I can go for a nice slice of blueberry pie now and then, but the truth is that I like blueberries plain. They are every bit as good raw as they are cooked in a pastry. I’m that way with apples, too. I don’t mind a baked apple now and then, but it is hard to improve on simply eating an apple. It tastes good. I’ve read that eating your vegetables raw helps preserve their vitamins and that many vegetables are even better for you raw than they are cooked. And there are a lot of vegetables that I enjoy raw. I don’t mind a few glazed carrots from time to time, but most of the time I just eat my carrots raw. The same goes for broccoli. It is every bit as good raw as it is cooked. OK, I prefer potatoes cooked. And the only way I enjoy Brussels sprouts is roasted. There really isn’t that much flavor raw.

I’m not much for raw fish, though I’ve had some. And aside from a bit of tiger meat (not meat from a tiger, meat spiced by a German) and a bite or two of heart on a hunting trip, I never have gone in for raw meat. I guess that like many things in life there needs to be a balance between cooked and raw food. While cooking or reheating foods can diminish their nutritional value because some vitamins are degraded by heat, there are some foods that we probably wouldn’t eat raw that retain enough vitamins to give us nutritional value. Potatoes are an excellent example. Even if a potato loses 50% of its food value when cooked, that leaves 50% that I might not eat otherwise. I eat a few bites of raw potato, but don’t really care for them as much as I like cooked potatoes.

Primatologist Richard Wrangham wrote a book, “Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human,” in which he argues that cooking gave early humans an advantage over other primates, leading to larger brains and more free time.

But there are some things that I prefer raw.

Mountain blueberries are tiny. It takes several minutes to gather enough to cover the bottom of a sierra cup. But they have a flavor that cannot be improved upon. They do not need to be cooked. They require no additional ingredients. They are absolutely the best when simply eaten as they are.

If you read my blog several times a week, you must have a bit of a like of the raw. The writing I do for the blog is raw – unedited. I simply write off of the top of my head on whatever topic strikes me on a particular day. I started out keeping a faith journal, but that quickly evolved into many other topics and the blog these days is a window on the type of thinking I do when I am not engaging in re-writing, editing, and trying to refine my ideas. I don’t serve my ideas raw in other settings very often.

Of course there are occasions when I speak off the top of my head in conversation with others. And I can be caught off guard and need to improvise when situations arise in my ministry. I can be at the hospital and find myself in the midst of a crisis that I didn’t imagine would occur. I can make a home visit and walk into circumstances that I didn’t expect. These things happen on a regular basis. But there are plenty of times when my words are carefully chosen.

I’m working on a short piece of writing that will be read by members of other congregations at the moment. I prepared a rough draft, did a self edit, asked Susan to read and comment, re-wrote it again, and am still making subtle changes. I’ve corrected the grammar, tweaked my ideas a bit, taken out some unnecessary words and tried to find the words to say express the idea as well as I can. I enjoy that type of writing. Prior to the explosion of the Internet and the rise of self-published books nearly all writing was subject to intense editing. When we prepare educational curricula, for example, our words go through at least two editors before they are published. Sometimes magazine articles go through only one editor, but that is a relatively recent phenomenon. Prior to the last few years virtually all magazine articles were edited by two different people before being printed.

When I preach, I start working on the basic concepts weeks and even months in advance. The week of the sermon begins with a discussion of the concepts with the church staff. I run ideas by them and try to formulate the concepts. Then I meet with a group of ministers to study the scripture and refine the ideas. We are in the habit of asking each other about the general directions of our sermons, trying to understand what our colleagues will be doing and expressing our ideas in ways that they will understand. Then I rework the concepts again for a couple of days. On the day that I am preaching I prefer to run all the way through the sermon twice in an empty church. When preaching at home, I arrive at the church a couple of hours ahead of others and go through the sermon to make sure I have the order and the words down. I work hard at the distinction between written and oral language. When I am traveling, I often run through my sermons while taking a walk or in front of a motel room mirror.

I use a full manuscript for funerals. I want to make sure that every word has been carefully chosen. The occasion is too important for anything less.

But you get my blog raw – unedited – unfiltered. And sometimes the words are awkward. Sometimes the ideas are silly. Sometimes the thoughts are poorly developed.

And, occasionally, they are delicious.

I guess life demands a bit of balance. If my blog strikes you like so many uncooked potatoes, there are more refined words available in other publications and worship. Not all of my ideas are half-cooked.

If, however, you occasionally like to sink your teeth into a few raw concepts, keep reading.

Copyright © 2013 by Ted Huffman. I wrote this. If you want to copy it, please ask for permission. There is a contact me button at the bottom of this page. If you want to share my blog a friend, please direct your friend to my web site.