Finding Holy Ground: Taste

Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve started looking for Holy Ground in the most basic of places-our 5 senses. We looked at the world around us to find Holy Ground with our sight. We listened to the sounds of God in the world to discover the same Holy Ground through our ears. Today, we consider how we might find Holy Ground in our tasting.

Psalm 34:8 says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.” How do we taste the goodness of the Lord? Certainly, there are many ways. Today we are contemplating the Holy Ground found in the actual sense of taste.

Scientifically, there are 5 basic tastes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami (or savory). We detect these via the bumps on our tongue that are called papillae. These aren’t the actual taste buds, though (I always thought they were). Each of the papillae has hundreds of taste buds AND each of the taste buds has 50-100 taste receptor cells! Isn’t that amazing? There are also taste buds on the roof, sides and back of the mouth and even in your throat! The various types of taste developed to help our bodies identify good vs. bad foods. For instance, sweet signals something good for giving you energy; while bitter tells your body ‘this could be poison’.

It’s not just the molecules in the food that creates taste, though. Our senses of smell and even touch (or the way food feels in the mouth) contribute to how it tastes. And chefs will tell you that the sense of sight is involved too. A lovely presentation is tastier than a monotone or scrambled together plate.

How can we ‘taste and see that the Lord is good’? Take time to savor your favorite food, without the distraction of TV or reading or other multi-tasking. Let your tongue and other senses really taste the ice cream or corn on the cob or steak. What tastes do you detect? Often there is more than one taste in an item. Isn’t it amazing that God developed our sense of taste so that we could enjoy all sorts of foods in all sorts of ways? We can remember God is good as we taste the food God provides. 

We can ‘taste’ and find Holy Ground in our lives, too. There are times in life that could be considered sweet or sour or even bitter. Also, there are things in our life that add salt and savor to living. Jot down one time in your life that could be categorized as like one of the tastes. Maybe your graduation was a sweet time, or perhaps it was sour because you didn’t make the top 10 in your class. Was there some vacation that still brings memories that are so good that you want to continue to savor them? Probably there is a sad time in your life that still leaves an almost tangible bitter taste in your mouth.

Yet through it all, God’s love is present. The Psalm says, “blessed is the one who takes refuge (or trusts) in him.” The New Living Translation exclaims, “Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him!” We taste the love of God in our sense of taste, but even more in the blessings and joys of God’s love through all the ‘tastes’ of our lives. 

The Wonder of Tasting the Goodness of God

I don’t think much about my sense of taste. In fact, I must admit that too often I don’t really even taste what I am eating. My mind is usually busy on something else: listening to the news, planning my day, reading email, or just plain rushing through the meal. The food goes in my mouth, gets chewed and swallowed, but not really appreciated. Do you do that? We take our food for granted and don’t pause to think about the mingling of the sweet and salty, the tangy and tart, the spicy and bland flavors. I cannot remember the last time I stopped to think how wonderful it is to have a sense of taste so that I can enjoy a variety of flavors. It’s something I suspect many, if not most, of us take for granted.

We can do the same thing with our ‘taste’ of the Word of the Lord. We can become too preoccupied with getting to the end of the reading for the day (and on to the next thing) that we don’t really pause to savor what the words say to us. We forget that the Bible is full of wonder and surprises even in verses we’ve read before.

Have you ever had the experience of reading or hearing a Bible verse and saying, “I never knew it said that”? There are depths of sweet and savory and tart and salty in the Bible that we only discover if we take time to pause and let the words really sink in. Like gulping our food without paying attention, we get some nourishment out of the Bible when we read it with half our attention, but we get a lot more enjoyment if we take time to really savor-both the food and the Bible.

Recently a friend told me that they went to a small French restaurant and ordered the cheese platter. He told me that the experience was fabulous, because he and his wife actually took time to taste, savor, and compare each individual cheese.

Likewise, we can pause in our reflections on the Bible to really ‘taste’ what God is saying. Psalm 34:8a admonishes us to “Taste and see that the Lord is good!” Consider just that one stanza. You don’t have to worry about the rest of the psalm right now. Really think about each word in the verse. You will have much to savor and meditate on, even in those 8 words.

What does the word ‘taste’ mean to you? Say it aloud and let it sink into your mind.
Do special foods or flavors come to mind as you think about taste?
What sensations come to mind when you hear the word?
Have you ever considered that you can ‘taste’ God?
How does God ‘taste’?
Are there descriptive words you can use to explain the ‘taste’ of God?

Do the same with the word ‘see’ and ‘Lord’ and ‘good’…How do each of these words evoke a deeper sense of the totality of God? Sit with the idea of tasting the goodness of God. Speak a prayer to the good God who gives us senses, including taste so we can come to know God more and more.

You can do this exercise with other verses. The psalms are especially suited to it because they are already broken into stanzas like songs (because that’s what they are). Another short verse to consider tasting and savoring is: “How sweet are thy words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.” (Psalm 119:103)

There are other ways to savor the ‘taste’ of the Bible like lectio devino, journaling about a verse, really taking time to meditate with a certain citation, etc. The important thing is to take the time to really pause and savor the words and what they say to you. One wonderful thing about the Bible is that the same verse can say something different to you each time you read it! That will only happen if you take the time to ‘taste’ the word, though.

The final sense we will consider is smell. How do you find the wonder of God in the smells around you?