My Baby Ate a Snail
Escargot, little Mount Carmel, snail sex, Elijah, and providence in the wilderness
Friends! It made me so happy to see such a significant response to the 10-day series on living 1.5 years with lupus and recovering from trauma. I felt very cared for and known to have so many of these mini-essays read and to have multiple conversations with others about. Thank you. This is why I am trying to write authentically—for the mutual connection that forms when we are honest and transparent!
If you missed this series, scroll to the bottom of this email, where I list all of the posts for you to go back to. The majority are short reads.
Eating snails
My baby ate a snail yesterday. He isn’t French, nor was it was this escargot—rather, this was your classic garden snail I picked up under the hedge.
I thought he might have taken a bite out of a succulent again, which always makes me nervous. As I saw Kai munching, I felt the zing of fear. What if the plant was poisonous? Then I felt relief, and even a little pride that I was aware and noticed. Maybe I am a good mom after all. (Sometimes my mental health makes me question that these days.)
Kai squished up his face. He pursed his lips. He turned away. That’s the expression that he makes when he wants to keep something. Only after I’ve told approximately a dozen times, “yucky, spit it out!” did he finally relent. I moved over to the slimy clump on the sidewalk, appalled to see it wasn’t a green wad of plant he spit out, but a chunk of snail.
My stomach rolled. I tried not to think about whether he took a bite or if he’d already swallowed the majority of the snail. I didn’t want to know how he plied the snail out of its shell, either.
I don’t think he liked it. He was doing that thing with his tongue that I do when I try to get a nasty taste to dissipate. I offered him a sip of water and he immediately started chugging it. Granted, my cup had a straw in it and that alone is a big draw for Kai—he looooves straws. However, it is possible he liked the snail more than I assumed.
Thankfully, it turns out snails can be pretty good for you. But only if they are cooked, otherwise they might contain rat lungworm. No one wants that!
Not knowing what is good for him is a common theme in the life of my fifteen-month old.
The Formation of Elijah
Recently I’ve been studying the metaphor of the wilderness. This theme is lived out through many of the stories of the Bible’s Old Testament, which are also the Jewish scriptures. The story of Elijah is one of these.
In addition to being the namesake of my middle son, Elijah was a radical prophet during the era of the Kings of Israel. He is one of only two people who was said to be “taken up to heaven” instead of dying naturally. I used to think that was an awesome way to go, in a fiery chariot, and used to regularly beg God to let me avoid death in a similar fashion. The odds are definitely stacked against me, but only time will tell.
We don’t really have much on where Elijah came from, what is story was, who his family was. All I can tell is that he is a “Tishbite,” a settler in Gilead (now Jordan). Does that make him an immigrant? Or was he an Israelite? I do know that by their ancient law, that adds context to his story.
I also doubt that his first confrontation with the evil King Ahab was his first time speaking boldly for God. We don’t see his initial spiritual formation though. How did he begin hearing God? Why did he trust God so much? What brought Elijah to the place where he was confident to go up against a king?
Like most stories of greatness, we don’t see the build up. We arrive later in the story, the good part. Elijah is a hero for his willingness to follow God and perform powerfully crazy miracles in spaces where he is wanted dead.
Relatable
Even so, of all the prophets, I believe we see Elijah’s humanity the most. I like Elijah not because he could call fire from heaven, but because he was depressed, even suicidal. Elijah is likable because he hung-out out with a foreign widow and her son in modern-day Lebanon. We relate to how Elijah questioned God over the boy’s death. He grieved in prayer with such desperation that the boy came back alive! Elijah is likable because he deals with being bullied the way we all secretly want to—by calling bears out of the forest to maul an ancient M-13 gang.
Elijah is one of us; he is not really a hero at all.
Nothin’ special
When we visited Israel a few year’s back, we spent the day in Haifa. On the way there, looking at my GPS, I noticed we were driving by Mount Carmel. It turns out that it is more of a small mountain range, especially the more northern part, preserved for picnicking and hiking as a national park. It looked no different than any of our local coastal mountains. There was nothing special about it.
Out of everything on that trip, Mount Carmel was one of the things that shocked me the most. It was evidence of the ordinary. If we doubled the size of San Diego County, where I live, it would be bigger than modern Israel and Palestine combined!
The lives of glorified Bible characters and the terrain of their epic stories had nothing to distinguish them. This principle of ordinary is even reflected in Isaiah’s prophesy about the Messiah:
“There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him.” (Isaiah 53:2b NLT)
The only thing special about these magical stories was the presence of God himself. If such a little space could change history, then it's just as likely that my impact might also change the world as God flows through me too.
Wilderness
I see myself in Elijah. Like Elijah, the stories of my formation are largely not told. I deeply desire people to connect with me, brought together by our shared bond of humanity—the same reasons we relate with Elijah. Sometimes people know me for “great things”—starting nonprofits and ministries, or speaking confidently in front of large crowds. But anything incredible that has come from my life has only been the result of partaking in what God provided for me.
