“Fettucine Alfredo is macaroni and cheese for adults.” – Mitch Hedberg
Several years ago I started making my own pasta. I grew up eating pasta like you did: boxed noodles slathered with Ragu. As I began to study the culinary arts, I learned how simple it was to create my own homemade pasta. Pasta is simply the integration of eggs and flour. Mix them together (in proper ratios, of course), let the dough sit for a half hour, and then roll it out. The rolling pin didn’t work too well, so I got a pasta laminator (one of those hand-crank machines that flattens out the pasta into a sheet) that came with a fettucine attachment and started making fettucine Alfredo. The dough is simple enough, and there’s a distinct difference between hand-rolled fettucine and boxed pasta.
But the sauce is what makes the dish. Typical American-style Alfredo is made with heavy cream. Sautee garlic, onions, and butter, add heavy cream, and tons of parmesan to thicken the sauce. The kind that I first learned to make was a fancier four-cheese Alfredo: parmesan, cheddar, mozzarella, and feta. The taste of a four-cheese Alfredo sauce is incredible! So is the calorie content! I quickly realized that eating a dish like this was counteractive to cycling a hundred miles a week. That’s when I discovered that classic Italian Alfredo doesn’t use heavy cream as a base. Authentic fettucine alfredo is actually a fettucine al burro: fettucine “with butter.” Sautee garlic, onions, and butter, add the pasta dripping with its starchy water straight from the pot, and add enough parmesan to impress a Wisconsin cheese-maker. The taste is incredible, hearty, salty, and smooth, but simultaneously light and non-intrusive. At present, this is my favorite pasta dish.
Once you understand the basic processes of noodles and sauces, the whole endeavor becomes a canvas for culinary creativity.
“The recipe for the making is very simple. But so is the formula for painting a Rembrandt. Just get oils, canvas and brush, and go to it.” – George Rector on Alfredo di Lelio’s original fettucine dish
The culture in which I learned and imitated spirituality had a narrow view of what constituted the Christ-life. If one wanted to be spiritual, certain things were required. Sunday morning church attendance was mandatory for the most basic of believers, and the next-level spiritual would return for the Sunday night service. Read your Bible every day, most assuredly in the morning, and preferably before you do anything else. Prayer must accompany this Bible study, because Bible reading is mostly about discovering what sins you’re committing, and prayer gives you an opportunity to confess them (and receive forgiveness). In some traditions (my own among them) communion had to be taken weekly, and if you didn’t, well, the fires of hell were already licking at your boots. Communion was offered at the Sunday night service so the “ungodly absent” could receive their inoculations on Sunday night. Hymns must be sung (always verses 1, 2, and 4; the “verse 3 discrimination” in our church was real!), sermons must be listened to, offerings must be given (specifically on Sunday morning), and children must be quiet. Fasting every now and then for good measure.
It wasn’t that anyone was trying to narrow the scope of spirituality. No one was forcing their paradigm on us. No conspiracy theories about “Spiritualists in Power” cramming their rigorous agendas down our throats. We had studied the Scriptures and came to understand that these were vital components of the faith. The early church gathered on Sunday mornings (Acts 20:7, 1 Cor. 16:1, Rev. 1:10), read and expounded the Scriptures (Acts 2:42, 1 Tim. 4:11), took the Lord’s Supper (Acts 2:42, 1 Cor. 11:17-34), and collected offerings (1 Cor. 16:1-2). These are vital components of the Christ-life in community. So, we did them, and I remember doing them regularly.
It was a kind of factory-line mentality to spirituality. Design the processes, run everybody through the line, and they’ll come out spiritually formed. And very similar to one another.
But I also remember acts of spirituality, demonstrations of the Spirit of God working in the hearts and hands of the Church, that didn’t exactly conform to these structures. A single mother missing church because she had no other option than to work on Sunday mornings, but who loved the Lord and was as faithful as she could be. When her washer and dryer broke and she was drying clothes by the heater, one of the deacons of the church had a washer and driver delivered to her home on Christmas Eve; he told the appliance store owner if he ever revealed who sent it, he’d ruin his name in that town. (Fret not, reader, this is how righteousness works in small-town America!). Members of the Church building a front-porch ramp for a disabled member, not so that she could attend church on Sunday morning, but simply for love of neighbor. A stay-at-home dad founding a missions organization to bring clean water to people who don’t have it. A youth pastor delivering home communion to a chair-bound invalid even though she wasn’t a member of his church.
As I began to reflect on some of these things it began to hit home with me: Christian spirituality is as diverse and creative as fettucine Alfredo.
“The creator, I would add, churns out the intricate texture of least works that is the world with a spendthrift genius and an extravagance of care. That is the point…not only did the creator create everything, but that he is apt to create anything. He’ll stop at nothing.” –Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, ch. 8
A fettucine dish is the combination of two things: noodles and sauce. The noodles are only fettucine if they are cut to a certain width, specifically ¼ inch. If those same noodles are cut to 1/8th inch wide, they become linguine. Make them 3/8th inch wide and they become tagliatelle. Cut them to ½ inch wide and they are called pappardelle. Flute those noodles along the edge and they become mafaldine. Roll them along a dowel in a spiral shape and they become Tripolina. You can cover any of these noodles in an al burro sauce and they’ll taste amazing.
