Today I take off on a flight of fancy.
So....
Spam, you know, is more than just unwanted email.
At one time, and still – and forevermore, it
was and is Mystery Meat, arriving as a gift in a blue tin package.
And so it was on the same radio show where Martha
Stewart talked about pomegranates that she also explained a great way to
prepare Spam.
Martha Stewart was, as you may or may not know, raised in a family of six
children.
So, she said, she knows a lot
about Spam.
First, she suggested, find some really, really good
butter. Slice the Spam thinly and fry in
that butter (kashrut laws not considered here) and then serve on very good
crusty country bread.
“It’s delicious”,
she offered.
Then, when asked about pomegranates – how to de-seed
them – she explained something complicated involving cutting and piercing and
whatnot.
Truth is, I didn’t really pay
much attention to that part because for me, pomegranates have always seemed so
remote…and now they are such a thing…a
health food, a trendy thing, that for me I avoid them because I am, above all –
stubborn, stubborn.
And secretly, I admit that I was afraid of
pomegranates in the same way I am afraid of vespa scooters. They are exciting and scary. They look really cool and fun and secretly I
would like to try but it has all seemed beyond me and – too much trouble.
But alas, this week I got inspired (and yes, a bit
excited) when I heard of a cookie that I could make with dates and pomegranate
seeds and almonds. Pomegranate, after
all, is a symbol of New Year. Because –
of the purported number of seeds – between 200 and 1400. It is thought that the average number of
seeds is 613 – the same number of commandments which God gave at Mount Sinai –
and that each teeny sweet seed represents a blessing for the New Year. Which…even in my limited math skills (I
cannot do trigonometry) seems like a heckofalot of blessings.
So I am looking at the cookie recipe and I am thinking
to myself: where am I going to get a pomegranate now that I am actually excited
for a new adventure of a new year cookie recipe? I ventured out! The first practical (ahem!) grocery store I
entered displayed them just inside the front door.
Eureka!
A sign that they were just for me!
Not even knowing how to choose them I bought two.
Just like that.
I thought to myself – now what??
They sat on my counter for four days until I was ready to begin the cookies.
Now I don’t know if you do this – but before I juice a
lemon, I roll it on the counter – back and forth, back and forth, using a small
amount of pressure in the very same way that you rock your children when they
are small (back and forth, but not on the counter, no…) and the way that you
sometimes find yourself in the grocery line still doing the swaying thing so as
to calm yourself, back and forth….
But ah, I digress.
Well, I was standing in the kitchen talking to my
husband and I looked down at my hands and noticed that absentmindedly I was
rolling the pomegranate on the counter beneath my palm. Oh no, I thought. What have I done? Have I squashed the thing? In the same way that you can feel bubbles in
dough or clay or muscles that are tense on one’s back, I felt the flesh of the
fruit loosen and then, acting completely on faith, I sliced open that fruit.
I turned half of the fruit over and seeds literally
just fell into the bowl. Then, I
flipped the skin inside out and the remaining seeds fell out. What, I ask, was
so terribly difficult about that? I
can’t possibly be the only person who knows this, can I? Somebody please tell Martha Stewart…and also
that guy who is selling the five-dollar thingamajig which is a gadget to remove
seeds that they are actually selling in the produce department.
Now that is Crazy.
If that mysterious and magical pomegranate, replete with
seeds and blessings could release all of its gifts with tender rolling embrace
then what promise there is for the world!!!
(this is where I could write that if we embraced and
rocked the world then it would release blessings but that would be a ridiculous
thing to write so I am not going to write that.)
But you know – those seeds are not just pure
sweetness. They have a narrow fruit
sweet layer surrounding hard stone. You
might also say that the seed is not all hard stone because it is surrounded by
something sweet.
But isn’t that like our lives?
Even the good has something difficult and the
difficult has a wee bit of good. Again,
the paradox.
The same can of
whoknowswhatkindofmeat to be found at truck stops and gas stations can be
sliced thing and with a bit of expensive butter can be
enjoyed, enjoyed on country
bread. A seed, you see, from a prized
pomegranate, like a blessing, can be released by a complicated maneuver or
simply -- by softening.
Could it be that all the times in my life when I did
stuff the hard way I could have just embraced and rolled gently and the problem
would release under my hands?
