Disguised Missionaries

I was chopping green onions for the Smitten Kitchen veggie galette I’ve baked 20 times this summer. I had houseguests, kids pulling on me, music playing—it was anything but zen—yet I had the thought, “Poor little middle of the onion. Every recipe calls for ‘white and dark green parts only’. That’s gotta hurt to be consistently skipped over.”

Who doesn’t feel like the middle of the onion sometimes? Ever-present, offering your best, willing…chop chop goes the chef’s knife on the lucky dark green and white parts…and now unused, outdone, even discarded.

Right then and there I chopped up the whole dang onion—even the weird, forked, pale green section—and brushed it into the recipe with panache (and an odd sense of validation).

A cold snap hit Utah on Labor Day and my Tuesday morning walk was 41 degrees. Now, morning walks are completely for the purpose of organizing my brain and alleviating anxiety—my head spins nonstop—yet I heard myself say, “Aww, you look like you need a hoodie,” to the formerly beaming but currently wilted, and only, Indian blanket on the 3-mile loop.

Upon my return home, I did what any other warm-blooded creature with a heart would do—I dug through RE’s save box, found a Calico Critters shawl and lab coat, and dressed my petal-free trail cheerleaders the following morning at 6:42 beneath Smiling Moon and Venus.

It later occurred to me that if I could notice and care about, without prompt or intent, the invisible section of a green onion and the one depressed flower on the five trails I rotate through, it is unquestionably fathomable how Heavenly Father is aware of not just you and me, but the fallen sparrow, too. I have nothing invested in onions or sunset-petaled flower crowns. God, however, is infinitely invested in and loves his creations; children and otherwise.

There is no escape from it. Violets and grass preach it; rain and snow, winds and tides, every change, every cause, in nature, is nothing but a disguised missionary. -Emerson

The Indian blanket is also called a firewheel. Best name ever!

Galette recipe here.