the best way to eat corn

The first time I saw my dear relatives in the Midwest eat corn on the cob I sat stunned. Now, being from Louisiana, I know I have no right questioning the eating habits of anyone on planet Earth. What experienced was probably just a ration of what so many others have experienced when they see us sweep crawfish out of the ditches and suck their heads.

With that being said... I guess I had never really eaten that much corn on the cob. Clearly by their standards I had never really eaten corn. Pecked at it maybe. But this was another league altogether. When I ate corn I just took one bite at a time (crazy me). Well, I can assure you, that is not the way the people who grow corn eat corn. How do I describe it? Put these images simultaneously in your mind. The speed of a squirrel eating an acorn. The left to right movement of an old fashion type writer. The splashing/slurping sound that accompanies the first bite into a juicy slice of watermelon. If you combine all three of those, you get close to what I witnessed at the dinner table that day.
I remember it all like it was yesterday. I picked my corn up with everyone else at the table but as I sat mine down, I witnessed an explosion of speed, slurping and spinning. Before my corn returned to the plate they had already made their way through two rows and were returning to the left to start the third. Their hands were like rollers that kept the cob turning, their eyes were locked down guiding the procedure. And the butter ran in a stream down the center of their bottom lip, some dripping on the table. And no one, not a single person, other than the Southern boy thought this was the least bit strange. I couldn’t say a word for the better part of a minute. That day I learned how to stop fooling around and how to really eat corn. It tastes better the way they eat it, but I still think it’s strange.

I think people that have yet to follow Christ probably look at the lives of us that do follow him and wonder what it’s all about. They see us consuming and enjoying the things of God, but to them it all seems kind of foreign. They are more prone to peck, than dive in. But we hope the day will come when they really taste and see how good the Lord is. There really is only one way to follow Christ...and that is well, like a Midwesterner eats corn, or like a Cajun eats crawfish, or like a Texan eats Bar B Q or like a .... you get the point.

“Father you are good. And the more we know of you the more we realize how good you are to those to trust and follow you. Thank you for Godly people, who at times their methods and values seem strange to us, yet they teach us what abundant life is all about. May we observe their example, stop pecking around in our relationship with you and dive in. In Jesus name. Amen.”