So, how do you like your veggies?  Some of my fondest childhood memories stem from those times when I would visit my grandparent’s home over the summers of my youth.  My grandfather, a 40+ year railroad man, always had a garden in his backyard manicured to its finest and full of the freshest of vegetables.  This “garden of life” not only provided the sustenance for daily living for my grandparents but it did for many of his closest neighbors as well.  My grandmother, a simple and beautifully demure women would gladly gather the “pick of the day,” season them with the spices known only to the uniqueness of Southern cooking, place them in one of those brass-bottom pots and carefully set them on the stove to cook.  As the afternoons would while into the evening in anticipation of dinner their home would fill with the aroma of a deep freshness that one could never find in the frozen food section of any grocery store.  Even as a youngster I remember thinking there seemed to be a nugget of life hidden in that characteristic smell. 

As I’ve reflected back on these great memories from the senses I’ve begun to remember the pervasive and constant companion of simple joy that I experienced just entering their home.  Why was that?  For sure there was an ambience of love that was always present but there seemed to be more.   So I turned to the veggies for an answer.  You see what created that distinctive and pleasing aroma from the stove, not to mention that mouth watering taste, was the fact that the veggies were allowed to simmer so as to become seasoned and alive with a consistent and characteristic taste of fullness.  By this point you’re probably wondering what on earth this has to do with life.  You see it seems in this day and age of instant everything we have taken the element of purposed time out of the equation for our lives.  We no longer are content to let things just simmer for a while.  Life has become somewhat tasteless to us as the beauty of life has become smothered by our incessant need to know and have now.  Even our well intended sense of urgency has now become our “sense of everything.”  Everything now, everything solved, everything known, everything today, etc.  Let’s do more than face it…let’s embrace it. Some things just take time.   Maybe this is why the old adage, “haste makes waste” was once so often quoted in days gone by.  Could it be that our longing for that constant companion of simple joy can be rediscovered as we take our time with life allowing things to simmer just a bit?  Is this one of life’s next best steps to take in order to smell afresh the sweet aroma of life?  Go ahead…take some time and just think about it.  Peace.