A Taylor’d Approach for Nov. 2, 2022
Thoughts and a loaf of bread
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Food brings people together. Maybe that’s why I’ve been baking so much lately.
We all watch the news and face frustrations and incomprehension about the decisions being made by people we disagree with. We might even start to see neighbors as others, enemies. These slippery thoughts and feelings become even more apparent during an election season with harsh words, broad generalizations, all based on assumptions rather than civil conversation between people who disagree.
Sometimes I pound out my frustrations in the dough of a loaf of bread. I’m just one person, I can’t eat as much as I produce, but that doesn’t matter as I turn the dough out once again on the counter in front of me. The scent of fresh bread is soothing, as is the act of making it.
Don’t we all just want what’s best for the people we love? We might have different perspectives on how to get there, or what “best” really is, but isn’t the sentiment the same? Yes, there are probably outliers who actually are just doing what they’re doing for self-gain or appearances. But they’re outliers. They don’t speak for the hundreds, thousands, millions of people who are out there every day just trying to do their best for the people they love with the information they have.
I’m going to add orange thyme that I grew from my own garden to this loaf of bread. They say to grow a garden is to believe in the future and I like adding that sentiment to the food that I make. A lot of hope and intention goes into a handmade food, at least for me.
I have to believe that most people are reasonable and if you sit down to have an honest conversation about why you believe what you do, and listen to why they believe what they do, in most cases we’ll have more in common than not. If we just put away the vitriol and assumptions and the hyperbole, if we tune out the extremists and just see the person in front of us, then we could at least understand where we’re both coming from, even if we don’t fully agree.
I’m going to give this warm loaf of bread to a stranger. I won’t know anything about their ideals, their beliefs, their party line. What I’m going to do when I give this away is assume that that stranger is a good person. A person doing their best in a messy world, trying to look out for the people they care about. A person deserving of a nice, warm loaf of bread on a random day.
I’m going to hope that that person passes that kindness along to another stranger.
I’m going to hope that small acts of kindness and compassion between neighbors will always be enough to overcome the walls of fear and the otherness we put between us.
