Word Salad

I enjoy salad – there is a tasty benefit from a mixture of fresh vegetables (and usually some cheese!) It seems to me to be even more enjoyable than eating the vegetables on their own (which I also enjoy greatly – I’ve been vegetarian for 25+ years!).

I also enjoy when words and phrases come together in interesting ways, wherein they start to complement each other, and enhance what I get out of them. A word salad, then, like a meal, can be an experience where the sum is larger than the parts.

I’ve recently been pondering over a number of phrases heard in sermons. Each of these on their own is great and spiritually nourishing – those homiletic nuggets of wisdom or inspiration – some recent examples include that we are “baptised into discipleship” and invited to let the Gospel “whet the appetite of hope.”

Again – these are beneficial on their own; yet even more enriching when they start to combine and influence others. These become a salad of good news – the nourishment of goodness, if you will.

Within this interconnection and interrelation of goodness, we individually and collectively play a part: in how we engage, in what we offer the world, in ways that we allow God to move in and through us to not only be enriched but also to provide opportunities for nourishment of others.

We can choose to take ourselves – who and whose we are, the gifts and skills we have been given – and share those with those around us. In doing so, we are bringing ourselves out of being alone, and are embracing mutually complement. The better we are, the better others can be; and the better others are, the better we can become. Like a fabulous salad, or collection of holy insights, or the community of the faithful.

What nuggets of wisdom have impacted/influenced/inspired your faith journey, in ways that take you to a place of providing the richness of the Gospel to others?