When sauteing some sausage one day, I began to connect all the aspects that brought me there to that moment. The industry, the artistry, the sacrifice, the learning from countless people in irretrievable ways. Someone invented the stove I was cooking on, others manufactured it, still another hooked it up. Someone prepared the sausage for the market, and others grew the peppers and onions. Miles were driven to bring these ingredients to me, from fields, through factories, onto grocery shelves and then home.
Someone figured out that rice can be boiled with a hint of saffron to create a desired taste which I easily prepare. How many failed cooking attempts were there before the combination was known? How much time spent till I could find its beauty in 25 minutes? How many people fell ill -- even died -- of trichanosis, until we learned that sausage had to be cooked, and made it possible for me to safely prepare it for my family? How many others risked their lives to create the technology of streamlining propane into cooking stoves?
The pots, the cutting board, the counter, the lights, the utensils..each gifts of knowledge and skill that have come into the abundance of my life. And what about the sun, without which none of this and none of us would survive. How about the earth, the rain, the wind, the air....
Our lives are plentiful beyond imagining and linked beyond detection. May we honor the interdependent miracle of the the moments we have on earth.
