Sourdough and the Spiritual Discipline of Pace
My New Article for The Gospel Coalition & The Feed
Sourdough is on the rise. Though the COVID-19 pandemic has incited fear, panic, and partisan rancor, it has also revived older traditions that take time to cultivate and master, like bread baking. Many of us have decided to use the extra time on our hands in quarantine for baking sourdough bread.
Major news outlets have taken note of sourdough’s surge in popularity. The Washington Post reported on yeast and flour shortages brought on by the sudden influx of bread bakers. (Insider tip: when the supermarket runs out of flour, check your local farms. I ordered organic bread flour, wheat flour, and all-purpose flour in bulk from an organic farm near Durham, North Carolina.)
CNN published a piece about how baking sourdough was helping people cope with the anxiety associated with the pandemic. One writer confessed how the process of baking sourdough helped her handle the isolation. The New Yorker posted a humorous piece that chronicled the existential thoughts of sourdough starter.
At one point in history, all bread was sourdough—“a dough made of flour and water fermented without yeast for baking bread.” Bread experts attribute leavening bread to the Egyptians, who used wild yeast (naturally fermented from the air, flour, and even our bodies) for brewing beer and baking bread. They even depicted bread loaves in their wall paintings. And yet we also know the Israelites leavened their bread, because the Pentateuch describes their exodus from Egypt as happening so quickly they only had time to bake bread without leaven (a synonym for starter, sponge, or mother).
Bread-making spread from Egypt and Israel to Greece, Rome, and France, with French sourdough bread the most celebrated. The French maintained high standards for baking sourdough for centuries. Eventually French sourdough reached San Francisco by way of the great Klondike Gold Rush of 1898. Prospectors and frontiersmen carried sourdough on their person to keep the natural fermentation process going. By this practice, the prospectors themselves came to be known as “Sourdoughs.”
But our world went and got itself in a big hurry and, by the 20th century, commercial yeasts rose to prominence. The speed and convenience of modern bread-making rendered the time-intensive process of sourdough baking largely a thing of the past.
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The Tempest and The Bloom
Get in on the ground floor of my in-progress novel. I’m excited about this growing community of readers and am loving the feedback I’m getting. I plan to Kickstart this book and self-publish it by the end of summer. You can be among the first readers!
And this week, after some requests from readers, I experimented with including the audio version of the chapter. I loved doing it and will do my best to keep it going. I’ll certainly add an audiobook version to the Kickstarter launch.
To read a sample click here.
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Join The Saturday Stoke Family
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Billy Graham on Technology
The following is an excerpt from a 2013 interview with Billy Graham. You can read the entire interview here.
Society today is obsessed with technology, something you write about in detail. Is there a biblical view of technology?
The Bible declares that "… there is nothing new under the sun" (Ecc. 1:9). Nothing surprises God. He enables his creation to tap into the resources he has given to us on earth. We have certainly watched the plethora of communication capabilities explode as we moved into the 21st century.
I have always loved the art of communication, and there is no question that my preaching ministry benefitted greatly by utilizing amplification and magnification in arenas and stadiums around the world. Television and radio enabled the gospel to reach far corners of the earth, as the Bible predicted. But while God allows blessing to come from such grand inventions like wireless and mobile devices, Satan has also used technology to cleverly advance his deception. There are generations today that take pride in their ability to communicate instantly through Facebook or Twitter but are unable to communicate face-to-face. People are finding solace sitting in front of computer screens willing to talk to total strangers about anything and everything through electronic communication, but don't believe God could ever hear their cries of loneliness, grief, and pain.
A Harvard University president once told me that what young people desire the most is "to belong." Multitudes are willing to belong to just about anything except God. The human race has always been on a quest for truth and acceptance, yet men and women are unwilling to accept the One who is the truth.
Instead, they are turning to a new fad—designer religion—faith blending, a little Christianity, a little Buddhism, and a little New Age. This is a trick of the Devil, who loves to mix some truth with his lies. The Bible warns about this and tells us that we must hold fast to truth and fight for the faith. " In latter times some [will give] heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons…having their own consciences seared"; (1 Tim. 4:1-2).
But technology is a gift from God when it is used to proclaim the gospel.
C.S. Lewis & The Imaginative Leader
Check out my most recent blog post on C.S. Lewis and leadership.
Parting Thought
Beauty demands our time and attention to see, and beautiful things require time to make.