Of Cooks & Catechists

I believe everyone can learn to cook, insofar as cooking can be reduced to following a set of instructions involving ingredients, utensils, and heat.  I believe excellent food is plated and served at restaurants around the world all day, every day, by cooks who have memorized recipes so thoroughly they could recite them like prayers on their deathbeds.  And whether it's your aunt's Thanksgiving stuffing, grandma's cookies, or Cousin Bob's secret BBQ sauce, at some point someone asks for — or is given — a recipe to be the custodian of. 

Yet Michelin stars are not earned by a chef memorizing recipes and executing them flawlessly.  What separates elite-level providers of culinary excellence from "cooks" is mastering the basics– knife work, mise en place, applying heat (and cold), tried-and-true methods of selection and preparation of meat and veg– then blasting off into uncharted realms where an award-winning menu is a product of equal measures daring and mastery of the fundamentals.  The best chefs break the rules, but only because they have earned the right to do so.

I believe everyone can cook.  Not everyone can be a chef.  

At the risk of sounding elitist, I believe the same of theology.  To be clear, everyone can and should engage in theology because, next to breathing and eating, I believe it is an essential aspect of the human condition.  Yet I believe what many people perceive as theology is more like catechesis, and that is a legitimate issue.  We have a lot of cooks in the kitchen, which isn't a bad thing, unless most of them believe they're actually chefs.  

Theology requires catechesis.  The fundamental knowledge of the Faith is no different than the basics of the kitchen, existing to provide structure and prevent mayhem.  Like cooking, the pursuit of catechesis never really ends; there's always a dogma, doctrine, or concept that can be further examined.  We can amass a great deal of raw knowledge about our Faith and its many components, but people are misguided in believing that redistributing those ideas is theology.  Reading the ingredient list makes you a good cook; it does not make you a chef.  

I would argue that the best chefs (and theologians) are called.  It is a matter of vocation.  I believe that because I worked in kitchens long enough to understand that the culinary life is often thankless, painful, and lonely.  It is a hard life on the best days, and most people who don chef's whites never reach the renown or recognition of the individuals who inspire them.  Chefs are notorious for hard living, and if you've spent time around them, you are not shocked every time the news of another one entering the Big Walk-In in the Sky reaches you; it's sad, but it's also the life and the work.  It is a thing that takes at least as much out of you as it gives, probably more, and rarely says, "Thanks." 

Like most great chefs, many of our greatest theologians spent a good deal of time as the equivalent of sauciers and sous-chefs.  Except that rather than learning novel ways of preparing fish or fowl, they learned suffering.  Guardini, Balthasar, Hildebrand, not to mention John of the Cross or any of the three Theresas- all were devout understudies to suffering before theology was possible.  Indeed, reading John's description of the Dark Nights or reflecting on Teresa's sharp observation– "If this is how you treat your friends, I see why you have so few!" should make any aspiring theologian think twice about the cost to be paid for the type of intimacy with God that produces truly timeless yet substantive theology.  For the weary line-cook or the saucier on their fourth consecutive double shift, the glamour fades as the bill you must pay to approach the glory of a Michelin star comes due.  

I believe that people aspire to being theologians because they do not understand that authentic theology, the kind that carries the Church and her people steadily along like a freighter, demands you kneel before you publish.  It demands an emptying of yourself and a breaking of every image or idol you have.  In a word, it demands purgation.  And purgation, like the calloused knobs or plethora of scars displayed on a chef's hands, is painful.  What is more, it cannot be faked or bought, any more than a Michelin star can be.  If good theology is an omelet, we must remember that step one is "Break the eggs".

So by all means, dust off the cookbook you received as a wedding gift, sharpen your chef's knife, and set out your mise en place.  Learn the fundamentals, learn to taste and retaste, and know when you need a little more salt or a little more acid.  Master difficult recipes until they are so thoroughly memorized you could produce the same result in any kitchen, anywhere.  Only be wary of mistaking consistency for depth.  A Big Mac looks the same from LA to New York, but it does not constitute culinary excellence.

Whether Bourdain or Balthasar, Keller or Kelly, the chef and theologian understand that escaping the heat — whether of the double boiler or the crucible — was never an option. For the cook and the catechist, it is essential to follow the formula to produce the correct result.  But for the chef and the theologian, the work itself becomes an act of worship — to labor in heat and hunger until bread becomes Body, and a meal becomes mystery.  Ultimately, it is not technique but transformation that feeds the world.