Godfrey's Mushrooms

Godfrey Diekmann (1908-2002) was a Benedictine monk with a love of the liturgy. He was, apparently, well known for gathering mushrooms - and many who encountered him found themselves doing just that. I have been reading Krista Tippett's Speaking of Faith (Penguin, 2007) in which she describes meeting him just the year before he died. He wasn't able to gather mushrooms any longer, but he had loads of stories to tell. He stressed to her the need for an "incarnational theology - a back-to-basics understanding of the implications of belief in a God who threw himself whole into the light and darkness of life with us." (p. 132) She goes on to comment that his mushrooms "were the perfect metaphor for his theology: a common slogging through beauty, getting rained on, getting dirty, taking in the fields' and forests' silent declaration of God, anticipating the delicious meal to come." (p. 133)