you a chance to also talk a little bit explicitly about Edible Theology and maybe how people can get involved, maybe some things that are going on right now, how they can get connected.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: I think people out there would really love to, uh, to hear about it.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: So, um, like I said, our sort of tagline is that we're connecting the communion table to the kitchen table.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: Um, so we have a number of resources for churches and for families as well as for individuals.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: Um, so our two kind of primary resources are, are two curriculums.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: One is called Bake With the Bible, um, and it is a six lesson program looking at six different stories of bread in the gospels.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: Um, so we've got the Temptations of Jesus, the Parable of Levin, the Path to a Emmaus, the Last Supper.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: I always, I always forget the sixth, but there's a sixth somewhere in there.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: Um, but looking at kind of those stories of bread in the gospel, um, what are they doing sort of scripturally, but then also, um, what, you know, encouraging you to see kind of what else do you see going on in this story.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: Um, and then there's also a cultural historical lesson with each one looking at kind of the ways that bread has been used throughout history, especially in Christian tradition.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: Um, a variety of activities and then also recipes for each lesson.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: So we have a ver we have versions for churches and versions for use in the home.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: Um, and then we also have versions for within those we have versions for kids and then versions for teens and adults.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: So kind of any situation can be covered by this Bake with the Bible program.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 3: It's a ton of fun.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: Um, and then we also have a curriculum called Worship at the Table.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 3: And that is designed for a Sunday school or a small group setting, um, where it's, again, six lessons.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 3: And over the course of each one, you gather around the table with a group of people looking at the ways that meals is at play in the story of scripture, and also the ways that food has shaped your own life.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: And using this storytelling about foods that have been meaningful to you as a way into building community and thinking creatively about how you can build deeper community around the table, in your own home and in your church.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: Um, so those are our two main things.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: We also have a podcast called Kitchen Meditations, um, which are weekly, short, little 15 minute meditations to listen to while you're in the kitchen.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 3: Um, and the goal with all of this is to really help kind of heal relationships, our relationships to food, and also heal our relationships to community.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: Wonderful.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: Well, we will be sure to have a link in the show notes to Edible Theology so that folks can check out all of the wonderful work that you and your colleagues are doing.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: And Kendall, thank you so much for coming on the podcast with us today.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: I, I wish this could be in person, so we could sit down and do this podcast at the table, maybe have some samples and, uh, break bread together, but, uh, maybe one day.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: But thank you so much for being with us.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: Yes,
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me here.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: Well, thanks everyone for listening to this episode of a Matter of Fate, a Presby podcast.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: And thanks to Kendall from Edible Theology for being with us this week.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: We had a great conversation with her, so we hope you enjoyed it.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: We also want to remind you to subscribe wherever you get your podcast, and of course, leave us a review.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: Just a few words, some five stars.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: We really appreciate it.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: If you have a question, send'em the fake podcast@pcua.org and check out our website, a matter of eight podcast.com.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: There you will find our Spanish podcast and our Korean podcast and our listening guides.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: So check out our website and of course, we will talk to you again next week.