"Interesting" Food

I really love the English language.  I think it is an adventure to craft some phrases and interpret others, looking at the various angles from which they can be viewed.  Entire meanings can be changed simply by changing the emphasis of a single word.  Read these 3 words, changing your emphasis according the the italics: He loves you. He loves you.  He loves you.  Do you see how the smallest inflection can change the simplest of phrases? 

Wayne and I were out to dinner recently with another couple.  The wife asked the waiter if a particular item on the menu was good.  He said, "It's pretty good."  Our conversations continued, and the waiter came around again.  At this point, Wayne noticed his bracelets.  They were beaded and definitely African.  Wayne asked his home country, and he said he was from Kenya.  I piped in and said one of the few phrases that I can say in Swahili, which is "Praise the Lord".  He smiled, and we started talking about Africa.  We actually had mutual friends.  Now, keep in mind that this young man had lived here 7 years, and he was a college student.  He didn't have much accent at all.  He could easily be mistaken for a true American.

So....our friends asked about another menu item.  "Is it good?"  and the young man responded, "It's pretty good."  This was when we recognized his mistake.  The lady started laughing and said, "I think I need to tell you something.  When you say 'pretty good,' we think it's not very good at all."  He was very surprised by this new information.  You see, if you say something is "pretty"...that's good.  If you say something's "good"...that's obviously good.  So why wouldn't the two things together mean "really, really good"?  Go figure.  This is the kind of thing that makes English one of the most difficult languages on the planet. 

The young man thanked us profusely and said, "I think my sales my go up with this new information."

I met a missionary once who was telling us of her many wild and weird experiences with food throughout Africa.  She said that when she was given foods, she used to struggle for the right words to say.  You can't just sit there and say something is delicious when it is revolting, can you?  It simply wouldn't be true. Besides, if you make that mistake, they will give it to you time and again.  This is probably not what you are wanting, so what do you do?  Her helpful hint was to use the word "interesting."  And she phrased it very well.  She said that sometimes, the food she ate was interesting.  Sometimes, it was very interesting.  And other times, it was very, very  interesting.  I had to laugh.

It is easy to misinterpret things, isn't it?  It is easier, still, to take that misinterpretation and get offended by what we think someone is saying or doing.  In the Body of Christ, we need to take extra precautions to be gracious with each other.  We should guard against being easily offended. We are humans who are bound to place our emphases incorrectly.  We are apt to act foolishly on occasion, but we should give the same grace that we want to receive from others. 

Mark 12:29-31 gives us a breakdown of how God wants us to live. 1) we should love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. and 2) we should love our neighbor as ourselves.  This really should get rid of the offense of misinterpretation.  If we want others to cover our mistakes with their love, then we should be willing to offer that same grace to them.  Just like our waiter, people often don't even realize that they are offensive.  They may be making simple cross-cultural mistakes or mistakes based on their own misunderstanding of the appropriate responses. Our grace should be given maturely and without reserve.

I hope that you will eat many interesting foods in your life!  Everyone needs the chance to experience new things.  And I hope that you even find some of those things to be pretty good.

The old saying is this: Chew up the meat and spit out the bones.  Which interpreted means, take the good stuff that is given to you and throw out the things that easily could be offensive.

An interesting food that I've never understood? Carrot and raisin salad.  Why would you do that?  And carrots in jello....why, please?