Salt of Earth... in Water

A five hour bus ride and a 1 hour subway ride to get home; knowing I need to work on a proposal tomorrow morning; some difficult questions from a colleague that require substantial thought.... all is well, but when I got home today I craved something soothing.

Fortunately, that was easy to do: an Epson salt bath with wonderful smelling herbs in candlelight. 35 minutes later, I felt much more at peace with what was, what is and what (I think) will be.

Soaking in the salts, my mind meandered through human kind's long love affair with the mineral. As a lovely article on the history of salt conveys, humans need salt, but for most of human history, salt has been a scarce resource. As a result, it has been at the heart of great trading routes crisscrossing the globe - from Morocco south across the Sahara to Timbuktu; from Egypt to Greece across the Mediterranean sea; from oases scattered across the Libyan desert. Venice made her wealth from their salt trade with merchants in Constantinople, and with no surprise as for centuries merchants traded salt ounce for ounce for gold.

Salt's qualities as an antiseptic is why the Romans associated "sal" with "Salus," the goddess of health. A soldier's pay, which included salt, came to be known as "solarium argentum," the ancestor of our contemporary word "salary." Its worth, healing properties, and capacity as a food preservative are unquestionable. Epsom salt baths are supposed to "work" (though not clinically proven, it seems) because the hot water melts the magnesium which then your body absorbs, which is helpful. Hot water IS "good medicine," and long soaks are superb for all sorts of aches, pains, and emotional upsets.

All of this is behind Jesus' famous saying to his disciples, "Ye are the salt of the Earth," (Matthew 5:13) as so beautifully written in the King James Version. It is a highly preached on verse, often taken as a reminder of the importance and inherent worth of God's children, for salt was of such inherent worth. Sometimes it is also referred to as a way of reminding people one should be "salty" - grounded, but also with a bit of a bite - not laid back, not "sweet" and "nice" and "kind" all the time: but also bold and unafraid.

Of course, too much salt, like too much of just about anything except love, has its negative consequences. Recent studies find that most Americans need a mere 500 milligrams (mg) of sodium daily... but most of us consume about six times as much, or 3,200 mg of sodium daily. This is more than double the 1,500 mg maximum per day recommended by health organizations like the American Heart Association. Too much salt negatively impacts your blood vessels, brain, heart, and kidney. And note: pink Himalayan salt really is better for you (lots of articles to ref here, so start here).

Laying in the bath watching the candle light flicker on the walls (I just love candle-lit anything, but especially bathing), I also wondered if the experience of Epsom salt baths might lend us another way of understanding what Jesus was saying: those who seek the Kingdom of Heaven (also known as the "beloved community") are also also bringers of peace, calm and healing in a stressful and chaotic world. The healing properties of laying in salt water was well-known to the ancients (hence the early popularity of the dead sea). I don't think of this calm as "sweet," so much as less stressful and more able to rest. And rest is critical to action.

So be like salt: bring rest, as well as provocations and flavorful moments, to your world. Learn to do this not just by reading about it, but engaging with it. Sometimes we don't only learn from the metaphor, but from the substance itself.