Viral Learnings, Part Five: The Yeast Remains

found at theclevercarrot.com

One of the things I've started doing during Covid-19 is making Sourdough Bread. A few weeks ago, I made a starter--Some flour, water, a little honey, and some yeast, mixed and punched and put in a zip lock bag to be left out for 5 days while the yeast fermented and did its work. At that point, I put a few cups in a sealed container in the fridge, and baked the rest. I'd give the end product (my first loaf) a "B" grade. I'll get better.

But what I really loved was the starter. Every once in a while if I was making something, I'd pull out a bit to add to what I was doing--bread, pancakes--you name it. And then, a few days ago, I "fed" the starter, adding new flour and a bit of sugar. Lo and behold it started growing again, replenishing itself, replicating, the yeast reactivated, resurrected, providing a new expression of dough from the same strain. 

As I understand it, this could go on forever; the yeast replicating itself, the exact same strain and makeup, as long as I take care of it and feed it well. That is why businesses like Guinness Beer guard their strain of yeast so tightly.

Photo by Sam Barber on Unsplash

They keep a strain of the original yeast under lock and key in case anything would happen to their working stock (these strains are hundreds of years old). It wouldn't be Guinness without the yeast that works it's way through.

What a metaphor for life. During this time of Covid-19 quarantine, I find myself asking, "What yeast am I feeding to grow living bread in me?" Because the fact is that whatever the yeast is that I'm tending will be what the "dough" my life will taste like. 

"A little yeast works itself through a whole batch of dough," Paul writes in Galatians 5. What is the starter yeast that is working it's way through me today? Is it Grace? Love? Mercy? The story of Scripture and God's faithfulness? Or is it fear? Anxiety? The stress of the nightly news? Mad Men (which I'm currently binging)?  All of these are a part of life in some respects, but the yeast will likely be the thing I feed the most. 

The reality of life is that even when the bread is gone, the yeast remains. What am I feeding today in my soul and spirit that remains and replicates for tomorrow's daily bread?

Something for me (and for us) to think about.