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March 2008
Patience is…Tough!
Dear Friends,
Isn’t it funny how things change? I mean, it wasn’t a generation or two ago, that dinner meant sitting down with our families around a big table, dining on a meal that had taken hours, not minutes to prepare, and included at least a few ingredients, fresh produce and vegetables, home-raised meat, that grew in our own gardens and were raised in our own pastures and farmyards.
In those days, families typically took time to eat. Our family was no different. When we were kids, we often sat around the table for an hour after the meal was finished. I’ve heard my Dad recall his days in the Army, serving in the 1950s in Germany, when relatives he visited back in the homeland sat around a meal table for hours, eating, talking, drinking, and enjoying each other’s company. Meals were not something to get finished with to get to something else. The meal was the event. Food was important, not only to sustain the body, but to rejuvenate the soul.
Today, we hardly stop to eat at all. Everything has to be able to be prepared in minutes or even seconds. The hottest food trends, other than organic and local foods, are convenience foods – those things you can heat and eat on the go. It is astronaut food in a tube, or plastic container. Just add water, heat and you are good to go.
If we hit the drive-through lane, we probably are talking on the cell phone, shoveling food into our mouths, listening to the iPod, and perhaps driving at the same time. I am not a good multi-tasker like my wife. I can’t chew gum and walk at the same time, so the drive-through is not for me.
It seems we’ve lost our patience as a society. Even folks who are going through the hyper-convenience of hitting the drive-through, honk at each other when it takes too long. I mean, what are we in such a hurry for?
When we finish at the drive-through, we just rush home and plop down in front of the TV. That doesn’t seem so urgent, unless "The Apprentice" is on. I suppose if we really had to grow all of our food for ourselves, garden our vegetables, pick our fruit, grow our meat, milk and eggs, and harvest all of these things, meals would take on new impetus.
Things that are not convenient – things that we don’t take for granted – take on great importance in our lives. But it seems we take nearly everything for granted, and that is probably a mistake.
Yes, patience is virtue, one that is being lost these days. And, in our society, patience is not something we are forced to excel at. Well, I’m tired of writing and I have to hurry up and grab a bite to eat from the microwave before "American Idol" starts on TV, so this is the end…
W.K. Kellogg Foundation
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