…unless you live in China, perhaps.

Last week, we heard reports of tainted wheat gluten coming from China in the form of animal feed, killing off a dozen or so pets and making thousands of others ill. Turns out the overseas manufacturers buy large amounts of melamine (read: a chemical derived from coal) to add as filler to the animal feed. When tested, the chemical looks like protein. Adding melamine instead of actual proteins saves the manufacturers money.

The NY Times offered this tasty morsel of background info on the food supply industry in China:

In recent years, for instance, China’s food safety scandals have involved everything from fake baby milk formulas and soy sauce made from human hair to instances where cuttlefish were soaked in calligraphy ink to improve their color and eels were fed contraceptive pills to make them grow long and slim.

Awesome, right? Another nice addition to China’s [industrial] rap sheet of lax ethics and standards. Here’s the article.

I feel compelled to post the following poem by Wendell Berry.

The Mad Farmer, Flying the Flag of Rough Branch, Secedes from the Union
From the union of power and money,
from the union of power and secrecy,
from the union of government and science,
from the union of government and art,
from the union of science and money,
from the union of ambition and ignorance,
from the union of genius and war,
from the union of outer space and inner vacuity,
the Mad Farmer walks quietly away.

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I am not very good at picking favorites. Bands, authors, restaurants, movies, et cetera — it’s not always so easy to quantify, or qualify, what makes something worthy of such a title, especially when weighing a few very choice options.

This afternoon I took our plastic trash can of assorted glass jars and bottles to the recycling center. Had you asked me before 3pm today, I couldn’t have told you my favorite beer for certain. But now I know. As I tossed the bottles two at a time into the receptacle, two things became clear. Old beer bottles smell horrible, and I drink more of Highland’s Oatmeal Porter than any other brew. My mouth waters just thinking about it.

Pulling out those bottles emptied of oatmeal porter, one after the other, made me wonder about what other things in life are measurable. How we spend our money — that’s an easy one. It’s an immediate indicator of what’s important to us. Relationships are a little harder to quantify, I suppose, because having more relationships doesn’t mean we relate in meaningful ways. Though I’m sure most of you know exactly how good or bad your relational life is without much examination.

What about our time? Do we know where it goes? Does it produce anything more than waste? Time, more than anything, shows whether or not we step beyond being mere consumers into being producers.

Looking back over weeks, months and years, the results of how we spent our time should be just as evident as a trash can full of empty bottles. But too often time slips away without producing anything lasting or meaningful–not that empty bottles are meaningful, but you know what I mean.

Thirty years from now, I want to look back on my life so far and be able to measure the fruit of the time I was given just as easily as I saw my drinking habits at the recycling center. I want to find myself surrounded by people more beautiful and dear to me over the years because of the time I gave to cultivating relationship; I want to see the people God placed in my path and the places that surrounded me improved, transformed; I want to look back and see I was a good steward of all that God gave me in marriage, possessions, abilities, wealth, friendship, parenthood and the earth, just to name a few.

Thirty years from now, I certainly won’t regret having missed a few TV shows or video games. Though, I might miss Highland’s Oatmeal Porter.