There is a hymn that has been on my mind lately – I find myself humming it as I walk along the shore. The chorus says, “Taste and see. Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.” (It’s in Wonder, Love, and Praise, #764). It is appropriate every time we celebrate the Eucharist, but perhaps most especially in this month of November, a month we associate with gratitude.
It reminds us that God can be known and wants to be known in all the ways we can know. God wants us to see goodness in creation, in sunrises and cypress trees, in rocky crags and bubbling brooks, in bays and mountains and deserts. God wants us to taste goodness in the bread and wine of communion, and indeed in all that we eat and drink. God wants us to smell goodness in the salt air, the eucalyptus trees across the street from church, the smell of candles and old wood, the delicious scents in our homes and the homes of friends and family. God wants us to touch goodness by offering a hand in friendship, by snuggling a well-loved pet, by putting our hands to tasks like weaving, sculpting, or playing music. God wants us to hear goodness in the call of a bird, in a child’s laughter, in song, in the crashing of waves upon the shore. In all of this, God reveals God’s goodness and love to us through our senses so that we might know God more completely in our hearts and minds.
I invite you this month to be more intentional in your daily lives in order to taste and see the goodness of the Lord. Simply noticing the beauty within and around us is a wonderful way to cultivate a habit of gratitude. Gratitude compels our hearts to pray in thanksgiving to God, and also compels our lives to be ordered as thanksgiving, in grateful response to God’s goodness and love.
This month at St. Mary’s, we have a bulletin board in Edwards Hall specifically for us to post our thanksgivings. I encourage you to stop by and add yours. Take some time to read others, as well, that we might know each other more deeply and be inspired by one another. I am so grateful to be part of this wonderful community. Each time we gather around God’s altar I am reminded to taste and see the Lord’s goodness – in the bread and wine, and in your beautiful faces.
The Lord is good. Taste and see!