In keeping with the rhythms of Lent, we're taking a break to honor our limitations as humans. We hope you'll take some time this week to do the same.

In the meantime, we recommend you catch up on earlier episodes, like the episode on Lenten fasting.

We'll see you next week.

Have you ever carried a 50 pound bag of flour? There’s a special trick to it: you have to pick it up from underneath and flip it over your shoulder, otherwise it’s too unwieldy to handle. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says that the Kingdom of God is like yeast that a woman mixed into three measures of flour until all of it was leavened. Three measures of flour is just a bit more flour than one of those 50 pound bags, which means this woman was leavening a whole lot of dough. In today’s episode of Kitchen Meditations, On Leaven, we’re going to reflect on what it means for the Kingdom of Heaven to be like yeast.

Learn more about Aminah’s work: http://robdunnlab.com/people/aminah-al-attas-bradford/

Lent begins…with dust. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. From dust you come and to dust you will return. Lent begins in the desert, with Jesus wandering out to fast for forty days. It may seem odd, given this parched opening, to begin Lent with a reflection on water. But water is where I’d like our Lenten bread journey to begin. In this episode of Kitchen Meditations, we dig into how water can bring life and transformation in unexpected places. In this season of Lent, water prepares us to enter the desert. It strengthens us for what’s to come.

I love Lent. Perhaps you’re someone who grinds your teeth and muscles through the weeks of fasting. Maybe you stay silent because you just don’t feel like fasting is all that important, but everyone around you is…super invested. Or perhaps you believe Lent is an unnecessary season, an attempt to earn favor with God when we already have God’s grace. Although “Lent” is not a season outlined in Scripture, it’s been a way for Christians to mark time since at least the early 4th century. To kick off season two of Kitchen Meditations, we’ll share with you why Lent might be just the season you need this year.