Thanks so much, Tommy. That is a high compliment coming from you :)
Ha! It's funny when you say it aloud but that is what our relationship with food has become... many meat eaters are grossed out when you talk about the fact that an animal died and had to be processed to arrive on the shelf of the grocery store. I too am divorced from how my food is sourced but this essay is an attempt to remind myself of where it comes from. Would love, at some future point in my life, to hunt and grow.
Thank you for inspiring me to write this and for your insights and graciousness here.
Great essay Jack! This reminds of when I was on a roadtrip a couple Summer ago, my Dad and I stopped to check out the Crazy Horse monument in South Dakota and saw an older married couple saying grace over a couple of corn dogs at a picnic bench. At the time we both laughed and found it a bit odd but perhaps there was a little something more to it. It's so easy to take our food for granted today, even the weird tubed meats wrapped in synthetic bread.
Bennett, thank you for reading and for sharing this story with me! I probably would have shared your laughter until I wrote this piece and started thinking more about how lucky we are to have the abundance of food we do. That couple, despite the tubed meats and synthetic bread part, was certainly onto something. I also love when people stick to their rituals and individual uniqueness in public without care as to how they may be judged. Thanks again for reading pal and for leaving a great comment here.
The abundance of food most of us in Canada have access to is staggering indeed. Overwhelming. While we tend to moan about costs, your thoughtful and cannily simple example encouraging us to “say Grace” is a welcomed reminder of just how blessed we are. The world’s Bounty brought to our doorstep. Click, click, click. Amen.
Very well said, Dad. The abundance we have is mind boggling. I would pay a hefty sum to see someone from 1000 BC or 1000 AD or 1900 AD or present day in certain places in the world dropped into a modern grocery store. They would lose their heads at the sheer amount of food, all ready and prepared to eat immediately or after applying a little bit of heat. We are so very lucky. And pausing to say grace, though I often forget at my excitement to eat, is a way of recognizing and offering thanks for that.
It's amazing to see the world we live in if we open our eyes to it. Absolutely miracle that a peach made it from nothing to something and from Spain to your hand. I just ate a banana without thinking twice, but now I feel so much gratitude. Great little story, Jack! Thank you for sharing with us.
Thank you Jeremy! I love what you said about opening our eyes to the world. There's a difference between seeing and merely watching, just as there is a difference between listening and merely hearing. Writing this essay was a reminder for me to pause and see the miracle behind my daily nourishment that I take for granted.
Hearing that my writing touched an experience in your life today, being more grateful for the banana you ate, makes me so happy. The most a writer can ask for is their work to touch someone's life. Appreciate your readership and support, my friend.
Excellent point. The goodness you have is so hard to see.Gratitude for abundance is a difficult thing to remember. It's like being healthy. When you're sick all you can think about is how miserable you are and you dream about feeling well again. The second you can jump out of bed, though, you feel back to normal, and forget you were ever sick. It's the same with suffering. Hardship breeds gratitude and dreams, but the second you get comfortable again it's so hard to remember you ever felt worse.
Andrew, thank you so much for reading and for this incredibly wise comment.
You make a great point. We take our health for granted until we don’t have it. Then it’s all we can notice until we, hopefully, recover to full health.
The best I feel in my day is during and right after a workout when I haven’t eaten and have suffered a little bit. I feel light and relaxed and tuned into life. But when I wake up the next day, it’s a struggle to overcome the comfortable couch and throw myself back into the strain of a run and lift. I love this: “Hardship breeds gratitude and dreams.”
Taking infrastructural systems for granted is something I've thought a lot about; it's so easy for them to just kind of be invisible. Your essay reminded me a lot of a classic essay called "I, Pencil": https://fee.org/ebooks/i-pencil/ That essay isn't about food, but it shares the same core message: our modern world is tightly interwoven, yet all of that connectivity is often invisible for us, which is both good (we can take advantage of many things without direct knowledge of how they work) but also bad (we forget to appreciate it all). Thanks for this reminder.
Jeremy, thank you so much for reading and for this kind comment.
You put it so well. Behind the scenes to everything we see, do, and interact with are these incredibly complex pieces of infrastructure. Saying grace is, in a way, being grateful for those and for the life that was sacrificed for us to nourish ourselves. The world is magic: from the simple to the incredibly complicated we know how nothing works but rely on it all every day.
Thank you for sharing this essay. From your description it sounds like a great read. I will check it out!
