You can’t season mashed potatoes by adding another potato. You also can’t season mashed potatoes by having salt in a saltshaker in your cupboard. Two things are necessary: you have to have something different from the food, and you have to bring that different thing into contact with the food.
You are the salt of the earth. Discuss.
Full Contact Christianity 
Timely post….as usual. I was reading the book you recommended “This Too Shall Last” and I was pondering how often we fall victim to the gnostic idea that all physicality is “bad”, although we don’t say it *explicitly*.
Yet, many biblical symbols/ metaphors/ similies/parables, etc are rooted in the physical experience, often food and sex.
That doesn’t quite jive with our teaching, does it? Mind over matter, spirit over flesh, divine over human. Extreme separation of the two, rather than redemption in unity of the physical and spiritual, like the God-Man of Jesus.
As one who loves the process of cooking- the seasoning, the tasting, the sharing with others (food eaten alone is often different in experience than food prepared to share, isn’t it?)….seasoning is based on different factors: knowledge of the food being prepared, the intended recipients of the food, and so forth.
Sometimes the seasoning is heavy-handed, other times, a lighter “flavor” is required, but most foods benefit from some degree of added seasoning.
So, it is the same with us. Closer relationships invite stronger “seasoning”, because we have intimate knowledge of all the different ingredients that make up the complete “dish”; in more casual relationships we generally season more lightly, but we don’t skip the salt completely.
YES! To your first point, from biblical epistemology (Adam knew his wife, and she conceived and bore a son) to spiritual walk (He let my feet on a rock) to warfare (Your rod and staff comfort me) to victory (You prepare a table in the presence of my enemies) — it’s rooted in our physical experience. And, to take it a step further, often expressed in our physical experience, if we have eyes to see it. The joys of the marriage bed are what they are because God loves us, and wants us to know it.
To your second point, yes again! Hebrews 10 says to scrutinize one another in order to stir up love and good deeds. The more we see, the more — and the more deeply — we can stir one another up effectively.