Don't Panic...Eat Fresh!

Sometimes for lunch I go to Subway. Sometimes after lunch (for dessert) I go to Subway. I LOVE their cookies... they have the perfect goo to crunch ratio. The guys in there know me pretty well. They shout MEGA when I get to the end of the counter because they know that is the size fountain soda I'll be purchasing. It's unnerving on my most self conscious days.... but also endearing...

When I am there, I am always struck with the panic that seems to come over people when the worker behind the counter shouts, "Welcome to Subway, what would you like?"

These are professionals, business men and women that are accustomed to stressful situations and high volume work loads. However, they seem to come unglued when trying to order at Subway! Suddenly they stammer and their mind goes blank. They ask for one bread then change their mind to another.... "6 inch, no footlong; American and Pepperjack; that costs more? Did I say toasted?" It makes me want to work at Subway just to be entertained by everyone's high strung antics. Reminds me of Brian Regan's commentary on Doughnut Day- maybe that's why I noticed it. Though I feel like if you did work at Subway you would only be able to laugh about this phenom with other Subway workers (and possibly freaks like myself who are shockingly observant as well). Can you imagine coming home every night with a punch line about tomatoes and mayo? I don't think anyone would appreciate that.... not many anyway, not many.

It's funny, but also kinda pathetic that we can be fragile enough to be sent over the edge by lunch. Though I have never lived through any slower paced period of the past, I am enjoying being a part of the fictional version found within Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry. (Ironically I have so enjoyed this world that I have read through it at lightening speed).

The land and our relationship to it is a theme throughout his writing. That's the thing that has struck me most while reading this book. My love for Jewish things and the Old Testament may have created a consciousness about "the land" in a spiritual sense; a theological significance even of ownership, cultivation and rest. What I have been struck by is much more physical than all that though, yet that still intertwines with the spiritual in its way.

Berry's knowledge and description of the purpose and satisfaction found in farming has been convicting to me (particularly in regards to our relationship with food as a society). When I want to eat, I just go to Subway or grab something at the grocery store. There is no toil, no patience, no connection to where that food came from or responsibility to your body and community. It has become a fact of life that misses the rhythm of seasons entirely (except that this time of the year is the only one when candy corn is readily available!)

I certainly am not qualified in any way to speak to this subject- I have been avoiding seeing movies like "Food, Inc." and reading books like "In Defense of Food" because of how trendy this topic is right now. Somehow though I stumbled into it anyway and now have such an unsettled feeling about the way we consume. Who knew that the invention of tractors to ease the burden could have created a whole new one? And really am I getting out there on the land to till the soil and grow my own everything? What have our central meeting places and common life patterns deteriorated to?

There are things we can gain from going faster and farther on this earth. Lately, I've just been forced to consider the sacrifice that comes along with that "freedom" as well. Maybe if we're not careful it becomes more of a slavery...Sometimes I think it's hard to know which is which.

In my small life, I cannot restructure the economic trends; but maybe there are small ways to recover pieces of what we have lost. Maybe that's why I like sitting on my front porch so much...