And that’s just flat noodles! We haven’t gotten to round noodles or shapes.
The creative canvas extends beyond the shape of the noodle to the composition of the dough. I could make all those same noodles with egg and flour dough, which is better for stretching. Or I could make them with a water and semolina dough, which allows them to retain their shape when dried. I could add spinach to the dough, giving them a forest-green appearance. I could add basil to the dough, giving the noodles a fragrant taste all their own. I could even make a squid-ink dough, black in appearance with a very savory and metallic taste (though, admittedly, squid-ink pasta is reserved for seafood dishes).
So it is with the sauce. American Alfredo with heavy cream. A simple al burro. Even in a four-cheese sauce there’s room for creativity. I could add chicken or shrimp to the dish. Cherry tomatoes. Chanterelles. Shitakes. Baby Bellas. Spinach. Parsley. Asiago. Grana Padano. Broccoli. Broccolini. The possibilities are numerous.
(But never beef, reader. Don’t be gross. There are rules to these things, ya know. And chief among them is “Do not boil a calf in its mother’s alfredo,” --Nonna 3:16).
These dishes all conform to the basic image of “fettucine Alfredo.” But each is unique in its own expression.
And this is precisely my point about Christian spirituality. Being “conformed to the image of Christ” (Rom. 8:29) doesn’t mean that the images are identical.
Being conformed to the exact icon (“stamp”) of Jesus’ spirituality won’t work for most of us. It won’t work for me. Jesus-in-the-flesh was a circumcised Jewish male living in Judea in the first century, and his spiritual practice included keeping kosher, attending the synagogue on Saturdays, traveling to Jerusalem for the major feasts throughout the year, and reciting the Shema (Deut. 6:4-6), the Ten Commandments, and the Amidah (collection of Jewish prayers) twice a day (maybe thrice). But as a Gentile male living in America—on this side of Jesus’ resurrection—my cultural context is different, and that shapes my spirituality differently in many ways than that of Jesus.
The differences are only around the edges, though. Jesus was a man committed to the will and Word of God. He read Scripture. He prayed. He gathered with the People of God on the day appointed for worship. He served others, exercised his spiritual gifts, was generous with what he had, and always spoke truthfully with grace. That’s the basic shape and flavor of Christ-like spirituality. Within the boundaries of that canvas, the possibilities are numerous and flavorful. Without those basic ingredients, it’s no longer food.
A boxed-pasta approach to our spirituality will produce some results. But without room for creativity, they’ll become bland and uniform. If we restrict our notions of spirituality (the outward expression of the Spirit’s inner work) to “go to church, read your Bible, and pray,” then we’ll exclude many of the Spirit’s gifts. There won’t be room for Bezalel and Oholiab (the Tabernacle artisans; Exod. 31:1-11) to demonstrate their devotion to God by crafting items and vessels used in Israel’s worship. There won’t be room for Martha or Peter’s mother-in-law to demonstrate their appreciation for Jesus by cooking him a meal (Luke 10:38; Mark 1:31). There won’t be room for David to demonstrate his complete and utter trust in God by crafting songs of lament (like Psalm 22 or Psalm 44). There won’t be room for Paul to show his deep love for Jesus by leaving his home church, setting up leather-working shops, and talking about Jesus while he made boots, purses, and cell phone covers. And there won’t be room for Mary, whose sole act of spirituality in service of the world’s redemption was simply to raise her children in the knowledge of God and his Word.
Don’t get me wrong: worship, Bible study, prayer, and acts of service are all vitally important. These can’t be neglected. Without the basic ingredients it’s no longer an edible dish. But how we do these things is not about conformity to a particular paradigm as we’ve been led to believe. There’s no cookie-cutter spirituality into which we can shape every single believer. “The gifts of the Spirit are many,” Paul believed (1 Cor. 12:4).
Some read the Bible for an hour a day, others for 10min a day. Some read it on their phone, others on their iPad, others on paper, and still others listen to it on audio. Some read first thing in the morning, others over lunch, others at night before bed. Some commit Scripture to memory by reading and reciting. Others commit it to memory by writing it out repeatedly. My wife uses something called Scripture Typer; she works on her typing and her Scripture memorization simultaneously. Some like to listen to sermons all week long; others can only listen to one.
What kind of fettucine dish is your spirituality? I don’t know. That’s for you to discover. You’re a unique blend of genetics, background, history, upbringing, temperament, experiences, education, work schedule, family composition, hurt, spiritual giftedness, and insight. Your flavors are unique.
Here’s what I do know: you can’t discover it on your own. You need input from Jesus, a thorough reading of the Word, and the input of the People of God. (And we’re back to prayer, Bible study, and worship.) And you’ll have to chase Jesus with everything you’ve got (Deut. 6:4-5; Mark 12:28-30).
But when you do, and do it well, with simple high-quality ingredients, it will become a tasty dish, a satisfying meal offered to the Lord. One that you’ve cooked with your own heart and hands.
And he might even ask for seconds.
This was a wonderful reminder, thank you!