May 17th, 2009

It has been my recent good fortune to be able to celebrate a couple of anniversaries, and from these parties, to enjoy some pretty delicious cakes. Now, I am not necessarily a cake expert, but I know what I like, and the last couple of cakes were terrific, partly because the baked part was nice and moist and tasty, but most because the icing was perfect.
To some folks, icing is icing, but to me, it has to be just right, or else the whole baked dessert thing is completely off. Yes, that might sound petty, but you have to understand that the doughy part of the cake is simply the price you have to pay for enjoying good icing. In other words, I love good icing, and would be perfectly happy without the rest of the cake.
Of course, it has to be really good icing. It has to be butter-based, of course, and not to sweet, and not too heavy, and preferably either chocolate or vanilla. No other flavours will do. I just ask for the basics: a creamy consistency, fluffy texture, and not too much sugar. Mind you, I am not entirely prejudiced to butter icing. No, a good, tart chocolate ganache, one of those nice smooth toppings usually found on your higher end desserts, is also a good candidate for my having a happy cake (or even cakeless) experience.
Such decadent tastes, however, are not my major way of being. Only when it comes to cakes and icing do I have such rich expectations. In most other things I tend towards quality and substance. Furthermore, I am fully aware of the fact that I sometimes prefer the exterior dressing, aka the icing, to the true heart of the matter, which is the cake. In most other things, I think I have my priorities pretty straight.
Take faith, for example. Faith is often confused with religious practice, which is, in reality, just the icing on the cake. By religious practice I mean the things we do that look good, or sound holy, but are only the external trappings we humans need to help us get our heads around a Godly experience. Faith, as I see it, is the core of our existence and our relationship with God. We believe in a heavenly creator, as Christians we believe in His living, physical presence, and everything we do hangs on that core.
Sometimes, however, the practices around our faith are confused, or perhaps even put ahead of, the core concepts. That means that the icing takes over from the cake; we look to the external things and forget the internal matters. As a result, faith becomes little more than a sickly sweet experience that looks good, tastes great, but neither endures nor feeds. Rather than forming a central pillar of life, one that is dependable under all circumstances, it becomes window dressing, something that looks great, but doesn’t live up to it’s promise.
God’s intent for faith is not that it simply looks good. It’s not meant to be the icing on existence, but its main meaning and purpose. It isn’t just about religious practices on Sunday morning. To believe in God means to live by God full time, not just when it suits us, and certainly not because it looks good on a resume, or in our public life. Living by faith means to dig right into the whole depth and breadth of what God offers us, allowing His love to guide us, His Word to feed us and His grace to keep us going. Anything less means confusing the icing for the cake. At least that’s the way I see it.