
It is one of those mixed blessings of parenthood. You wake up on a weekend morning and detect the unmistakable singe of burnt toast in the air. There are clanging and banging sounds from the kitchen. Checking out the noise you discover your child busily preparing a “special breakfast” as a surprise for you.
Such a simple, sweet gesture touches your heart.
But all too soon the fruits of your young one’s labors will touch your stomach as well.
*Eggshell-crunchy eggs.
*Pancakes charred on the outside yet somehow still gooey in the middle.
*A “special” waffle topped with gummy bears, rainbow sprinkles, and soy sauce (oops, thought it was the chocolate syrup!).
*Muffins in which salt was mistakenly substituted for the sugar.
Parents know there is only one response to such culinary delights. Take a big bite, swallow, smile, and proclaim how it is all so wonderful.
You’re telling the truth. It IS wonderful . . . just not exactly edible. But wonderful.
We offer praise instead of criticism because we know learning to cook, like anything else, takes practice and we trust that with a few helpful hints and little instruction, our young chef will get better at it. But before any big lessons or instructions the first thing our budding cooks need is a word of encouragement not judgment. Presented with those first messy masterpieces, it is time to let “the better angels of our nature” speak.
Abraham Lincoln urged that “better angels” attitude in his first inaugural speech, 04 March 1861. Lincoln’s second inaugural is more famous, replete with its soaring phrases that roar like this one: “with malice towards none, with charity toward all.” But the first inaugural is my favorite.
The country was already deeply divided. The “united” continuance of the United States barely hung by a thread. Yet rather than reciting a laundry list of evils that needed to be addressed, or demanding immediate actions that should be taken, Lincoln instead appealed to the common “bonds of affection” that the American people shared. It was these bonds, Lincoln hoped, that “will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
What a resonant phrase: “the better angels of our nature.” Do we believe in “better angels” anymore? – Dr. Leonard Sweet