Validation right from the source! We grow pretty good peaches over here too but it's not quite the season for them yet. Another week or two.
A.J. Jacobs is a super interesting and unique character. I think it was him who did the year of living biblically and who only told the truth (which resulted in many fights with his wife) for a certain period of time. But I haven't heard of this coffee one so I will absolutely check it out.
Jack, Tommy said it best - fluid and beautiful. It’s also important. The evolution of our society is toward “take for granted” vs “honoring” “sacredness” and “being grateful.” Grace is connected to all three of those and is diametrically opposed to taking for granted.
Thank you so much for reading and for your kind words, James.
You are spot on. Honouring, sacredness, and gratefulness are three ingredients that can make all of our daily lives better. A practice of grace when we eat, among other slowing down practices that ritualize rather than routinize our behaviour will enrichen and enliven our days.
As always, I appreciate your readership and your wisdom in these comments.
This whole article felt like a saying of grace Jack, your essay was as ripe as your peach. Grace is something we used to honor before meals, but we got out of the habit. I might even read this at family dinner tonight!
Rick, thank you so much for reading. Growing up we always said grace at the dinner table too. Though we were not a religious family, it was something instilled in my parents from their childhoods that they continued. It makes me so happy to hear that this essay has a chance of touching the life of your family. Thanks, as always, for your support and readership.
Midnight, thank you for this comment. You put it so well. What I think you are hinting at, and what I believe to be the case, is that we have the best system we have ever had to gain abundant and cheap access to food yet, on average, we spend our additional free time on things that make us less happy: social media, the news, too much Netflix, etc.
I'm with you in that being thankful for our food is the least we can do. It's a practice that takes very little time but has brough more gratitude to my days.
I appreciate you reading and dropping into the comments, thank you
I savoured this whole essay Jack. Really fluid and beautiful writing.
Modern people are so divorced from the origins of their food, like boneless skinless chicken breasts grow in the grocery store.
I love that you’re bringing awareness to something so simple, so easy to take for granted, but really quite miraculous.
Thanks so much, Tommy. That is a high compliment coming from you :)
Ha! It's funny when you say it aloud but that is what our relationship with food has become... many meat eaters are grossed out when you talk about the fact that an animal died and had to be processed to arrive on the shelf of the grocery store. I too am divorced from how my food is sourced but this essay is an attempt to remind myself of where it comes from. Would love, at some future point in my life, to hunt and grow.
Thank you for inspiring me to write this and for your insights and graciousness here.
Incredible essay, Jack. This was the reminder we all needed. Thank you.
Thank you so much for reading Jeremy! I appreciate you.
Great essay Jack! This reminds of when I was on a roadtrip a couple Summer ago, my Dad and I stopped to check out the Crazy Horse monument in South Dakota and saw an older married couple saying grace over a couple of corn dogs at a picnic bench. At the time we both laughed and found it a bit odd but perhaps there was a little something more to it. It's so easy to take our food for granted today, even the weird tubed meats wrapped in synthetic bread.
Bennett, thank you for reading and for sharing this story with me! I probably would have shared your laughter until I wrote this piece and started thinking more about how lucky we are to have the abundance of food we do. That couple, despite the tubed meats and synthetic bread part, was certainly onto something. I also love when people stick to their rituals and individual uniqueness in public without care as to how they may be judged. Thanks again for reading pal and for leaving a great comment here.
The abundance of food most of us in Canada have access to is staggering indeed. Overwhelming. While we tend to moan about costs, your thoughtful and cannily simple example encouraging us to “say Grace” is a welcomed reminder of just how blessed we are. The world’s Bounty brought to our doorstep. Click, click, click. Amen.
Very well said, Dad. The abundance we have is mind boggling. I would pay a hefty sum to see someone from 1000 BC or 1000 AD or 1900 AD or present day in certain places in the world dropped into a modern grocery store. They would lose their heads at the sheer amount of food, all ready and prepared to eat immediately or after applying a little bit of heat. We are so very lucky. And pausing to say grace, though I often forget at my excitement to eat, is a way of recognizing and offering thanks for that.
It's amazing to see the world we live in if we open our eyes to it. Absolutely miracle that a peach made it from nothing to something and from Spain to your hand. I just ate a banana without thinking twice, but now I feel so much gratitude. Great little story, Jack! Thank you for sharing with us.
