The Real Thing

I made a casserole of homemade macaroni and cheese to take on our picnic at the park yesterday.  Julia particularly likes mac/cheese. Is there anything more delicious and comforting that a bubbly, homemade mac/cheese, straight from the oven? I make my cheese sauce from scratch, and it still doesn't take very long.

Julia mentioned sheepishly that sometimes she misses the chemical-laden boxed mac/cheese from the store. "Not really!?" I replied. Then she mentioned some kids she's known who will only eat the boxed mixes.  They don't like homemade mac/cheese, and won't eat it.

(Can you imagine??)

(I made smoothies too, and we took them along. Also, real dishes and silverware. I felt almost British.)

I found it strange that someone would prefer the imitation of something, and not tolerate the real thing.  I mean, the boxed mac/cheese is supposed to be a cheap, quick, inferior imitation of the dish children grew up with and loved, 100 years ago, right? But the homemade dish is time-consuming, and the modern mom opts for convenience.  But we all know that homemade tastes better, yummier, creamier.

Right?

When do we become so used to the inferior imitation, that we have no appetite for the real thing?

When do we become so consumed with shadows, and forget there is a real object for every shadow, a reality for every symbol? So much in this life, this veil of tears, is just a shadow of reality -- life on God's New Earth. It's a cheap imitation, not designed to satisfy us. We forget the wonder, the better land, God has for us.

Don't settle for the cheap imitation.

Sometimes, I love to take pictures of simple things, made beautiful by sunshine and shadows.

These are split seed pods from our wysteria vine on the patio. Remember -- the pods that hung like Christmas ornaments all winter? On a warm day, they all cracked open silently, and their seeds blew to the winds.