Salad Bowls Friends?
A few years ago when I discovered a Palestinian food store I was happy to find a grocery store with the fresh baked pita bread and all the ingredients for a good Middle Eastern meal, just like I enjoyed as a child. Three brothers run the store and as I became a regular they would greet me with “Hello my friend”. I noticed they used that greeting for many who entered the story. One thing I learned growing up in a cultural Middle Eastern home that hospitality to all, even strangers was important. Very few of my childhood friends ever escaped leaving my house without my mother having them eating or drinking something. When Pat and I with our children would visit my parents we would always leave the home with a collection of food stuff. So when I was called ‘my friend’ I started calling others ‘my friend’.
Tonight at a Friday night fish fry my good friend and wife were critical of me for this habit of calling people so freely “my friend.” Their point was that someone I knew, even for a long while, as an acquaintance was not a friend like real friends were to me. They both thought calling everyone I knew ‘my friend’ was misleading and deceiving. I defended myself by recalling my Middle Eastern heritage but they said this was not the ‘American Way’.
My African young adult friends and even their children call me “Uncle Bob” although clearly I am not their Uncle. But Uncle and Aunt are just a sign of respected and endearment for older persons and I have come to accept it and appreciate it, even referring to them at times as my nephew or nieces. But I guess the difference is that are first generation African Americans and I am third generation.
All this discussion about friendship let me to recall a very early posting on Diary of Worm that my mentor on wiki web pages thought was great. It was call Salad Bowl Friends. In this posting below, ‘the salad bowl’ is an endless network of friends who are united by the zest for life. While keeping their unique diversity, together they are Growing Power. Watch out world, here comes the nonviolent revolution of salad green friends!” My friend suggested I check with my wife to see if I could call a person “my friend” or not. So if you are my friend or not my friend I consider you my “salad bowl friend,” my friend.
February 12, 2007 Salad Bowl Friends
I finally remembered to pick the salad greens from the Growing Power Box for the dinner salad tonight. The 3 ounces of greens, mostly arugula with some kale, made, with some homemade salad dressing, enough salad for three persons. The salad dressing contained some herbs that were from the backyard GP garden.
When I was young we used to talk about America as the melting pot where various cultures got together to make a great country, like various vegetables and meats put together in a pot for a good stew. With more emphasis on the strength of our unity being in our diversity, that image has faded somewhat.
Tonight I thought the image of the salad bowl with some tasty dressing on the greens made for a good image of the growing network of people with similar passions coming together. This developing bowl of friends is growing just like the salad greens in the GP box.
Like these salad greens these friends are all green, meaning that they are all concerned about the environment, making it healthy for all. We all enjoy the same zesty desire for life as the salad greens share the same delicious dressing. We are organic like the greens in tonight’s salad, which for people in this network means that we have a holistic quality to ourselves, always seeking to connect everything together in our lives. We, like salad greens, come from similar origins but are diverse. Together we seek to feed the hungry, bring justice and peace. As one leaf of a plant we can do little; “Together we are Growing Power.”
Here, from today, are few examples of salad bowl friends working together. Through my salad green friend Godsil, the co-founder of this Milwaukee Renaissance site and organization, I have been connected to all kinds of salad green friends. One of these friends, Patricia Obletz, who was the person who created the anti-stigma campaign for mental illness on the back of city buses, called today. From her bus signs I got the idea for creating posters with the same message to place in public places like doctors’ office waiting rooms. Today she called to say she had another salad green friend in the mental health agency world who knew of a source of funding that could possibly help us to distribute the signs in all waiting rooms in hospitals and doctors’ offices throughout the area.
Also tonight I got a call on my cell phone from another person Godsil put me into contact with last week. He is a carpenter/designer who is coming up with an idea for small GP boxes for homes. I could not take the call because I was in a meeting, in the basement of our church, with salad green friends to plan creating a center for sustainability at the Church.
I could go on and on with examples just from today. But I think you get the point. The salad bowl is an endless network of friends who are united by the zest for life. While keeping their unique diversity, together they are Growing Power. Watch out world, here comes the nonviolent revolution of salad green friends!
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