The Thanksgiving feast is a combination of sweet and savory flavors – hopefully balanced. Pumpkin pie or apple pie is traditional though many families have competitions and favorites. These are sweets we save room for. Savory according to the Internet is the opposite, meat and vegetable dishes, even spices like parsley, sage and thyme (Thank you Peter, Paul and Mary!). Savory can also refer to a person of integrity and moral fortitude. I didn’t know that. So when we talk about “less savory actions” we may be referring to something done in the shadows. Where as someone who is “sweet” we suspect of just saying things to make us happy.
Life is sweet and savory. We have good days and bad days, ups and downs. C.S. Lewis wrote the classic Screwtape Letters where Uncle Screwtape, a greater demon, is writing to his nephew Wormwood, giving advice about dealing with humans. During a very low time my junior year in college, I opened the book and read Uncle Screwtape’s admonition to his nephew to not think that when a human goes through a rough patch and cries out to God that the person is rejected by God or rejects God. Do not consider it progress in the war against the Great Enemy, God. God is happy when a human looking out on a world that seems devoid of God, still cries out to God. That person is learning to walk without a parent holding his hand. That person is growing in faith.
Thanksgiving celebrates the harvest, hopefully plenty (sweet), as we head into winter, a time of dark and unobservable growth (savory). This Thanksgiving we acknowledge the losses of Covid, the economic inflation we are dealing with and yet each morning the sun rises. Hopefully our children love us. Technology allows us to communicate. So, what else helps you handle the sweet and savory times of life? The Psalmist shares:
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. (Psalm 119: 105)”
We have a God who reaches out to us whether we are sweet or savory and provides Scripture, salvation, and Spirit! Thank you Lord!
On the Way to Wonder 