Life As Seasoning

FRI., JAN. 29, 1993, 6:00 AM
FARM, STUDY

Let that one passage from the Scripture that your group is studying be the basis for this morning’s Teaching. “Ye are the salt of the earth” or “You are the earth’s seasoning” are two ways of expressing it. What does it mean? Can it be the basis of an entire Teaching? You are here. You shall certainly see.

The “you” or “ye” can refer to a single individual or to groups of humans, even up to mankind as a whole. Salt is the major seasoning for food. A very small amount transforms a drab dish into something more tasty. Yet too much salt can over power the taste of the food and make it generally not fit for eating. Too much salt upsets the body’s chemistry, as you remember, years ago, when you took a couple of salt tablets. Drinking salt water can cause nausea. Scientific medicine affirms that, in some people, salt increases blood pressure, encouraging heart attacks and strokes.

And so I said, “Ye are the salt of the earth.” Some amount of salt is necessary for continuing health. The earth would not be the healthy realm I see it as being without human life. Human life is the seasoning that can and should make the whole balance of life more interesting and favorable. I created salt and also the need for salt. I created the web of physical life, an incredible mix of interactive and interrelated life forms. The picture that this Scripture and this analogy creates is that human life is the salt, the seasoning that is essential… but, when excessive, spoils the whole mixture. As you know, I am saying this to you in various ways – human life is now excessive on this planet… My dish of life has been oversalted. The taste is thus too salty, and the salt continues to flow.

If I were a cook and this were happening to a dish I was preparing I would have 2 basic choices: throw out the whole mess and start over (and the Noah and the Flood story suggest this way) or add more of the “unsalted” ingredients, so that the salt is less dense. The problem with this latter as an analogy to the earth is that soon I would need a bigger container, and the earth, with its habitable lands, cannot be increased. My last, practical alternative, as a cook, would be to throw out some of the oversalted dish, replacing it with unsalted life, so that the salt would, diluted in this way, become delicious seasoning once again.

The other translation can suggest another truth. There are many seasonings, of which salt is only one. There are mild, gentle seasonings and sharp, abusive ones. The taste of any dish can be changed, and wonderfully enhanced, by the seasoning or seasonings chosen and by their skillful addition.

Human life has been created in a diversity of forms. Human cultures, including religions, have made humans even more of a diverse “lot.” This diversity can season the “pot of life,” making the whole mixture more delicious.

The passage goes on to affirm that if you lose your seasoning quality you shall be cast out. This can mean that if you, as humans, strive to be too dominant you shall be cast out. Or, if the seasoning becomes too “heavy” the dish loses its savor and is no longer delicious, even palatable.