Decisions and dinner
Imagine you are giving a dinner party, to which you've invited all your friends. If they are anything like mine, they will ask if there's anything they can bring. Sure, you say, and give them an item or two to bring along. Eggs, cocoa, vinegar, mincemeat, cheese, coffee. You know how they are going to fit together, and when they do, the result is good. Lasagne, chocolate pudding, coffee for afters. What is not good, though, is if these ingredients somehow go where they're not meant to - putting coffee in the lasagne or cheese in the pudding. But you know how to combine them all, so you're sure it will work out (if you remember not to grill the pudding, but that's another story).
One of the hardest lessons I had to learn when I moved to Canada, was this: if it is true that (a) moving to Canada is the best thing to do, then (b) it will be best for me, myself, (c) it will be best for the people that I meet when I am there (so far so good), (c) it will be best for my church and friends that I leave them (not so nice now), and (d) that it will be best for my family that I am 12,000km away in a strange land. Ouch. It was hard to take because I was proud - I didn't like to think of the connotations of being 'removed', and what that said about me. Now I realise that it wasn't really like that at all - eggs are good, but not everywhere, in everything, all the time. And if something is right, it has implications on everything. Right means right, right? So, if you've ever had to make a strange kind of decision, think about the other side of it too. Sometimes we don't know what the right implication of our decision will be on other people. Sometimes we'd like to make our decisions based only on what we think the right outcome for them would be, from the little we get to see into their lives. But we can't really do it that way. If we are asked to bring vinegar, then it does no-one any good if we bring chocolate (and vice versa). We have to hear what is right for us, and remember that we're not the one putting this great feast together. After all, we are not really the centre of the universe. (But, I hear you say, "Wherever I go, there I am", so I must be! Sure, but personally I've never learned to like coffee in my lasagne. There is a better way.) Just a thought :-) K.
- Posted by flyingkiwi on 20/03/2007.
- flyingkiwi's site
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