The Problem with Roux

Two weeks after our marriage ceremony, Jan and I moved to New Orleans.  The following week I was to begin my pursuit of a graduate degree from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.  It was to be the greatest adventure of our lives and the establishment of a strong bond of trusting love for us.  We ended our time in the Deep South five years later by leaving West Union Baptist Church located in Carriere, Mississippi to become pastor of Gallatin Road Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee in 1979.

That is about as short a history as I can make to give you a background for our introduction to the Cajun word “roux.”  A roux is a mixture of equal parts fat and flour simmered until the perfect shade of brown.  It is the foundation of all Cajun soups and sauces.  The word is the shortened word for “beurre roux” or brown butter.  Roux is related to the French word for “brown.”

The good Cajun Baptist cooks were zealous about their roux’s.  Everything began with a skillfully made roux.  If there were to be a covered dish meal at the church, at least half of the dishes began with a roux. 

During our time in roux country, Jan mastered her roux.  Today, a bunch of years later, she still takes a great deal of pleasure and pride in her roux.  Even her macaroni and cheese begins with a roux.  If you were to ask her for the recipe her first words would be, “First, you make a roux….”  

The word “roux” came to mind as I was in one of my pondering moods reflecting on a study of Romans chapters one through eight.  I’m processing Romans to better understand why I make the decisions I make.  In that understanding, I’m looking for a secondary understanding of why our nation is as divided as it is.  It is in that pondering that roux came to mind.

I wonder if the divisive insistence on what is true and acceptable comes from a simmering, near burnt mixture of two ingredients; what I think is truth and what those I am most comfortable with think is truth.  Our values of life come from the roux of our thinking.  Because I think it is truth and those I’m closest to think it is truth, I must be right and all others are insanely wrong.

Truth, by definition, is singular, not a mixture of what I think and what you think.  Truth is non-changing for eternity.  Truth does not bend or blend.  It is what it is, has been what it is, and will be what it is.  If every person were to find and relate his or her life to truth, there would be peace and harmony.  Actually, it would be what was the Garden of Eden and will be our experience of heaven.

Even the most casual reflection of creation reveals that everything is changing.  My body and mind are different today than they were just a couple of years ago.  Even my world view is changing.

The only thing which does not change in creation is the Creator.  There is a great opportunity here to ponder on the significance of why Jesus says of himself, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” 

Roux’s are great for cooking but disastrous for concocting a truth for living which would make our lives all together satisfying.  We cannot build peace by adapting truth to what we think is right.  Peace is attainable when we realize that all our thoughts are less than truth, and adapt our thinking to the Truth, what God has revealed.