Potatoes

Did you know that there is over a hundred recipes for just mashed potatoes alone?! That's a ton of recipes and that's not even counting baked potatoes, grilled potatoes, steamed potatoes and many many more! Wow I guess you could say that we like potatoes. You know what the really crazy thing is though? Potatoes are poisonous. Yep you heard right potatoes are poisonous! You see the poison runs viciously through the stems and leaves of the plant and while the potato is still attached to the poison source it is also poisonous. Sometimes while the potato is still forming it is a greenish color due to such a high dosage of poison running throughout the plant! All the while we still eat potatoes on almost a weekly biases. Luckily for us once the potato is fully formed it separates itself from the stem and leaves and pinches off the poison source. Which results in one of my many favorite foods! Often times in our lives we too also face a "poison source" which begins to take over our lives. When the source is first discovered only a little here and there seems to be leaked into our lives; but as we gain confidence and comfort begins to become natural the "poison" makes it's way into our lives more and more. It becomes routine, natural, a way of life. Eventually we don't even have to justify this guilty obsession because slowly the title shifts from "guilty obsession" to "obsession." The time before the "poison" slowly seems to be erased from our memories. All together we begin to turn "green," the poison has made its way so far into our lives it seems hopeless. We will surely die out, the poison is so strong and vicious that we have lost all control. We begin to shrivel up into uselessness. Though it is dark and hopeless we hear a distant foot step. Then another. With every growing step the hope is restored. The darkness turns to light. It's a farmer. As he pulls his blade out he begins to harvest; cutting the potatoes from the source that was fueling their "poisonous" addictions. Life is restored. I don't know where you've been or what you've endured. I don 't know your highs or your lows but I do know that we all suffer "potato" moments throughout life, and sometimes the "poison" seems too strong not to give into; but I also know that right when things seem to far gone to make its way back is right when harvesting season rolls around. And when the stems are cut; life itself is restored.