Winning Words 2/4/10
“It’s better to eat vegetables with people you love that to eat the finest meat where there is hate.” (Unknown) I was looking through “the cigar box” the other day and came across this quote that I once used as part of an invocation at a sports banquet. The people in our lives are more important than the food that we eat. ;-) Jack

FROM RI IN BOSTON: Some people will tell you "it's better to eat vegetables".(period) FROM JACK: Some people will say that it's better to love than to hate.

FROM GOOD DEBT JON: True. But perhaps once a month a nice sirloin steak with a contentious idiot is bearable.
FROM JACK: What's your schedule look like?

FROM ML IN ILLINOIS: it's double the pleasure for a vegetarian! FROM JACK: ...with a stick of Wrigley's DOUBLEMINT gum for dessert.

FROM EMT SINGS IN MICHIGAN: Have you read "The Shack"? Would be interested in your thoughts. (Speaking of conversation starters.) FROM JACK: I starting reading the book, because so many had recommended it to me. For some reason, or another, I didn't make it to the end....but the concept was interesting. F or a conversation starter, I just read a synopsis and looked at the reviews. It's difficult to explain the concept of the Trinity, and The Shack is the author's attempt through fiction. The fact that so many people have read it is an indication that he was successful in his attempt.

FROM MOLINER CF:
People--people who need people
Are the luckiest people in the world,
We're children, needing other children
And yet letting our grown-up pride
Hide all the need inside,
Acting more like children
Than children.
FROM JACK: I like that song, too, especially the way Barbra Streisand does it.
MORE FROM CF: As Will Rogers once said, " I never met a vegetable I didn't like." FROM JACK: Brussel Sprouts?

FROM BBC IN ILLINOIS: Nice, especially for those of us who are vegetarian! I've been reading Jonathan Safran Foer's "Killing Animals" ….a fascinating look into our relationships with animals/food and, half-way through a BIG pitch for family farms (which now account for less than 5% of meat & poultry & dairy consumed in the US) but before 1930 accounted for all of the meat available for purchase FROM JACK: I notice that there are more and more vegetarians "out there." But, as you see, the quote is about eating when there is hate and when there is love. Now, if we could just genetically engineer love and eliminate hate..

FROM SH IN MICHIGAN: I once took a macrobiotics cooking class. The teacher taught us to cut up our vegetables and cook them in a loving way. How much of our food that we eat is grown and slaughtered and cooked in a loving way? How much in a way that is hateful or actually indifferent to nature? How many people involved in the "food-producing chain" are we loving and so we take time out at each meal to be thankful for? It's darn-right scarey to think of but perhaps a lot of the food that is on our tables was in a very tense and
fearful and emotionally exhausting environment before it finally got to our tables where we endeavor to be loving while we are eating it. I'm thankful for the cross and God's faithful promise to take care of all of us, all along the food chain. FROM JACK: It's interesting, I sent out today's WWs believing that the message would be on love and hate. Much of the response has been on the food part of it. Not that I mind, but I find that I'm not always in tune with where the readers are. BTW, I try not to think of where the food comes from. I love sausage and, I don't need to know how it's made. MORE FROM SH: By golly, my thinking was pretty grim there for a while. We have a Community Farm here in Southfield by our church. All volunteer. Organic and sustainable gardening practices. Trying to not even disturb the worms and just let them work. Nurturing the plants as wisely as we can--we have a teacher who is almost mystical in his relationship to nature. We leave our heated discussions of religion or politics or the economy outside the gate and concentrate on peaceful conversation and sharing and taking care of the work at hand which is growing fresh vegetables, herbs and fruit for people in our community who cannot afford to buy it. When the food is on their tables (maybe some
don't even have a table but are just holding it in their hands), it's satisfying for us to know where their food is coming from. Undoubtedly, a lot of our food on our own tables comes from people with the same good intentions for the community. I hope so but I have to try not to think too much about what's on the labels.

FROM JT IN MICHIGAN: They sure are. I'd eat vegetable with you and Mary any time!!