Life......

It is lived on one of two paths.
The ‘endure and wait’ path.
Or the ‘breathe and look’ path.


The endure and wait path is straight and flat. The goal here is to avoid pain, and personal challenge. It is for cowards. And we are all somewhat cowardly, let's be honest. (If we weren't cowards, there wouldn't be a path here. There would be lots of big trees instead.)

The breathe and look path is laden with obstacles. pain and heartache. But it is the way of inspiration. We know this. It is why we watch tear-jerkers, plant flowers that are doomed to die with the first winter frost and eat bad smelling cheese.

Our family friend is a ‘breathe and look’ guy. Arriving by train with a long wily beard, a backpack and a brown paper sack, Gregory chooses a humble life. (Yet, in his backpack,... a block of imported Parmigiana Reginae ‘for traveling.’) When Gregory enters the kitchen at our house there is an excitement of celebrity proportions... all 6 of us gather to watch as he transforms once common foods into experiences. Our 20 year old son, who, by the way, will eat half a cake for breakfast, received a piece of fuji apple, double-handed, from said friend, as though he’d just been given water from the fountain of life. Positively sappy! How? I ask myself, could I have lived with this child all his life... made a home for him... cooked the chickens.. made the cream of wheat... (and have long since given up on enticing him to eat anything remotely green)? Then here comes Gregory... with a container of “Fromage blanc” and suddenly the kid is transformed?!

The answer, I project, is not in the food but in the foodie. Gregory can elevate the smallest chunk of crust to art. He cuts a tomato only after he’s stopped to consider it.
And tea is an event. He smells. He thinks. He sips. He sets down the cup. Why can’t I do that? Why can’t I stop and smell the rose hips? Here I could comfort myself, take the flat road for cowards and go on and on silently about food allergies, and my days long ago, coming home from a tiring day of work only to face 5 empty paper plates...(violins, please.) forced to scoop copious amounts of kid-friendly BHT laden, artificially flavored products to fill my poor childrens' stomachs....(self-pity, regret, false dilemma)
(This path would require me to add that I never intended harm with the plastic wrapped individual cheese-food slices. Really.)


“Gregory? How did you get this way?” I blurted. compelled...having just emerged from my daydream bubble and dripping with mild confusion as to how they got that plastic on the cheese in the first place.

“When I was about 12, my family went out and I stayed home and made a cake.
I wanted to make a cake to go with my coffee” Gregory answered.


Odd. Someone who could get a perfectly intelligent person to willingly taste cheese mold... with hardly even a story! Barely even two sentences! And about a cake no less! (I have so much to ask The Lord when I see Him.)

I offer this. Gregory honors who he is made to be. He’s a smeller and a taster and a looker and a breather (as he is also a home builder, an artisan, a gourmet, and a thinker.). Gregory gets young adults to thank him for getting to taste a tomato because Gregory honors his tomatoes. He doesn’t need a story.

Certain people inspire us to live better. To get off our high horse of spirituality and work out our human condition. To live our lives through the gifts we have been given. God is honored when we recognize the order of things. I used to think it my job to fight God's battles for Him. (How ridiculous!) I would wake up everyday... and strive to do and be all I thought I could and should be. Unfortunately, my vision of myself and my little life was way too big. I took myself too seriously. And I missed a lot.

Gregory has got something right: humility. And because of that, I believe, he has the best of human things.

Thank you so much Gregory, for showing us how to stop moving and stand still.
And breathe.
And look.
And consider the tomatoes!

We all agree. You've been quite a refreshment!
(And thanks for fixing the swamp cooler!)