Sweet Corn

One of the things my dad said about serving in World War II was that fresh vegetables were a very rare treat in the Pacific. They were not so rare in Wisconsin where I grew up. We had canneries around that area and, in fact, I worked at one—I can tell you all about peas and beets—and later found out it was the same one my dad had worked at years earlier. My great uncle had land that was planted in sweet corn and we looked forward to this time of year when he brought us several large bags of corn. It was great. One year he planted soybeans and brought over this large glass jar of them. This was about 40 years ago. None of us had ever seen a soybean before. What to do with them? My mom looked up a baked bean recipe and adapted it. They turned out to be pretty good. Things change in life; rarely do things stay the same. One of the great skills is the ability to work with what you have, not with what you used to have. Many churches are finding that the world has changed. They no longer have sweet corn. The big question is: “What will they do with the soybeans?”