Ted Lee was a good friend
He was tired of big lunches
Hello, Taco Casa!
It was sweet knowing him and having known him
Hail and farewell, Ted.

Earlier today I mentioned how I made and ate – and enjoyed – a PB&O, a Peanut Butter and Onion sandwich. I found the recipe in a 1932 cookbook and then discovered Hemingway loved them.

Basic recipe is: 2 pieces of bread or a roll split in half. Get some peanut butter, mix it with a dash of hot sauce, spread it on the bread. Then get a big ol’ slice of onion – an entire cross-section, not a ring – and cover the bread with it. It needs to be a *SWEET* onion. Don’t use a regular kind of onion, it needs to be sold as a sweet one – Bermuda, Vidalia, or some other variety of sweet onion.

The key to enjoying the sandwich is making yourself aware that both peanut butter and onion have complimentary sulfur compounds. They were essentially made for each other.

Now, I didn’t want to do the hot sauce, so I thought of something else to add. I used a sweet tomato-based barbecue sauce and that made a lovely flavor addition. Next time, I’ll use a sliced tomato instead. Knowing that Southeast Asian cuisine combines peanut butter with cilantro in tasty ways, I put some cilantro on that sandwich, as well.

I like to have my bread toasted, so I did just that, but the onion was 100% raw. Eating the sandwich with all that onion was very delicious, but there was also the interesting impression one gets when eating all that onion in one go. I felt powerful as I ate the sandwich, feeling the power of the onion coursing through me. Did it put hair on my chest? Most likely, yes. It’s a Hemingway Special, by way of Vietnam with that cilantro.

Just remember, for your PB&O, it *must* be a sweet onion, or you won’t want to have another one anytime soon. I did it right, so I’ll want to do it again.

When I was a teacher, I was wishing students a “Merry Christmas” in the halls. They’d return the cheer and enjoy the holiday music I was playing in my room, the sounds of the season spilling into the hallway.

Then another teacher came up to me and asked, “Are you sure that’s wise to do? Shouldn’t you be more culturally sensitive?”

At that moment, I saw the Muslim kids in the hall. The Arabs, Persians, Indians, Turks, Bosnians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Nigerians, Ethiopians… At that moment, I realized that “Merry Christmas” might not be what they wanted to hear.

I said to the teacher, “You’re right! I should do better!”

To a young student from Egypt, I shouted, “Christmas Mubarak!”

He joyously returned, “Christmas Mubarak, Mr. Webb!”

I smiled to the other teacher. Cultural sensitivity accomplished.

In our school, in my classrooms, we wished everyone a happy holiday for the religion of their choosing. Happy Diwali, Eid Mubarak, and so forth. If someone wanted to say “Happy Holidays!”, I’d happily respond in kind. Joy is meant to be shared and faith is to teach us all. I didn’t know the expression “righteous envy” at the time, but it’s what I felt. As we all talked through the year about how we strove to be better people, I found inspiration in that, regardless of the faith or lack thereof in the speaker.

I say “Christmas Mubarak” and mean it. Joy and blessings be to us all, from my heart to yours.

“Not to think badly of anyone, not to wish ill to him though we have suffered at his hands, not to hurt him even in thought, this is an uphill task, but therein lies the acid test of nonviolence.”

~Gandhi, Ashram Observances in Action

 “A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

~Jesus, John 13:34-35

As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I live with an understanding that people are able to receive revelations to offer guidance and comfort. God loves us, but we often confuse love with removing all problems. That’s not love, that’s co-dependence. Love is providing us with warnings when things are coming our way so that we can make ready for them. We are here on earth to learn and experience things, and those things involve dangers, hazards, pains, and trials.

If we return love to God, we heed those warnings, no matter what their source. We are able to have insight into the truth of those warnings and, as we give our hearts and minds over to trying to better understand our existences in a way that approaches God, we are more sensitive to those promptings and more likely to choose to act upon them.

God does not want us to experience our lives blindly. But it is up to us to accept the vision for the future and to be able to withstand it as we understand it. There are terrors approaching, but we can prevail if we heed prophetic warnings and make our preparations.

The Great Wall of China is forbidding, cold, impersonal, and crumbling.

The bridges of Venice draw tourists by the hundreds of thousands.

The bridges of London are famous and vibrant and connecting.

The bridges of New York City sing with Gershwin’s departed spirit, in that soaring clarinet introduction.

How many bridges have been put at risk due to the weight of the locks being fastened to them, fastened in the name of love?

The Berlin Wall is famous for having been torn down. Nobody wants to build it again, nobody who loves.

These things are a matter of personal choices. One is not thrust into one or the other against one’s will. One picks a course, a direction in life, and then arrives at the destination. If one is not pleased with an ultimate destination, different choices need to be made while still in mortality in order to avoid that destination.

And if one is sure of arriving at a destination, one needs to consider one’s choices all the more carefully – there is nothing sure about arriving anywhere for a person not tending one’s course.

There is a difference between admitting wrong, accepting consequences, and making amends versus denying everything, blaming others, and making noisy distractions. The first is part of building the Kingdom of God. The latter is part of making war against God.

Choose who to listen to: avoid those who always have a justification and never an apology. Seek out those who advocate peace without limits, love without exceptions, and forgiveness even towards mortal enemies. Avoid those who demand violence, vengeance, and retribution. Peace, love, and forgiveness are all parts of the most powerful, and most humble of forces in the universe – that which will prevail – while those other things are all hazardous to the soul we will need for eternity.

Let us suppose I hire a painter to paint a house I own out in the country. I sign a contract in which I agree to pay for travel expenses an amount up-front, and a final amount upon conclusion. We travel to the site and discover the property has burned down. True to the contract, I pay for travel and up-front expenses, but that is all. The house being burned down means the contract cannot be fulfilled. I terminate the contract without fault and the painter and I go our separate ways.

Now let us suppose the same situation, but we have a covenant to paint the house. Together, we rebuild it, as the covenant places a moral and spiritual obligation to see to it that a painted house results from our efforts. The money for the job is not as important as the job. We do not go our separate ways, because we have a covenant that implies we maintain and watch over that house.

This is why I do not have a contract with God. I have a covenant. The covenant is to return my soul to Him, and I labor with Him in that effort.