A Thought From My Kitchen

The first time I set out oats over night to lacto-ferment, it felt very strange to leave food on the counter - especially food mixed with a dairy product - with the INTENTION of eating it later. Now, I have 6 fermenting projects going on in my kitchen at the same time (Kombucha, properly made rice milk, ginger beer, Latin American sauerkraut, salsa, and tomorrow's oats). With fermentation the nutrient count goes up along with digestibility and shelf life. I love the things I learn from preparing foods with traditional wisdom. I love learning to prepare food with forethought. I love having the time to sit and wait and anticipate while the food gains power and promises my body greater vitality.

Yet each thing has an appointed time. Most things cannot "stew" too long, or else they will spoil and become dangerous to eat (do not worry though, with properly fermented foods, if they go bad your nose would not let you put them in your mouth).

Tonight it occurred to me that when anger ferments, it does not become easier to digest. It is like a mold spore (not the good cheese kind of mold, rather the icky bitter kind you do not want to stick in your mouth). In fact, the longer you keep it, the more it grows and contaminates food that could have nourished. Mold needs to be dealt with at first sight, removed and discarded. Otherwise it will become a bigger and bigger chore that one will continue to put off because it is too gross (like the artichokes I cleaned out of one of my veggie drawers right before we moved. I knew they had been in there....molding....but I just could not bring myself to deal with them until I absolutely had to. It is as if I think they have not been wasted until I actually throw them out or something). Anger is like this. Pretty soon the good things in the refrigerator start to smell like the mold because there is just too much of it, and it could keep spreading.

"Do not let the sun go down on your anger."(Eph 4:26) It doesn't say, "do not get angry," anger seems like a helpful emotion to tell me things that help me make better rational decisions. It does say, "Be angry, but do not sin," and "do not let the sun go down on your anger." Note, "your" anger. It belongs to you and is rooted in you. You can decide what to do with it.