I know I was supposed to write about a Q thing this week, but I had an epiphany the other day while taking a 15-minute break and found myself in a quandary over whether to pay attention to my new P inspiration, my Q inspiration or write about both my P and my Q. In sharing with my followers on FB that I was discerning what to do most said to follow my instinct and inspiration and give myself another P week. A few told me to write about both my P and my Q. One of my friends, had a sense of humor, and shared that it was nice to see me paying attention to my P and Q. (LOL – Thanks Milton). So after some prayer and meditation, I have decided to do my P thing.
I was taking a short break from my normal routine of reading, writing, grading, and editing and when I turned on the television, Food Networks new show The Kitchen was on and Katie Lee was showing an easy way to get the seeds out of a pomegranate. We love pomegranates; what my wife calls Chinese apples. It is one of those fruits that everyone seems to have their own approach to opening so you can get to the seeds without staining your hands. Katie’s method, however, brought me back to my childhood and an important lesson my mother taught me while making chicken soup.
Katie carefully cut a small circle off the top part of the pomegranate, the part that looks like a little hat, and then carefully scored the pomegranate down the visible vertical edges of the pomegranate. She then placed it in a bowl of water and began opening the fruit. As she did, the beautiful juice packed seeds sank to the bottom of the bowl and the white pith floated to the top. The seeds are filled with juice and delicious to eat. However, the pith is bitter and not worth eating. As the pith floated to the top, Katie removed it. Once all the seeds were separated from the pomegranate shell and all the pith was removed, the seeds could be strained, stored, and/or eaten. All of this happened without any staining of the hands or taking away from the beautiful taste of the seeds and their juice.
My mother when making chicken soup would show me something similar. She would let what, she called the scum, float to the surface and then she would skim it off and remove it. Doing so kept the broth clear and preventing that which would negatively affect the taste and flavor of the soup from ruining it. She would always stress to me the importance of removing anything that would ruin the taste of what you were creating. The “scum” would ruin the soup and the pith would ruin the taste of the pomegranate seeds.
Removing the scum from the chicken soup was easy to do and even as a young girl (4-5 years old); I had already mastered this lesson. Removing the seeds from the pomegranate without staining my hands required a little more work and technique. Isn’t this how our own personal and spiritual transformation is. There are some issues and beliefs in our life, which are easy to skim off and discard. However, some of the beliefs which are within us, like the pomegranates, are more deeply engrained and require a little more additional labor and technique to remove them. However, once we do, we can fully experience the beauty of who we were created to be.
So just for today, allow the pith in your life to rise the top for easy removal and may the luscious seeds in your life safely swim to the bottom where you can enjoy and appreciate them for all the gifts they bring to your life.