What do you do that makes you happy? – just you.
And what stops you from doing it, or doing more of it?
I guess most of us will say we do not have enough time, we are busy, we have other commitments and we hope to get round to it one day.
But the time to stop and plan does not appear and we cruise along with the tumbling flow of day-to-day pressures.
With my diagnosis of breast cancer came the gift of time – something I have been short of for years. Time to read, reflect and re-think what makes me happy.
The time I have is filled with the loving kindness of friends who have shared so much with me. One gave me this delightful book – and I share it with you.
The School of Essential Ingredients is Erica Bauermeister’s first novel. Her love of slow food and slow life was instilled by her two years spent living in northern Italy with her husband and children. The book follows the lives of eight students who gather in Lillian’s Restaurant every Monday evening for a cookery class. And yet the story is not about cooking – it is about the lives of the students as they search for something beyond the routine of food and kitchen.
It is about savouring the richness of the moment and paying attention to the possibilities it brings.
One of the most essential ingredients of all is time. If you stop and think about it, every meal you eat, you eat time – the weeks it takes to ripen a tomato, the years to grow a fig tree. And every meal you eat is time out of your day.
How can we be so disrespectful to our body and our food that we eat standing up; we eat as we walk along the street; or we shoot our meals into our stomach without giving our taste buds a chance? Is this what we want?
While she was writing the book two of Erica’s closest friends died of cancer. Her experience of the highs and lows of life adds richness to the characters in her book
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven
Maybe a key skill for life is not about searching for happiness but learning how to recognise when we are happy . . .
Very good blog,I think a lot of us need to live in the now as that is all we have,and we can understand more fully why the Bible tells us to take one day at a time as that is really all we can cope with.
Maybe a key skill for life is not about searching for happiness but learning how to recognise when we are happy . . .
This last line just screamed at me.
Poor and happy, so many rich and sad. So busy working hard and playing hard to even understand the meaning of happiness in its purest form. No time to value what we have been given just by being born, the gift of life, the gift of a beautiful world, the gift of friends, the gift of love (to give and receive), the gift of eternal life given to us freely by a God who loves us.
Thank you xxx
So true! I’ve been continuing to learn that, not only is it ok to be where I am with Crohn’s, I should embrace it for what it is and not just be eager to get past this stage and on to the next of “feeling better”. I’ve reflected on the Piper article you sent me a number of times this week. (Thanks again for that.) It’s amazing how possible it is to find enjoyment when ill, both in spite of it and, importantly, *because* of it and the space it can allow us.
Thank you for the encouragement. I’ll be praying this is a good week for you, and for continued peace and blessing either way.
With love,
Lisa
Thank you for joining in on this topic and for letting me know how you are getting on with the article.
The more I think about it the more I realise we could substitute so much more than a health issue in the title.
How controversial might it be to explore the concept of “Don’t waste your unemployment” or “Don’t waste your divorce”. Both feel very challenging, and yet “Don’t waste you cancer” felt pretty challenging when I first read the title.
Thank you for your love and support – so pleased to read you are getting better.
Love and God Bless
Ax