From the Principal Times have changed, and I daily thank God that they have. I live a blessed life, with a beautiful family and even more amazing grandchildren, and when we gather together I am astonished at the things they know that it took me more than half a lifetime to learn. Things like where Uruguay is and what guacamole tastes like – and I’m not even going to mention the techno talents of a five year old. As I ruminate and pamper my little darlings, I often ponder the collective conscious of our global community, and what Jesus would have made of the new level of sophistication that we now expect. I am reminded of the time a few years ago when my son asked his mother to include some meat on the shopping list. As she left for the supermarket, he cried out,
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touchstone | Vol 7 No 1 Winter 2019
“Make it fillet!” He said this as if it was a normal expectation. When I told the story to my father, he burst into tears of laughter. Good manners prevents me getting into detail, but my great-grandmother lived in our village in Sicily at a time where bartering goods took the place of monetary payment since cash was rare. Her particular services involved the provision of a wood-fired oven and the ability to turn a young rooster into a capon. The former should be an easy concept to understand; I will let the reader investigate the process for the latter. For the service of the oven, she would ask for one of the baked loaves, and for the service rendered on the former rooster, she would ask for the comb and the parts she had removed.
