Every meal is a prayer. I've learned the meditation of a pot of water not yet boiling. I frame the altar of my stove with talismans of spice and oil. The touch of the steam is like the touch of a spirit, warm but fleeting, anointing my palm with moisture that evaporates as I pull away.
The concept of the kitchen as a cathedral is not a new one. We've sensed the spirituality inherent to eating and preparing to eat since our ancestors first stood on two legs and wandered the tall grass, gathering shared resources with evolutionarily repurposed arms. Food unites. Food restores. We are all members of its congregation.
It's as a congregation that my family stands around me in our most ancient sanctuary. I sizzle onions and garlic in a dark pan, and we call out songs to play, a tap away on our phones. The water shushes over plates in the sink as we wash them, and they clink and scrape together, and it's music, too. My sister chops vegetables, shuck, shuck on the cutting board. My love reads instructions to me from that holy tome, the cookbook, and the dogs click claws across the tile. We exist in this moment more than we've existed anytime else in the day. Right now, we are participating in the universe.
Most sacred to me are the times I worship alone. Some of those days, I hear my family in the next room, their voices indistinct and tumbling over each other, lifting in laughter, quieting, continuing. I don't need to know their words. I am satisfied knowing their presence.
Some days, the next room is silent and empty, and I cherish that as well. I whisper invented hymns as the burner tick tick ticks. I rub salt between my fingertips. There is a powdery smell to pasta when it hits the bubbling water, even when it's the cheap macaroni I buy in bulk because I'm afraid of the day that my family will be hungry and our cupboards will be empty.
But it's not this day. Today, I can fold stringy, melting cheddar into the noodles and add a dash of cayenne, just because I can, just because it's there. Though the meal is cheap, it will taste like a miracle, because my loves will wake up to hot food from their cold sleep.
I pray that I can always do this. I pray that I can protect us with a stirring spoon. I pray that I will always hear voices in the other room.
We cup warm bowls in our hands and bow our heads.
The truest god I know dwells in this communion.
