Sunday, August 8, 2010

S'mores and My Higher Power


If, as Forrest Gump so eloquently pointed out,"Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get.", then it must also be like a stack of s'mores because you never know how balanced it will be until it starts to melt.

Yes, this analogy is a bit flimsy on paper, but try it. Stack your chocolate, the marsh mellow and the graham cracker, heat it and watch what happens. Frantic, haphazard stacking will produce an unbalanced s'more that collapses on its way to your mouth. The chocolate slithers off of your graham cracker onto you shirt, and the marsh mellow collides with the skin of you chin instead of your lips. It's tragic, and avoidable. If one takes a moment to contemplate their stack, they will recognize imbalances in cracker, chocolate and marsh mellow, make adjustments as necessary, and commence to microwave their creation. This stack will maintain its balance from plate to mouth. Oh, yes, indeed the goodness of chocolaty marsh mellow will most assuredly ooze from between its graham cracker sandwich, but you will expect it and be ready to intercept and ingest the sweet goodness on your terms.

I warned everyone to expect absurdity, and I have delivered. Life is a box of chocolate and a stack of s'mores and so very much more. Even if we choose the chocolate with awful maple filling, or end up with chocolaty ooze on our new blouse, we have the God given faculties to accept our plight and press forward. It was the lure of chocolate that drew our attention to that box, and just because a teensy bit of maple goo appeared, we still managed to savor a bit of chocolate. And for all the mess from our hastily stacked s'more, we felt the sweetness of it on our tongue. All we need to do next is pick up the mess and be grateful for the experience. So simple and yet so difficult.

My beloved has caught me in the act, and I am being not so subtly herded back out of doors to finish hanging trim. I am grateful for the love, grateful for the sense of urgency, and grateful for the opportunity to be of service to my family. Whatever the consequences of my selections may be, I am grateful for those as well.

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