The Gift of Salt

By Rev. Judith Laxer

There is a reason that good-natured, grounded, and present people are called ‘the salt of the earth’. Salt brings goodness to everything.

There is much folklore informing us what we have known the goodness of salt from antiquity. We all know that salt brings out the flavor of whatever it is added to or paired with. Who among us has not swooned when eating salted, chocolate caramel? Delicious!

Salt also preserves food by drawing out and drying up moisture. Before we learned to smoke, freeze or can, food — particularly meat — was heavily salted to preserve it for future use. Salt’s cleansing properties are healing. Although salt in a wound is quite painful, and speaks metaphorically to cruelty in conflict, on a practical level, salt works to cleanse a wound of impurities so it can heal well. Using a salt scrub while bathing provides a deep cleansing for the skin and has been known to lift the spirits as well. Old wives tell us that salt sprinkled across the threshold of the front door protects the home and all within by keeping harm at bay. 

In my work as a minister, I am often asked to perform house blessings for newly married couples, or for anyone just moving into a new home. At the end of the blessing, I always offer three gifts: a loaf of bread that the family may never know hunger, a bottle of wine that the family may never thirst, and a tin of salt that the home remains protected, and life remains delightfully flavorful. 

Salt always makes a great gift for those you love because it brings flavor, preservation, healing, and protection. And don’t we all need those things? 

Rev. Judith Laxer, a Saltery superfan and Obsessed with Salt Subscriber, is a modern day mystic who believes that humor, beauty, and the wonders of nature make life worth living.