Little Amy observed in awe her mother peeling some potatoes as she prepared supper for the entire family. It was her first real cooking lesson and there couldn’t have been any better time for this than during a family reunion. The kitchen was buzzing with activity and so was Amy’s mind. “Momma, why is the fire too high…the food might burn?” “Momma, you’ve already added salt, why add more?” Momma tried to remain calm despite Amy’s incessant questioning. She brought this upon herself when she promised to give Amy her first cooking lesson during the family reunion.
Just as she was preparing an answer for Amy’s previous question, another query came in “Momma, the slices are too small. Why not make them bigger?” This was simple. Momma spontaneously replied “Well, Amy, it tastes better that way”. “But how?” Amy quickly asked. “I don’t know. My mom, your grandma, told me”. Without missing a beat, Amy rushed out of the kitchen into the living room where grandma was with the rest of the family. “Grandma! Grandma!!” “What is it, Amy…is everything ok?” Amy said nothing as she tried to put herself together. She run so fast to the living room that she was panting. “Well…say something already!” Grandma was growing impatient. “Grandma, Momma said that if you slice the potatoes into bigger pieces, it won’t taste nice. I don’t get it. How?” ‘Ahh, is that why you were screaming on top of your voice?’ Amy giggled at grandma’s comment. ‘Ok, if you care to know back then we had these really tiny pots we used to cook. So if you had bigger slices, they wouldn’t cook properly’
“But Momma’s pot is very big. Even teddy, my dog can take a bath in it” The entire room erupted with laughter at Amy’s comment. Grandma responded after having a good laugh “Now that you know, you can now decide to have bigger slices. Your pots are indeed a lot bigger these days”.
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Moral lesson: Instead of being obsessed with toeing the line of tradition, we have to know the whys and hows of tradition because what was necessary for our survival yesterday might just be what stands in the way of our thriving today.
Restpiration 