Sometimes love is like lutefisk
Scandinavian legend around the origins of lutefisk states that St. Patrick of Ireland tried to poison the Viking invaders by serving them fish (fisk) after soaking it in lye (lut). But rather than expiring in an agonizing death, the Vikings instead declared lutefisk to be a delicacy. This history is quite a bit suspect, but one way or another, a tradition was born that today extends throughout Scandinavian culture each Christmas holiday—and especially in Lutheran church basements.
One year, when I was a little kid, my father (a Norwegian Lutheran) cooked up some lutefisk during the Christmas holidays. My brother and I each failed to choke down even a small amount, however, and we never saw it again in our house. Even as small children we found it odd that anyone would wish to eat fish soaked in what is essentially drain cleaner.
My taste buds have changed over the years and now each December I force my family to attend the annual lutefisk dinner at the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis. It was the seasoned white sauce poured over the fish that changed everything for me—that made lutefisk a delicacy for me. But others in my family inevitably leave the lutefisk on their plates and instead eat all of the side dishes around it. At any rate, we work a couple of Scandinavian “Sven and Ole” jokes into the table conversation, and the evening is complete.
I don’t think about metaphysics too much when I’m eating lutefisk during the Christmas holidays, but last year I found some spiritual connections while pouring the white sauce over my fish.
Christian Science explains that the greatest success in spirituality comes through our growing ability to love one another. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy writes, “The test of all prayer lies in the answer to these questions: Do we love our neighbor better because of this asking? ...” (p. 9 ). Yet oftentimes trying to love one another can feel like staring at a plate of lutefisk. You may love it or you may hate it, and the love/hate relationship often seems beyond our control. I can be admonished to love more, and I may resolve to love more next time, but that doesn’t mean that I’ll enjoy it—and then, I guess, that means it’s not really “love.”
It is so much easier to love one another when we realize that we are all truly the reflections of the same divine Mind.
Mrs. Eddy’s Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896 contains this passage in an essay titled “Taking Offense”: “We should remember that the world is wide; that there are a thousand million different human wills, opinions, ambitions, tastes, and loves; that each person has a different history, constitution, culture, character, from all the rest; that human life is the work, the play, the ceaseless action and reaction upon each other of these different atoms. Then, we should go forth into life with the smallest expectations, but with the largest patience; with a keen relish for and appreciation of everything beautiful, great, and good, but with a temper so genial that the friction of the world shall not wear upon our sensibilities; with an equanimity so settled that no passing breath nor accidental disturbance shall agitate or ruffle it; with a charity broad enough to cover the whole world’s evil, and sweet enough to neutralize what is bitter in it,—determined not to be offended when no wrong is meant, nor even when it is, unless the offense be against God” (p. 224 ).
I read this passage often, and in doing so, I sometimes think about the lutefisk of my youth. Today, I can accept and love the lutefisk as it stares at me from the plate. However, if I find it truly difficult to contemplate, I can always add plenty of that seasoned white sauce to make the taste a lot more palatable, and in my case, even to delight in it. I experience the lutefisk in a totally different way as a result of the white sauce. It is the same principle for spiritual love: It is so much easier to love one another when we pour on the “white sauce,” the realization that we are all truly the reflections of the same divine Mind, God. We learn more quickly and willingly to reject and cast out the ungodlike claims that we detect in others, and to let the spiritual counterfacts that we wish to embrace replace them.
Along the same lines, that citation from Miscellaneous Writings suggests to me that whatever limitations and faults I may be witnessing and acknowledging in others, are the very same limitations and faults that I am embracing in my own thought. When I exchange those negative thoughts for a more spiritual view of another’s identity, the human manifestation that I experience changes. I perceive in others the same spiritual qualities that I see in myself, and perhaps they see these qualities in me, too. Others’ behavior may seem to change in form and character, but in actuality, only my perceptions have changed.
I use this way of thinking constantly to embellish my sense of love in my everyday encounters, especially when relationships become even mildly strained. The results never disappoint, and I find the atmosphere uplifted to a level that accomplishes tangible healing. This becomes the “white sauce” of metaphysics.
