Pretend Cooking

So my daughter has a little friend over for a "play date" (and no, this is not a post about remembering back in the day when we didn't have to make an appointment to play or wear seat belts or helmets, and basically cheated death every day of our young lives... but please do feel free to roll your eyes at the whole "then/now" contrasts to childhood, nonetheless)...

Anyways, as I was saying... they're on this play date, and announce to me that they are bored.
(this is also not a commentary on how we have done our kids a disservice by not allowing them to be bored but feel a sick, soccer-mom obligation to fill every waking moment of their lives with endless activity and fun, fun, fun, lest they are forced to engage their own minds in the creative thinking process and thus develop coping skills)

Ok, so what was I saying? Oh yeah. Play date. Bored. Right.

After a moment of dumb staring and awkward silence, when they realized I actually meant it when I wasn't going to oblige their request to provide free onboard cruise ship entertainment to their sorry little consumer oriented ADD selves ... they came up with an idea (ok, I DID offer some suggestions... I'm not a completely monster), they decided they wanted to "pretend" cook.

Great! The kitchen is a laboratory of the imagination, after all. Pots, pans, measuring spoons, sharp knives - what's not to love about that? I am on board with this idea.

Curiously, though, when I suggested they make something "real", like brownies or cookies, they rebuffed. They wanted to use "real" food in a "real" kitchen mind you, not that fake plastic crap in a Little Tykes plastic kitchen. That's for babies. They're no babies. Come on, now. They wanted the authenticity of the environment, and the ingredients. But that's where it ended. They just wanted to dump all of the contents of my refrigerator into various pots, pans and bowls and mix them up into thoroughly inedible and disgusting concoctions.

Ok, so the argument can be made that they just wanted to experiment, test the boundaries of the culinary arts with their young, unmolded minds, if you will... to not be held back by the "Man", or his hard and fast rules... Recipes, shmecipes! They're only 9, for crying out loud. Why encumber them with limitations so soon, when life will do that soon enough?

Yeah, yeah. I get that. But it doesn't fit with the point I want to make, so dismiss it from your mind immediately.

Looking at the disaster of my kitchen, and the many, many bowls of Italian dressing mixed with God knows what, I realized that I see a lot of myself in this "pretend cooking" business. I see my relationship with God and His Church.

I want authenticity. The real deal. I'm not satisfied with "playing Church". I'm no baby. Come on, now. Give me a real environment with real people to work with. Give me transparency, and people who are the "real deal". Give me authenticity in Church or give me death, man. I want to be surrounded by "realness". I just don't necessarily want to produce anything "real". I want to be a pretend cook. Just like those sorry little consumer oriented ADD kids destroying my kitchen.

For all of my big talk, and spouting off about authenticity, it is occuring to me that I don't really want to be real myself.

I think this is a problem.

I think God might be dealing with me. For real.