On Saturday Adam and I attend Elon University's opening convocation for first-year and transfer students, since Adam is serving as assistant chaplain there this year. It was a beautiful ritual, held under the oak trees on a gorgeous summer morning. It recognized an important transition in the lives of 1700 young people and their families. During his remarks, Elon University's president talked about the many opportunities that Elon students could take advantage of--athletics, studying abroad, conducting research with their professors, to name a few. At one point, he said to the new students, "You have arrived at a great buffet. Don't go make yourself a bologna sandwich."
What a great image! I've been thinking about it ever since. Don't get me wrong--I really enjoy a good bologna sandwich on occasion--but there is so much more to try in the buffet of life! I'm trying to identify the bologna sandwiches in my life--the things that I do out of habit, because they are comfortable, maybe without even really thinking about them. The TV show House Hunters is a bologna sandwich for me. The premise of the show is that you follow an individual or family on their search for a new place to live. You learn a bit about who they are, where they are house hunting, and some of the things they are looking for in a house/apartment/condo. You follow along as a realtor shows them three houses, and at the end, you see which place they pick and how they've made it their own a few months later.
It is a really fun show. I like trying to guess which house the people will pick, and I've actually learned a lot of real estate terms from watching. But the thing that makes House Hunters a bologna sandwich for me is that I can easily park myself on the couch and watch a few episodes in a row. Then the evening is gone and it's time to go to bed. I can get stuck in this routine for several nights, and then it stops being fun and starts to become stifling. I'm eating bologna sandwiches every night, when I could be trying something new from the buffet line.
The other night, Adam and I turned off the TV, stopped making our bologna sandwiches and ventured out to sample something new! We rode our bikes to a place called Fullsteam Brewery in Durham. Fullsteam doesn't serve food, but there are always food trucks parked outside. We had dinner at one of the food trucks and enjoyed it at a picnic table outside. (Instead of bologna, we tried something called duck fat tots. What's not to love about anything that is cooked in duck fat?) It was a fun and different experience. We met some nice people and learned a little bit more about our new city...including the fact that you can bring your dog inside Fullsteam Brewery! Filo will definitely have to come with us next time.
What are the bologna sandwiches that you tend to make out of comfort or habit? Do you ever want to try something different? I'm trying to pay closer attention to my own life, to see where it's okay to make a bologna sandwich, and where I need to take a risk and try something new...even if it is tiny. Small changes can be just as empowering as large ones.
At the conclusion of Elon's opening convocation, the new students leave the ceremony surrounded by their new professors on either side of the path on which they are walking. They are each given a wooden acorn, both because "elon" means oak tree in Hebrew, and as a symbol of the promise and possibility of their growth during their years at Elon. At graduation, they will be given an oak tree seedling.
From the habit of bologna to the choices of the buffet line, and from acorn to tiny oak tree...these can be metaphors of our own growth in life, too. What do they represent to you? How are you making new choices and trying different things, in small or large ways? I hope that you are mostly surprised and delighted when you take the risk to make different choices, because you never know--you might like bologna, but really love something at the buffet that you haven't tried yet!
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