If he were still living Theodor Seuss Geisel, would be 112 today. Although I never met the man, I appreciated the wit and wisdom of this man who was better-known by his pen name Dr. Seuss.
As a tribute to him, I want to share a couple of quotes from some of his books:
- You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And you are the one who’ll decide where to go.
- I’ve heard there are troubles of more than one kind; some come from ahead, and some come from behind. But I’ve brought a big bat. I’m all ready, you see; now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!
- Why fit in when you were born to stand out?
- So be sure when you step, step with care and great tact. And remember that life’s a great balancing act. And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed!
- Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!
- You ought to be thankful, a whole heaping lot, for the places and people you’re lucky you’re not!
The writings of Dr. Seuss remind me of another wordsmith; Solomon said, “A well-spoken word at just the right moment is like golden apples in settings of silver (Proverbs 25:11).”
Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened. ~Dr. Seuss
You’ve probably heard the story. It’s the one about Adam, Eve, and the tree of knowledge, and it took place in the Garden of Eden. In an act of disobedience, Adam and Eve took of the forbidden fruit, and they were banned from and booted out of the Garden.
The myth of that Eden experience is that Adam and Eve ate an apple, but the Bible doesn’t specifically name what it was that they ate. I disputed the apple assertion earlier this year after I had purchased a tomato. It had such a deep red and luscious appeal that promised a taste bud-tingling-experience. I took it home, sliced it, and added it to a sandwich.
After I took one bite of this fine-looking tomato, I drew a deep theological conclusion. When God cursed the Garden, He must have also cursed a certain variety of tomato. I’ll call it the supermarket variety because they all have one dominant and pervasive feature: They are tasteless. There is no flavor to savor.
The dilemma of tasteless tomatoes is explained in part by author Mark Schatzker in The Dorito Effect. According to Schatzker, for the past 70 years commercial horticulturists have been focused on yield, pest resistance and appearance at the expense of flavor.
While store-bought tomatoes are no longer tasty, manufactured flavor has been added to Doritos and your munchies, so you’ll crave more. Schatzker says: “Synthetic-flavor technology makes bland ingredients attractive without supplying the myriad benefits of the real thing. The twin forces of flavor dilution and fake flavor have short-circuited the biological basis for mutable appetite . . . Our bodies learn to draw connections between flavors and the physiological responses they signal . . . We can seek out and find what we need, nutritionally, and stop eating once we get it”
Schatzker seems to suggest that it’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature. I would add that perhaps we shouldn’t try to improve on the design of the Master Designer.
For the Lord God is a sun and shield; The Lord will give grace and glory; No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.