Could it also be possible that all the times I was
left with ‘spam’ because that was all that I could manage I could have made it
a luxury with only some imagination and crusty bread?
And how very interesting because as foods go, I could
easily think of pomegranates and Spam as opposites.
Just plain opposites in so many ways.
It’s the old game of the prince and the pauper: the
king and the peasant. But then -- doesn’t the king sometimes sneak out of the
palace to be among the people – just to have a bit of country bread with good
butter?
The wise and blessed pomegranate, after all, round to
represent time and life cycle and perspective and wisdom – was thought to be
very complicated.
She sneaks out of her palace…she goes out into the
country one day. Perhaps she is
misunderstood by her people. Some think
her difficult and remote.
But you know, she longs to know her people. She is out one afternoon to walk in the town
– hooded – so as not to reveal her late-summer rosy beauty. In the darkening dusk she peers into the
windows of the houses of her townspeople.
They are, in fact, dining on simple bread and butter. But, as all these stories go, they are
happy. Their houses are warm and there
is laughter.
How she yearns for the laughter. How she wants to share her blessings!
And somehow, without the use of a five-dollar gadget
from the produce department she can do just that.
She approaches one of the doors. She knocks.
A woman bids her to enter. She
can see only a hint of the scarlet pomegranate under the hood.
For a moment she pauses…afraid and
intimidated by the pomegranate’s presence.
But then she thinks…of all the doors in all the towns, the great
pomegranate came to my door.
Of all the
days in my life this was the day that she arrived. No, I will not send her away because I am
afraid, After all, it is not every day
that such a one comes here.
She draws
in her breath. She is afraid of the
richness but draws open the door – anyway.
The guest enters.
It is warm by the fire, her hostess says. Would you like a seat? This guest has a reputation for being
difficult so the hostess is unsure.
But yes, the pomegranate pulls back her hood to reveal
her splendor, her rising, ripening crown.
Thank you, she says. I would love
to sit for a few minutes. And so she
sits.
And so they talk.
The woman learns that a bit of conversation can warm
this guest. As the minutes wear on, the
pomegranate relaxes. She softens. Already the woman begins to feel the glow and
the wisdom in her simple life and is beginning to understand that they are, the
two of them, in fact….not all that different.
The hour now is late.
The pomegranate has enjoyed the company of she from
whom she thought quite remote. And now,
softened, rolled and lulled and rocked
by conversation and fire she rises to leave.
She stretches herself and, amazingly, rains blessings over the
woman. Seeds hard and sweet, sweet
stones…everywhere. Seeds of possibility
– hard and sweet. That is how they
arrive.
Rocks with honey and honey with rocks.
As it is in our lives…blessings are honey with
rocks…and rocks with honey.
The most gifted child, you may know…has life a bit more
difficult and is isolated – no one understands them.
-- Sometimes blessings don’t always feel like
blessings.
There is this word in Hebrew, ‘Rimon’, which
translates to Pomegranate.
Interestingly, it also translates to….hand grenade. Of course it is in English as
well….pome-granate…grain, grenadine, grenade.
The dangers, perhaps, of prosperity?
And yet, there is another story: a true story of a man
named Billy Ray. Here is a man without
a home, panhandling on the streets of Kansas City. One day a woman puts a few coins in the cup
he offers.
A few coins – and accidentally, her diamond engagement
ring. And after three days…she came
back to to him to ask if he has the ring.
He gave it to her.
The woman and her intended, this couple, was so touched that they started an online
donation fund hoping to raise one thousand dollars over three months for Billy
Ray – to show their appreciation.
But when the 90 days had ended, 8351 strangers had
donated a total of more than $190,000 from all over the world – for Billy Ray.
Billy Ray explained that he was raised, from the time
he was a little boy, by a minister – and that at that time he learned that integrity
is -- just part of a person.
Blessings from a stone.
As of the time of this writing, Billy Ray had bought
himself a car, put a down payment on a home and has reconnected with his
family.
You know,
sometimes interaction between two so different can soften us – and
possibly – anywhere between 200 and 1400 blessings (according to the experts)
can fall upon us.
Like late-season
butterflies or apple blossoms tossed about in storm…now petals on the pavement.
They remind us about pomegranates and Spam…the
complicated and the simple.
They are, after all, the best of friends.
