Making Space for the Sacred: Pancakes on Saturdays

Every Saturday morning, almost without fail, we make pancakes in my house. My boys look forward to this familiar ritual and will often talk about it for a few days leading up to it (i.e."two more sleeps until pancakes"). We use fresh and healthy ingredients, adding various kinds of fruit to the mix, and of course we always make them from scratch.

It is a messy and wonderful affair and we are often elbow deep in flower and other ingredients as we make the requisite "doubled" recipe. The time and effort it takes is part of the enjoyment. Everyone has role in this process, and the boys take turns being in charge of the "wet" & "dry" ingredients.

It is a very tactile, hand-on process for all of us and functions as a concrete connection to the joy of creating something, which is often missing in our processed and "ready-made" world. There is often a big mess to clean up, which is itself a necessary component in the art of creation.

Of course it would be much faster and more efficient to throw on some instant batter and feed my hungry and feral children quickly. If we did this, however, we would then miss out on this opportunity to slow life down and simply enjoy our connection to one another through the art of collaboration.

This also provides a hopeful and valuable lesson to me very week. It reminds me that it is often necessary to take the less convenient route, to slow down and embrace each moment. This was missing from my world for a while and I am all too happy to reclaim it. I look forward to creating other sacred rituals that will continue to take me on this path towards to being more alive and part of the vibrant world around me.