Soul Kitchen
I am a big fan of Chef Gordon Ramsay who has been all over the TV for years with his cooking shows. While I find him highly entertaining, I could do without all of his brashness and vulgarity. He uses that to be entertaining but also to motivate chefs and owners of restaurants. I’ve been watching reruns of his show, “Kitchen Nightmares”, in which he goes to restaurants around the country that are failing. It’s the same plot every time: he samples the food and hates it, does some yelling, finds the holes in the standards of cooking and management, yells more, cleans up the (often disgusting and sometimes contaminated) messes in the kitchen and storage areas, yells some more, gets the owner / manager to change his or her ways, redecorates the restaurant, changes the menu, teaches the staff how to cook and serve the new menu items which are focused on using fresh and local ingredients, and then brings in a huge crowd for the successful re-launching of the restaurant. The owners and cooks often strongly dislike him at first, mainly because he is brutally honest about their poor performance or passion. But, by the end, it’s a love fest with Chef Ramsay who has saved their beloved establishments.
I was thinking about this process and how it applies to us here. First, at the parish, we have been doing much cleaning and bringing in fresh ingredients here the past nine months. In fact, the most common phrase that I’ve heard has been “breath of fresh air”. We’ve cleaned up a good amount of messes already – probably close to 1,000 confessions – with more to come. We’ve done some redecorating with more to come. People seem to be enjoying the newness and the changes, and leave here as happy “customers”.
Second, on a personal and spiritual level, this process speaks to each of us. Each of us has some mess that needs to be cleaned up. It’s often a good habit (like good cooking habits and standards) that has been neglected and become a bad habit (like using artificial food or spoiled food). Spiritual staleness and mold has set in. We need to get rid of the bad spiritual food in our lives and bring in new and fresh food. On one episode, Chef Ramsay actually sat in a confessional to hear the professional sins of the managers and owners and forgave them. They each vowed to change their ways. That’s where the change from old and gross to new and beautiful takes place: in our hearts, with the help of God.
