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Life is Like a Ham...

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"Life is like slicing through a ham. The fat and the lean just lie alongside one another." I'm not sure who said it--though I suspect a Southern writer.

Have you not found it to be so? I do believe we are more aware of those times when sweet, juicy, succulent ham gives way to the flab of fat. You know, you're riding high on the crest of a wave, then suddenly you're tumbling in the trough. But the reverse is also true--that lean pink meat reveals itself on just the other side of a streak of fat. I can tell there is not a day so dark or damp that a call from one of my grandkids doesn't cause my world to shine

Sweet, sorrowful, challenging, playful, lonely, sad, jubilant, tired, peaceful, anxious, confident - the grab bag of feelings that life contains can be pretty random at times. As we slice through the ham of life, we do not even or always have the luxury of transition. Fat and lean each quickly follow upon the other without asking our prediction or permission. It's a good thing to be mindful of in the mid-slice of the moment that we occupy.

Certainly this is true in the succession of days we call life, even as it is true in a 24-hour cycle. But it is also true beyond our personal experience. As we look to our neighbors and the world around us, that same slice of time, that same common circumstance, can reveal very different outcomes.

These Covid days have brought both loss and unexpected blessing, but at any given time, different ones of us are experiencing just the one, not the other. I have never seen so many families out bicycling with their children as I have this year. I smile as they wheel by and wonder how these children will one day remember the year their parents worked from home. But I also know there are children stuck in homes that are chaotic, even abusive and they have no place to go. I wonder how they will one day remember the year their parents worked from home?    Does the pain of one experience lessen the joy of the other? I can actually guilt myself for current happiness when I know that others are unhappy, even as I know that does not help.

 Can suffering be such that joy is disallowed? I have known grief so deep that blue skies seemed a mockery. But even then I knew and hoped they would someday be beautiful again in my sight.    We live alongside one another and experience the slice of life so differently at times, often unfairly, usually unaware. The challenge becomes believing still that there is purpose behind the randomness we encounter. Beyond that, there is challenge in recognizing our connection despite all difference. If Covid-19 has taught us anything, it may well be that we really are all connected. We belong to each other in ways we do not know nor can we control.    

Times like ours, it might be good to imagine ourselves at a good old fashioned Sunday supper. Smell that ham baking in the oven with a bubbling green bean casserole alongside and maybe some marshmallow topped sweet potatoes. Pull up to the table as the ham is carried in all its glazed glory. Watch as each slice curls beneath the carving knife and remember, "Life is like slicing through a ham, The fat and the lean just lie alongside each other."