Before you think I've given up on this whole thing and can't come up with anything else, let me explain.
This weekend, I finished up a The Book Thief for our book club meeting tomorrow. It is a story about a teenage girl growing up in a very poor area around Munich during World War II. Her family was dirt poor. Her mother would cook up a thin pot of split pea soup on Sunday and they would eat that until the next Sunday when she would make a fresh pot. A few times, glorious, and extremely rare, "fat" was mentioned and it was truly just that. A hunk of animal fat to either be eaten straight up or used in cooking. No bacon or pork chops or hamburgers - just fat. No money for books or paper or anything not truly essential to staying alive. There was no safety net in Nazi Germany and I'm not sure that there are too many people living like this in the US today.
It's not hard to look around and see how many "non-essential" things we have around us these days - i-pods, i-phones, junk food, excessive clothes (more than one outfit anyone?), shoes and purses. The list goes on for ages. When you really get down to it though, even things like soap, a warm winter coat, indoor plumbing and fat that actually tastes decent should be on that list.
Not only are we fortunate enough to not have to choose between soap and food for our children, but we get to have a different soap for our hair, our face and even our dogs. The soap is obviously just a metaphor for all of things in this life we take for granted. And today, I'm thankful for every last bit of it.
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