Week 138: Mixing it Up
We need to allow other perspectives besides just our own…
Each Sunday, my wife and I cook and eat a meal together — intentionally. Every Friday, I’ll be sharing our experience here in this space. I want to see the growth that will come in our marriage because of this. I hope you enjoy our story. You can find last week’s post here.
I think candy corn tends to get a bad rap.
Look it’s not my favorite candy either, but at least it is festive. It takes the extra step that most other candies don’t and ties itself directly to the season. I know it’s fall when I see the lines of candy corn bags at the grocery store. It’s nice, even if it isn’t extraordinary.
Nonetheless, when Sarah and I were deciding what recipe to make on this Sunday, we found ourselves picking out this normal Halloween treat. Why? To mix it with something else, of course. We were going to make a fall party mix, and it only has two ingredients.
Peanuts and candy corn.
Mixes can get messy. The bowls we used to eat our fall mix out of are always lined with peanut skins. Mixes don’t stay neat and tidy. They get jumbled, but out of that jumbling comes something better.
As I shoved another handful of peanuts and candy corn into my mouth, I thought about the beauty of mixing things together to create something new.
We can just stay in our lanes. We can stick to what we know. We can live in our echo chambers.
Or we can try new things. Listen to others’ perspectives. Branch out.
I’ll be honest, too often I stay inside my own head. I live solely in light of my own thoughts and experiences. On my better days, I listen to the perspectives of others — Sarah most importantly. But I still don’t do that often enough, and it’s something I’m continuing to work on.
We don’t have a monopoly on knowledge and truth. If you’re anything like me, you’re wrong a lot of the time and you find areas where you need to reassess your thinking. That is a healthy practice and a necessary one. I think it only happens when we begin to mix our experiences and perspectives with those of others around us.
Listen.
Learn.
Love.
Sarah and I sat in our living room on a chilly October night with bowls of our tasty fall mix. All it took was some peanuts mixed with candy corn.
Sometimes that’s all you need.
