Soul Food

Today when I picked up Tesla from VBS, she had a little white stick pointing out of her mouth and a sated grin on her face.

"Hi, honey! Did you have a good time?"

"A lollipop! I got a grape lollipop!" It was one of those gumball sized Tootsie Pops, now sucked down to dimensions of a raisin, and she poked it into my face with glee. "You lick, Mommy!"

Oh, yeah. Soul food for a four year old--and a divine gift, surely, because it was only the second lolly of her lifetime.

Jesus loves lollipops, too, honey.

I'm sure VBS and lollipops have brought many a young thing and the Great Sandaled One together. How can I complain? And how can she not love Jesus if he loves lollipops?

So I decided I can't get too grumpy or flustered about the sugar thing. Doesn't help anyway. You do what you can and leave the rest to God.

And if Tesla were say, eight or so, she'd probably point out my own need for sugar, my own soul food: rice pudding.

I love the stuff. Give it to me thick, in a custardy casserole hot out of the oven on a cold mid-winter's eve, or give it to me thin, in a chilled, sweet creamy soup on a hot summer's night. Call it 'pudding' or call it 'kheer', I'm your girl if you've got some to share.

White people don't have much in the way of real 'soul food' (fried chicken not withstanding), so we borrow liberally from other cultures.

Oh, we have souls; we just don't put them to work for our tastebuds. Probably has something to do the gnostic, body-despising streak we've been burdened with since, I don't know, maybe Augustine. But I didn't go to seminary, so don't quote me on this.

So we borrow. I mean, have you eaten traditional English food outside of popovers and Beef Wellington? There's a reason the unofficial dish of the British Isles is curry. A thousand years of boiled old sheeps' shanks were happily ditched when they discovered what a handful of Indian spices and a little yogurt can do. (Did you know that Jesus loves curry, too?)

And because I'm far too invested in all things sensual, I'm a sucker for a hundred thousand calories in an 8oz bowl. Worse, I'm convinced that these calories will actually make me happier. So when my brain goes a little sour, I ply it with sweet rice pudding and invite Jesus in to have a bowl.

He's been talking to me these past couple of days about money. I gotta tell you, I'm not liking the hard things he's telling me, but it's Truth. But He's really cool about it, because He finally got me around to making that pot of kheer I've been craving for a week now. Admonitions and course corrections all go down better with dessert.

Oh, my soul! Jesus loves rice pudding.