Sacred Quest

My wife and I were invited a few days ago on a 'shroom hunt. Our friends own a large timber area and we spent a couple of wonderful hours meandering with our heads down and expectations high.


We were rewarded for our contemplative demeanor by a grocery sack overflowing with morels. Both greys and yellows were discovered but the holy grail is, in my opinion, the Morchella esculenta or yellow morel.

Sliced in half and sauteed in olive oil and butter with a flourish of fresh ground pepper, what was once an elusive fungi in the forest becomes an epicurean delight that is an ambrosia on the palate

What I find most remarkable, however, is that I am twice blessed because of the morel. Not only are my gustatory senses impacted in profound and glorious ways, my very soul is renewed in the midst of the search. The chance to slow down, to be removed from the concrete insulating me from God's creation allowed for a glimpse of the divine.

In some ways, the search for the sacred is not unlike the quest for that edible golden sponge. When I stopped looking so intently; when I began to relax, rather than try to force the discovery; when I enjoyed the moment, rather than seek to be the first or most prolific discoverer of the timber's bounty is when I would glimpse its ethereal presence.