I think anyone who lives in a community that is culturally diverse may understand the complexity of finding culturally “authentic” food. Here in Texas, the line blurs between “Tex-Mex”, derived from the words Texas and Mexico, describing a fusion of food, and Mexican food. I’ll admit this sermon could have easily been a “Sermon from the Stove” because here recently began thinking about the “authenticity of food” because a Better Homes and Garden Slow Cooker cookbook from the 2010s told me to put sliced black olives in a dish called “Tex-Mex Mac and Cheese”. I didn’t use the olives but it wasn’t the first time I’ve heard of olives in Mexican food.
In the doctrine, the 3rd teaching says, in short, “All events are interconnected” and that “The Force is a flowing continuum.” I understand what some of you may be thinking. “Chaotish, how is this even connected?” and I’ll admit I was puzzled myself, but let’s talk through it:
Through my research -- watching two YouTube video, which is considered the benchmark for scientific pursuits these days (I kid) -- olives are a carryover from the Spanish colonization of the New World, which influenced Mexican cuisine. Makes sense. Spain is Mediterranean and the biggest exporter of olives in 2023.
So how does all of this apply to this? What wisdom can be cultivated from “olive” (all of) this?
The doctrine talks about authenticity in at least two teachings, one after the other.
The Jedi maintain integrity, our individuated wholeness. We practise to foster the awareness of our interconnection with all other phenomena, thus ensuring authenticity in our interactions with others and our capacity to accept our limitations and those in interaction with us.
Following from the Ninth Teaching:
The first and foremost service a Jedi performs is devotion to our learning. Only by curating our individuated, authentic, whole being-ness, can we serve in more collaborative ways, participating in the creative, renewing flow of the Force. With our devotion to the discipline of universal compassion in the Force, we embody the source of love and harmony we bring into the world.
I included the whole teachings because they illustrate the role of authenticity in our lives, but if I were to describe it in short: We need to be aware of the sliced black olives in our lives, the small and seemingly random influences that interconnect us with everything else. When we endeavor to discover the sliced black olives in our lives, it allows us to recognize and understand the sliced black olives in other people’s lives. (Y’all ever meet someone with a seemingly random quirk, and then go visit their parents, and then that quirk suddenly becomes a “oh yeah, that makes sense why they do that.”) With greater understanding comes greater compassion. That compassion allows us to more actively participate in the creative renewing of the Force, championing peace, love, and harmony in the world.
So what are the sliced black olives in your life, the small things that make you built by small but cyclic iterations, you?
