The Time to Eat Well. The Time to Live Well.

We have very little time these days to pause and consider time and its faculties. We imagine that with the push of a button we can get our limitless needs met—products will show up at our doors and even the essential food we eat can be dashed to our doors.

Recently, however, I have begun a daily practice of opening myself to time rather than attempting to conquer it. Through Centering Prayer, I am learning to surrender to God by setting aside the constant stream of thoughts, worries, plans, and distractions that occupy my mind. The practice is simple, but not easy. It asks me to sit in silence and trust that God is present even when I am not accomplishing anything. As the psalmist writes, “For God alone my soul in silence waits.”

Perhaps because of this practice, I have become increasingly aware of the delicate relationship between time and food. For generations we have been promised that supermarkets can provide for our dietary needs regardless of season or place. Strawberries appear in January. Tomatoes arrive in February. We are encouraged to believe that food simply exists, detached from weather, soil, sunlight, labor, and time itself.

In his essay, The Pleasures of Eating, Wendell Berry observes that many of us think of ourselves merely as consumers rather than participants in agriculture. Food becomes an abstraction rather than a gift that emerges from creation through patience, labor, and care. As such, we “mostly ignore certain critical questions about the quality and the cost of what they are sold: How fresh is it? How pure or clean is it, how free of dangerous chemicals? How far was it transported, and what did transportation add to the cost? When the food product has been manufactured or ‘processed’ or precooked, how has that affected its quality or price or nutritional value?” Berry’s point is not simply economic. It is spiritual. Summer reminds us otherwise. Gardens grow in their own time. Fields ripen when they are ready. Farmers Markets fill with produce because creation has reached a moment of abundance, not because we demanded it.

There is a spiritual lesson in this. Much of what matters most cannot be rushed. Faith, wisdom, healing, and relationships all require time to grow. As we enter this season of abundance, I invite you to take the time to eat well. Visit the Farmers Market. Learn who grows your food. Notice what is in season. Give thanks before you eat.

In a culture obsessed with speed, eating locally and seasonally can become a small act of resistance—a reminder that some of God’s greatest gifts can only be received in their proper time.