My Chocolate Chip Cookie Theory of Religion

There’s something mystical about made-from-scratch chocolate-chip cookies.  Nobody’s look like anybody else’s.  Watch the crowd at any school bake sale, and you’ll see kids pointing out cookies and saying, “My mom made those.”  They know this because chocolate-chip cookies have the peculiarity of being distinct by maker. 

I was 30 before it hit me that just because my cookies don’t look like my mother’s it didn’t mean I was doing anything wrong or that she was lying about her recipe.  (A relative went to her grave without telling anyone her secret recipe for raisin-cream pie, so I know some folks take that sort of thing pretty seriously.)  

Most chocolate-chip cookie recipes are pretty similar – flour, brown sugar, white sugar, butter, egg, vanilla, baking soda & chocolate chips.  But it isn’t merely differences in ingredients that make cookies different, because my daughter and I can use ingredients from the same containers and still our cookies don’t look like each other’s.  Somewhere in the steps between gathering ingredients and the end product, we add an individual touch without even meaning to. 

Same concept, same ingredients, individual results.  So, if I can’t put eight things together and end up with the exact same thing as someone else, how am I supposed to put together several thousand ideas, thoughts, and feelings and end up with the same notions about God as someone else?    

This has led me to develop my Chocolate Chip Cookie Theory of Religion.  This theory is still being fine-tuned, but the basic premise is that I’m allowed to question whatever I want to question as long as I still end up with The Cookie. 

Here’s an example of how this works.  Some chocolate chip cookie recipes call for salt.  I read a book that says many recipes call for minor amounts of salt because years ago it was a way of making sure everyone got enough iodine from iodized salt, and even after that was no longer a problem the habit remained.  So I don’t put salt in my cookies.  Do I still get cookies?  Yes.  Do I make fun of people who still use salt?  No.  Do I demand that everyone make this change?  No.  If the self-proclaimed Infallible Grand Poobah of Cookies released a writ condemning Personal Salt Decisions, would I go back to the original recipe?  No.

It’s not like I’m changing the flour to hamburger and the sugar to bread crumbs and ending up with meatloaf and trying to call it a cookie.  That would just be crazy.  It would also be crazy if I encouraged The Worldwide Order of the Cookie to divide up into groups based on details, and discouraged them from communicating with each other or studying The Cookie together.  Why, something as wacky as that could lead to divisive statements:

            “This isn’t what I’m used to!! You added nuts!” 

“Those kooks use imitation vanilla instead of pure vanilla extract.”

“Coconut?  Are you some kind of a freak?”

            “You can’t come here – you use insulated pans and we use flat aluminum.” 

“Margarines only pray with other Margarines – you’re a Butter.” 

            “The Grand Poobah says only men can set the oven to preheat!” 

         
The Grand Poobah is so out of touch with reality.  No wonder Aunt Francis only ever made pie.