by Joanie Butman
A friend forwarded me Perdue’s full-page ad in last week’s Wall Street Journal for obvious reasons. The Choose Wisely slogan has become prevalent across the board these days promoting all kinds of products. Aside from the shared sentiment, I am also a Perdue devotee, though my friend wouldn’t know that. Let me explain. My extended family’s comfort meal since childhood is a simple veal or chicken cutlet Milanese. My parents drummed it into our heads that the key to the meal is starting with thinly sliced, pounded meat. I even witnessed my brother jumping on his one time in lieu of pounding by hand! My siblings and I all have hilarious (and often embarrassing) stories of the lengths my parents would go to procure the perfect cutlet. They were so picky they travelled with a cooler in the back seat because they didn’t trust any butcher but their own.
I bought into their obsession early on until I discovered Perdue’s thin-sliced chicken cutlets. The Perdues must have shared my parents’ quest for the perfect cutlet because theirs are consistently “just right” in thickness and tenderness. Whenever I make the meal, I’m asked how I get them so perfect. My response is always the same. Simple, I start with the right ingredients, which are readily available with no harassing the butcher or pounding the ‘you know what’ out of the dreaded store brand. I ixnayed the veal early on due to price and availability.
This may seem a stretch, but I do find spiritual lessons in the craziest of places. The recipe for spirituality is not much different than my chicken cutlet story. It’s simpler than most people make it and readily available to all. It’s not rocket science. The key is choosing the right ingredients. Religion, on the other hand, often felt to me that I was being pounded into submission to conform to some seemingly impossible ‘ideal.’ The more they pounded the further I got from God. When Jesus says, “my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30), He’s telling us He’s the only ingredient we need without the impossible burdens imposed by most religions. He took the pounding for us, creating a tenderness we could never achieve on our own. It is through Him we are made “just right” in God’s eyes.
In Perdue’s ad they emphasize the way they feed and raise the chickens as the secret to their success. In much the same way, we need a healthy diet of Divine food to promote spiritual wellbeing. I can’t think of any better ingredient than Scripture. When you choose to feed on the Word of God, your burdens are lighter and your decisions clearer. Jim Perdue ends his letter simply, “You have a choice.”
Yes, we do. The health of our mind, body and spirit is a result of what we put into it. It behooves us to be aware of the ingredients on which we are feeding, especially these days when the truth is so hard to find. Thank you for the reminder Mr. Perdue.
Choose wisely indeed.
