Food for Thought

     “If you're too open-minded; your brains will fall out.“ —  Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Where I live, and I suppose the same is true of most places, it’s a rare day that the majority of the population is happy with the weather. In the winter, it’s too cold, and in the summer, it’s too hot. Or if it’s a rare warm winter’s day or a cool summer’s day, we still grumble. We like the temperature to be right in the middle.

Likewise, I’m sure you’ve been driving down the freeway, going the speed limit, or perhaps six or seven miles per hour over, when a car goes zooming past. My husband always says to that car, “find the cops for us.”

Or you are driving down a two-lane highway and get behind someone going five miles under the speed limit. You maybe have some choice words for that driver. You get as close behind them as you can and watch for any chance to pass. We like to go just the right speed.

In general, most people seem to like it when things are in the middle. So what has happened around here the last few years. Everyone has taken a side, swinging far right or far left. No one wants to compromise, no one wants to give in. There’s no more meeting in the middle.

I heard the quote above many years ago; I think it says a lot. It’s okay to be open-minded about things and it’s even okay to be close-minded, but just don’t lose your mind completely.

I love the movie “Fiddler on the Roof”. If you haven’t seen it, find it and watch it. But in the meantime, let me share just one of the themes.

Tevye is a poor Jewish milkman living with this wife and five daughters in a small Ukrainian village. The year is 1905 and change is coming. But Tevye is going to fight change as much as he can; he will hang onto the traditional way of doing things. His eldest daughter marries a man that she has chosen and fallen in love with, instead of being married off to the man the local matchmaker has found for her. It takes some prodding, but Tevye finally blesses the marriage.

The next daughter also falls in love with a man of her choosing, but this man, though Jewish, is new to the village and has some radical ideas. It takes a lot to convince Tevye to bless them.

Along comes his third daughter, who falls in love with a man who is not even Jewish. Tevye looks at his two younger daughters and you know what he is thinking. He has to draw the line somewhere, and he cannot condone this latest marriage.

You’ll have to watch the movie, or hopefully you’ve seen it and remember how it ends.

But the point is this – we have to draw the line somewhere. We have to figure out how to meet in the middle. We have to accept new and different ways of doing things. But we cannot lose our standards and principles in the process.

Just food for thought for today.

Speaking of food, my momma robin has been feeding her babies enough. Look how big they got in just over a week.