Licking the World

In Jordan a couple months ago, we sat and ate bread cooked out of an oven that had been in use longer than my family has been in the United States. It was perfect bread, it was what the universe had in mind when it invented the whole idea of bread.

And then we broke open a jar of local honey, and it was even better; the whole desert landscape on the tip of the tongue.

For some reason, today, a piece of the Russian Orthodox liturgy is running through my mind--"the sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit"--and I'm thinking moments like that, a taste better than anything you could ever have dreamed of, like the look in the eye of someone you love, is the kind of moment you're given to rebuild on. Gifts of the landscape.