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Sourdough as Spiritual Discipline
Sourdough is on the rise. Though the COVID-19 pandemic has incited fear, panic, and partisan rancor, it has also revived older traditions that take time to cultivate and master, like bread baking. Many of us have decided to use the extra time on our hands in quarantine for baking sourdough bread.
Major news outlets have taken note of sourdough’s surge in popularity. The Washington Post reported on yeast and flour shortages brought on by the sudden influx of bread bakers. (Insider tip: when the supermarket runs out of flour, check your local farms. I ordered organic bread flour, wheat flour, and all-purpose flour in bulk from an organic farm near Durham, North Carolina.)
CNN published a piece about how baking sourdough was helping people cope with the anxiety associated with the pandemic. One writer confessed how the process of baking sourdough helped her handle the isolation. The New Yorker posted a humorous piece that chronicled the existential thoughts of sourdough starter.
At one point in history, all bread was sourdough—“a dough made of flour and water fermented without yeast for baking bread.” Bread experts attribute leavening bread to the Egyptians, who used wild yeast (naturally fermented from the air, flour, and even our bodies) for brewing beer and baking bread.
Explore Dr. Tim’s New Book
A Note for the Curious.
Beauty can change you if you let it. That’s what the path of life has taught me so far. Beauty changed me. It still does. But don’t worry. This isn’t a book about sitting on beaches or mountain roads watching the sunset or meditating in art galleries—although I have done (and still do) these things.
This idea of chasing beauty is about pursuing a lifestyle that goes against the cultural grain of busyness, loudness, and naked ambition—you know, the kind of ambition we’re told we must have in order to find success in this cutthroat world.
My relatively short life has taught me that Beauty Chasers are thinkers and listeners. They see when the world goes blind. They embody quietness when all the world wants to do is scream. They promote the good of others when the world says to promote yourself. They give life to others when the world seems hell-bent on killing.
Beauty Chasers live their lives to a different cadence. They walk the path less traveled. If you’re interested in these things, and you’re willing to risk change, then read on, my friend.
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