Thank you Jeremy! I love what you said about opening our eyes to the world. There's a difference between seeing and merely watching, just as there is a difference between listening and merely hearing. Writing this essay was a reminder for me to pause and see the miracle behind my daily nourishment that I take for granted.
Hearing that my writing touched an experience in your life today, being more grateful for the banana you ate, makes me so happy. The most a writer can ask for is their work to touch someone's life. Appreciate your readership and support, my friend.
Excellent point. The goodness you have is so hard to see.Gratitude for abundance is a difficult thing to remember. It's like being healthy. When you're sick all you can think about is how miserable you are and you dream about feeling well again. The second you can jump out of bed, though, you feel back to normal, and forget you were ever sick. It's the same with suffering. Hardship breeds gratitude and dreams, but the second you get comfortable again it's so hard to remember you ever felt worse.
Andrew, thank you so much for reading and for this incredibly wise comment.
You make a great point. We take our health for granted until we don’t have it. Then it’s all we can notice until we, hopefully, recover to full health.
The best I feel in my day is during and right after a workout when I haven’t eaten and have suffered a little bit. I feel light and relaxed and tuned into life. But when I wake up the next day, it’s a struggle to overcome the comfortable couch and throw myself back into the strain of a run and lift. I love this: “Hardship breeds gratitude and dreams.”
Thanks Jack for this essay, it was lovely.
Taking infrastructural systems for granted is something I've thought a lot about; it's so easy for them to just kind of be invisible. Your essay reminded me a lot of a classic essay called "I, Pencil": https://fee.org/ebooks/i-pencil/ That essay isn't about food, but it shares the same core message: our modern world is tightly interwoven, yet all of that connectivity is often invisible for us, which is both good (we can take advantage of many things without direct knowledge of how they work) but also bad (we forget to appreciate it all). Thanks for this reminder.
Jeremy, thank you so much for reading and for this kind comment.
You put it so well. Behind the scenes to everything we see, do, and interact with are these incredibly complex pieces of infrastructure. Saying grace is, in a way, being grateful for those and for the life that was sacrificed for us to nourish ourselves. The world is magic: from the simple to the incredibly complicated we know how nothing works but rely on it all every day.
Thank you for sharing this essay. From your description it sounds like a great read. I will check it out!
Been living in Spain for five years and can confirm that the peaches here are indeed delightful!
This essay reminds me of A.J. Jacobs, the guy who went to thank everyone involved in producing his morning cup of coffee, really fascinating stuff.
If you haven't seen it already here's the TED talk, I think you'll enjoy it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L375-rWJVmU
Validation right from the source! We grow pretty good peaches over here too but it's not quite the season for them yet. Another week or two.
A.J. Jacobs is a super interesting and unique character. I think it was him who did the year of living biblically and who only told the truth (which resulted in many fights with his wife) for a certain period of time. But I haven't heard of this coffee one so I will absolutely check it out.
Thanks for reading, Brian.
Jack, Tommy said it best - fluid and beautiful. It’s also important. The evolution of our society is toward “take for granted” vs “honoring” “sacredness” and “being grateful.” Grace is connected to all three of those and is diametrically opposed to taking for granted.
Thank you for drawing my attention to this 🙏.
Thank you so much for reading and for your kind words, James.
You are spot on. Honouring, sacredness, and gratefulness are three ingredients that can make all of our daily lives better. A practice of grace when we eat, among other slowing down practices that ritualize rather than routinize our behaviour will enrichen and enliven our days.
As always, I appreciate your readership and your wisdom in these comments.
This whole article felt like a saying of grace Jack, your essay was as ripe as your peach. Grace is something we used to honor before meals, but we got out of the habit. I might even read this at family dinner tonight!
Rick, thank you so much for reading. Growing up we always said grace at the dinner table too. Though we were not a religious family, it was something instilled in my parents from their childhoods that they continued. It makes me so happy to hear that this essay has a chance of touching the life of your family. Thanks, as always, for your support and readership.
Midnight, thank you for this comment. You put it so well. What I think you are hinting at, and what I believe to be the case, is that we have the best system we have ever had to gain abundant and cheap access to food yet, on average, we spend our additional free time on things that make us less happy: social media, the news, too much Netflix, etc.
I'm with you in that being thankful for our food is the least we can do. It's a practice that takes very little time but has brough more gratitude to my days.
I appreciate you reading and dropping into the comments, thank you