We should all go back to making bread and pasta and pizza dough by hand.
The health benefits are reason enough, I suppose.
And the taste of homemade beats manufactured.
But I let that be the first line in my post tonight for the simple fact that standing and kneading something for 8-10 minutes changes everything.
Massaging flour and salt into egg and oil…. it forces me to be still, and face my thoughts, and set them straight, and pray them through, and pound frustration out onto granite.
Yesterday….
As I was twisting noodle dough into elastic form – it was mandatory that I stay put and ponder for a present second.
The kids couldn’t need me – because I was kneading.
And a sticky mix of ingredients was plastered to my hands.
And I couldn’t run off and do this or that – because the recipe required me to stay.
So as I stood and mixed I thought about a myriad of things…
But the reflection that caught me by surprise and made me perk up to a listen was this:
“You need to rest before you rise. Just like the dough does.”
Dough has to rest…so that the gluten can relax…and so that you can shape the dough into your desired design.
Dough has to rest before it rises so that it can be shaped.
If you try to work with a piece of dough that hasn’t had time to rest – it will resist you.
Do I even need to explain the analogy here?
You get it.
So does your Maker.
He is a baker of sorts and we are all lumps of dough in potential-filled process.
Mind, body, soul – they all need a time of being in the prostrate position….. healing, re-energizing, dreaming.
All of us….our whole selves – we need to rise up and work and handle and order and teach and give out and achieve and reach high to heaven…
But before any of that is done excellently, we must rest fully.
Tonight….
I’m showering off and calling it a day.
So that tomorrow…
Something high and worthwhile will rise up out of me.
