I found the solution to world peace and creating One Love. We must come together and share our sweets and taste each other’s different versions and interpretations and show up at our communal table.
People across religions and continents bake sweets and cookies and cakes to celebrate life, whether it be a birth, an anniversary, a celebratory dinner or holiday. We love the smells and creating something good to give and share with our friends and family. We enjoy our grandmothers’ recipes and repeating what was once good. Celebrations revolve around sharing food and traditions and creating memories.
Think about it. We share sweets and break bread together and we create intimacy and joy. We create memories as we practice our traditions and invite others in. Will you be making Christmas sugar cookies this year?
How about the traditional Jewish chocolate covered Matzo?
Sharing sweets is like a sacred sacrament.
Two stories of humanity caught my attention this week and I want to share them with you, if you haven’t read them already. Both touched me, because fear caused discomfort and yet sharing baklava and mamool brought people together and helped them to smile and see one another.
Image source: http://images.mediaallrecipes.com/userphotos/720×405/21460.jpg
Maher Kahlil is an American citizen who was speaking Arabic at an airport and was profiled and detained and treated as a terrorist. He was questioned and embarrassed, however once he was allowed on the plane and people asked him what was in his white box, he opened it up and shared his baklava.
Image source: https://louanneskitchen.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/c2adc-baklava.jpg
Hopefully by sharing sweets, passengers could see he was just like them. Here are the details from his story:
Maher Khalil Story
Another story is about a woman who understood Arabic and was able to help a troubled, hysterical, older Palestinian woman who didn’t understand English when their flight was delayed: Naomi Shihab Nye Story . The American woman reached out and not only communicated and comforted the Palestinian woman, but also kept her company and helped her to communicate with her family, sharing her phone while they waited and making calls to other friends who shared the same language. As they waited, the Palestenian woman opened her bag and shared her powdered sugar covered mamool cookies. Every woman she offered them to, took one and thus she created a connection between strangers. It was as if she was apologizing for her tears and offering peace to those around her. And everyone chose to share communion in that sacred space.
The world is good. There are good people all around us. Let’s share our sweets and create this one sweet love. One love. No Fear.
If you like these stories of humanity, Frank Somerville KTVU is a great person to follow on Facebook. He is a local news reporter and chooses to share stories like these all the time. I absolutely love his perspective and love reading the comments and reactions from around the world even more.
He’s a lot like Brandon, from Humans of New York that you can also follow on Facebook or on his website: Humans Of New York. He shares real stories of our humanity by showcasing strangers and sharing their stories, to which we can always relate. Again, reading the stories and seeing the pictures are powerful and reading the comments from his 8 million followers makes the world feel a lot smaller.
So what’s for dessert? I like chocolate whatever. 😉
Life is Sweet.
nAMaste
How many thousands of people have walked through this same hall and added their chewed wad of bubble gum to the wall of fame? How do you choose where to add your part? And who started this mess and told a friend who told two friends, who told their friends and so forth. Look how thick the wall is?? EEW.
We first stopped at Rocket Fizz on the corner, to get a juicy pack of gum before walking over to add to the art exhibit. I just observed this time and enjoyed watching their reactions and prayed that they didn’t actually touch any of the spit germs surrounding them. I think they were mildly grossed out too. But that’s probably half the fun – kind of like getting spooked out at a haunted house. For some reason, we like to get out of our comfort zone for a moment or two. Maybe it’s the thrill and excitement of experiencing something gross and fun at the same time that draws people here. Maybe it’s the shared tradition. And maybe once we experience the grossness, we can appreciate all that is clean and normal that normally surrounds us that we don’t even notice. Yin and yang.
here i am 