Elijah was no stranger to the wilderness. In fact, I see myself in him these days, as he lay in the dust, afraid, even after performing the craziest of miracles on Mount Carmel. But in 1 Kings 19 we have the rare glimpse of a forming season for him. It is important to note that this wilderness moment followed after powerfully raising a boy from the dead; after mightily calling fire from heaven.
God was bringing Elijah to the mountain of his covenant, Mount Sinai. Everything Elijah had gloriously done for God still couldn’t replace the encounter with God he was about to have. We don’t entirely grasp what went on on that mountain, but we can see that God very intentionally choose to show Elijah his character through a quiet voice. He also reminded Elijah that he was not alone, an assurance that God had reserved a remnant and had a plan to carry on his Kingdom work by giving Elijah an apprentice.
But between that and the miracles that came before, was the wide stretch of a wilderness where Elijah wanted to die. I love that God didn’t try to simplify Elijah’s emotions, shame him, or even try to get Elijah to reframe the situation. God didn’t try to make Elijah’s hopelessness go away. He just fed him. God knew exactly what type of provision Elijah needed to regain his strength. He knew exactly what Elijah needed to get to the mountain of God.
Providence and provision
Three major themes that are always evident in scripture about the wilderness are that:
The wilderness always sucks big time.
The wilderness always forms us.
God always provides just what is needed in the wilderness.
I’ve needed to be told of God’s providence over and over again through these last few years of wilderness. When it was too much, when I was too sick, when I was too lonely, his providence came. It has never been a lot. But it has always been just enough.
I’m not a toddler anymore, exploring the world and looking for sustenance through anything I can taste or try to eat. I don’t lick the bottom of strangers’ shoes, suck on toes, or chug from any bottle within reach. Nor do I eat garden snails from under my hedge.
I know these won’t provide the nutrition I need.
Just like my baby boy needs me to feed him, I too become desperate, especially in the wilderness. Here, I can’t provide for myself. I become childlike and still accepted as a lay hopeless in the dust, under and broom tree, begging God to make it all just disappear.
God always responds by providing just enough, once again.
I hope you’re able to take something away from my musings on Elijah, the wilderness, and provision. Please share it with someone else who might also be in a season of wilderness.
Five random facts about snails and escargot (including snail mating)!
Instead of ending there, like I should, I thought you might also be intrigued by what I found out about snails. Because of course, writing about Kai’s episode of snail-eating sent me on a classic writer’s research project to learn about escargot.
Without further ado, here are five random things about snails I’ll pass on to you! (You’re welcome)
Garden snails (escargot petit gris) are actually great for eating (or at least, so I’ve read). Just don’t let them eat pesticides, let them eat human food for a few days, then let the snails fast to clean their digestive systems out, remove the shell, and cook them well (a little white wine and butter for taste). Here’s an article on it if you want to eat some snails from your garden the proper way.
Two-thirds of all escargot is eaten around Christmas because this is when the most favored snails from vineyards in Burgundy are harvested. Even so, National Escargot Day is May 24th! How does that make sense? (Learn more about snail types here.)
Escargot is very healthy for you and is actually considered seafood. Even though they are classified as seafood, only really expensive rare snails come from the sea. I find a plethora of sea snails every time I head to the tide pools, but I have no clue if they are the same type that are eaten. The hugest one we ever found was actually not at the tide pools at all, but Del Mar beach this last winter!
Snails reproduce like rabbits, and can make up to five-hundred baby snails a year! How’s this done? Snails very slowly find a mate, court over the course of hours (also slowly), and conclude their courtship with a “love dart,” (a painful-seeming spear of hormones). Then they copulate. They can reproduce five times a year, and are usually hermaphrodites. This made me wonder why a partner is necessary in the first place—it turns out in some species they aren’t! Learn about snail mating here.
Snails actually live a pretty long time, usually 2-7 years, but can live up to 25. This makes me feel a little bad about all the times I would mass murder snails. I was paid five to ten cents apiece to collect them in a bucket and pour salt on them to rid them from my mom’s garden! Learn about their life cycle here.
On Average Advocate this week: A Road Trip Story: Accepting Kindness When You Rather Give It
Read the rest of the series on lupus and trauma healing:
Please Don't Simplify the Complexities (Mini-Essay #1)
Pharmacy (Mini-Essay #2)
PTSD Et Al. (Mini-Essay #3)
Not-So-Friendly Insomnia (Mini-Essay #4)
Phantom Pain (Mini-Essay #5)
Hello, Hair! (Mini-Essay #6)
Homebody (Mini-Essay #7)
The Scars (Mini-Essay #8)
Betrayal (Mini-Essay #9)
Grief for a Lost Year (Mini-Essay #10)
Here are other lupus/trauma related posts from the last year-and-a-half:
House of Life, Washing Hands, Do Your Job Well, and the Lupus, Pregnancy, and Autoimmune Illness series posted at AverageAdvocate.com.Follow me on Instagram @AuthenticallyElisa