Taste
Taste is yet another complex
sense that humans use to explore their world, mainly to determine whether or
not something is good to eat. Taste is
also intimately tied with the sense of smell, and one can rarely fully taste
without some olfactory stimuli.
To demonstrate this, test
whether campers can identify tastes without scent. Because texture and sight are obvious clues
of a food's identity, I use jellybeans (the gourmet, high-test kind) for this
experiment. This game also requires
partners, so that one person can be blind to effectively focus only on the
sense of taste. The seeing partner
should present the taster with a series of four or more flavored jellybeans,
which the taster must identify with eyes shut and nose closed. Then repeat the flavors in the same order,
but this time with nose open. There will
be a remarkable difference in the ease with which the campers can identify the
tastes between the two trials.
This unique tie between the
two senses provides a good opportunity to talk about Paul's allegory of the
body and the Church (1 Corinthians 12.12 cf). Just as the tongue needs the nose to work, so
the different members of the Church need each other to carry out God's ministry
in the world.
While one would certainly
discourage campers from picking leaves and eating them, it is a shame for
campers not to taste a bit of the habitat that they are exploring. While on the topic of taste, I enjoy asking
the campers to taste some wild flavors.
Here in