I am a huge Stanley Tucci fan. The first time I saw him in anything was in the 1990 Bill Murray comedy QUICK CHANGE. He wasn’t on screen that long, but he stands out. I remember laughing out loud at his performance and thinking, “Who is that guy?” That is the same movie where I was introduced to another now favorite actor, Tony Shalhoub.
Tucci’s latest project is called TUCCI IN ITALY and although I’ve only watched a single episode so far, I love it.
I enjoy all things food related. Eating it, cooking it, learning about it, trying new cuisines and dishes, learning about its history, the way it expresses culture, the artistry and craft of preparing it, and the way it brings people together. That makes Tucci in Italy perfect for me.
In the first few minutes of episode one, we are introduced to the Lampredotto sandwich. It’s made from the cow’s fourth stomach, boiled, and eaten on a crusty roll with a garlicky sauce.
But that’s not my point.
The person who introduced him to the sandwich is a food writer who has been writing about food in Florence, Italy for twenty years.
TWENTY years!
That’s not twenty years about food in general. That’s twenty years about food in one city.
When I heard that I couldn’t help but marvel at the discipline it would take to write for that long on a single subject. I questioned the sustainability of such a thing. Wouldn’t it get boring? How could you possibly stick to one thing for that long? Especially when it seems like such a narrow field.
But what I kept seeing throughout the whole episode, was love. There was a love that these people had for what they dedicated themselves to. And that love carried them along into the depths and sustained them on that journey.
Like the family dedicated to the painstaking process of making Lardo in the tiny hillside village of Colonnata, where they mine magnificent marble. Or the Italian cowboys known as Butteri who are dedicated to raising beef so incredible it can cost $1,000 for a single steak. There are only 20 of these specialists in the entire country of Italy. Or the volunteers that all come together to prepare and serve dinner to a thousand people the night before the Palio horserace in Siena.
All of them were disciplined because of what they loved.
And of course that made me think about God.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 58:8-9)
“Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.” (Psalm 145:3)
God is infinite. We will never reach the end of him. The pursuit of knowing him is eternally sustainable. Perhaps the disciplines we engage in to know him more deeply could benefit from love.
I am not suggesting that if we loved God more we would never find engaging with Scripture challenging or prayer dry and worship lifeless.
We are broken and sinful humans. I guarantee you some of the people in Tucci’s show wake up often and think, “I just don’t feel like making the stomach sandwiches today.” But they do it anyway. They aren’t worried about how they feel. Their love for what they do compels them to be disciplined.
I think if a writer can find twenty years of material in a single city about a single subject, I can find endless fascination with the God of the universe. And here’s one of the amazing things about God, it’s not our love for God that carries us along in our journey with him, it’s God’s love that carries US along.
.
Joseph McBee 