The Taste of Life

The Taste of Life

To understand the world, knowledge is not enough. You must see it, touch it,  live in its presence, and drink the vital heat of existence in the very heart of reality.

Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Cited in Christian Mystics

Matthew Fox offers us a further explanation in these words:

“Teilhard urges us to go beyond knowledge. Knowledge is not enough. 

We must taste life, and make it very personal and erotic and unforgettable. Interestingly, the word for “wisdom” in both Hebrew and Latin derives from the word for “taste.” “Taste and see that God is good!” sings the Psalmist. Teilhard, too, is inviting us beyond knowledge to wisdom, and for wisdom to occur, we must taste life in all of its dimensions.”

Early in my ministry career, there was a book that garnered lots of attention called “The Sensual Gospel” and I made sure to add it to the top of my sermon topics!  For far too long, religion was considered to be devoid of any such scandalous considerations.

After all, traditional teachings were designed to encourage high moral character, and to abstain from the senses, as they were often widely regarded as the source of sin! I would have preferred to have been taught that they were the source of fun, delight, awe, appreciation, wonder and yes, at least a little mischief!

Teilhard was a brave pioneer in his recommendation to move beyond the pages of reading those arid tomes of theology, to recommending that we trust our senses to assist us in finding our own enlivening answers. Maybe it was his high regard for nature itself and the time he spent out in nature as a paleontologist that opened his perspective to regard the human senses as reliable sources for our enduring knowledge.

By regarding and respecting what we can learn from nature, as providing us with the steps of a more complete understanding that allows us to arrive at a visceral wisdom and at an enlivened, or lived out faith.

One of the reasons I became such an enthusiastic supporter of Fox’s writings and teachings was that he refused to censure the senses, and he advocated for a more full body exploration of theology and spirituality. 

Without an understanding of the awe and wonder of nature that added to the visceral truth of our lives, our answers would be incomplete at best. Wisdom requires a full spectrum involvement in the discovery of ourselves as spiritual beings. That realization cannot come to us as observers, no matter how pious and conscientious. It can only come to us as a lived reality.