The World of Grandpa Don

What Can One Person Do?
(or, .. I am not a cook or a baker)

I am not a cook. I can use the microwave to warm leftovers or a frozen dinner and I can manage warming something in a pan on the range if necessary. But to combine ingredients and really cook a meal is not in my area of expertise. Having confessed to this shortcoming, it should not be necessary to further admit that I definitely do not bake. To mix basic raw ingredients and transform them into something edible is well beyond my capabilities.

However, I do know about yeast and the fact that adding a little yeast does wonders in transforming a dough made largely of flour and a few other ingredients into a light and airy bread or pastry. I first learned this as a child when I helped mom every Saturday by kneading the dough in a large wooden bowl to make Hoska, a Bohemian braided bread. It took hours to make because after kneading, it was set in a warm place and covered with a towel to raise. It was then kneaded a second time and set to raise again before being separated and formed into several long pieces, braided, coated with butter and baked.  If the yeast was bad, or conditions were nor just right, it didn't raise and the hoska would be heavy and flat. That little bit of yeast was the key, the mysterious, essential ingredient without which the other ingredients would fail to succeed.

In a recent homily I was reminded of the references in the Bible of yeast. The life of a human being is a growth process not unlike the baking of bread. We often think we "have the Faith" because we were born to it. We think we were born the person we are. What we have is all the ingredients to become a finished product. These ingredients are combined, the yeast added,  kneaded, allowed to raise, kneaded again and formed into what we become. We can look back on our lives, review the process and often identify thee ingredients, the kneading, and the forming. We can identify the yeast in our lives, the individuals who raised us up when we most needed raising. Sometimes the yeast is missing and the person is not complete, becoming a hard, unpalatable, imitation of what we should be.

We are called to be the yeast for others. We do this when we treat others with respect, acknowledging them to be worthwhile. We encourage them to excel, to build on their talents for the good of mankind. We offer assistance whenever and however we can. We witness to our faith in God by the way we live. We don't have to do the kneading or add any other ingredients.  We don't see immediate results. That is in the raising and it often takes time. 

The person who is constantly exposed to negativity, being told they can not succeed, being told they are inferior and always wrong, lack the yeast. The kneading process only toughens their hearts and hastens their failure. A little bit of yeast is needed. The person who is exposed to kindness and encouragement usually responds in kind.

Each one of us can be the yeast for many. It only takes a little. The amazing part is that when we provide the yeast for someone, ours does not diminish, ... it grows. If each of us becomes yeast, the world will become a better place. It is something we all can do as individuals.

Just ... be kinder than you need to be. 

Grandpa Don Plefka
07/22/2002