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Tuesday 8 March 2011

accept the one whose pancakes are terrible

"One person’s pancake making skills allow them to eat perfect pancakes, but another, whose skills are weak, eats only goo."  
Romans 14:2 NEV (New Exasperated Version)



My confession for Shrove Tuesday - I am terrible at making pancakes. Whatever tactics I try, whatever recipes I follow, I end up with...goo. To some, I realise, this will be incomprehensible.  

What!! Can't even make a simple pancake?!

Hey, watch that 'even' - I can make a very nice sponge cake and a lovely casserole, among plenty of other things.  It's just a problem I have with making pancakes (and yes, omelettes also reduce me to blubbering ineptitude).

As I sit here eating my goo covered in sugar and lemon I plead suggest you do not begin any comments with the words: 'Oh, why don't you try...' and 'but if you only did this...'  

Trust me, I will not be trying for another year

And if you find yourself typing 'What!  You can't make pancakes?!', please delete and rephrase. My goo is punishment enough. You have been warned begged. (If you're desperate to cure my pancake making skills, I suggest you wait until January 2012 at the earliest.)

But it reminds me every year, as I sweat and mutter, finally thinking - ah!  I know how to solve this now!  - only to find I've run out of batter (and yes sometimes the batter is the problem, but not always - I vary in my terribleness), it reminds me that for all the things that many people find easy, someone somewhere will find them hard.

What comes easily to me can be horribly difficult to someone else, and vice versa. We are so quick to say 'but it's so easy!!' when confronted with a struggle over something that we simply do not find difficult. But in reality, our judgement is what comes too easily, our impatience over what we could do so much better ourselves - which is not something we will often admit.  

Saying 'but it's so easy' in these circumstances is not encouragement, it's a dismissal of a genuine problem.

Saying 'but it's so easy' to someone who is struggling deeply can be placing a huge stumbling block in their way.

So each time I make my attempt at a pancake - a basic, unexotic pancake - I'm reminded that there are those with far deeper problems than this. Problems that we are often in danger of dismissing as 'easily' overcome - when for that person, they seem impossible. We need to encourage them in the same way as we would cheer someone running a marathon - recognising, not devaluing, the sheer effort involved.


Image taken from BBC Good Food Website - no way was I showing you my goo

3 comments:

ang said...

Andy; What is for tea tonight?

Lucy: Can I refer you to I Kings 17 [NEV] - "the woman said to the prophet, I have a little flour and oil. I shall make a pancake, and we shall eat it and die"

joking aside - pancakes are NOT easy to get right. And other life skills come naturally to some and not to others.

thanks for another goo[d] post! blessings xx

Anonymous said...

Lucy, I empathise. I have trouble too. Part of the problem is I only make them once a year; maybe if we made them more often, practice would make - if not perfect - then at least acceptable pancakes. Blessings
Debbie

Lucy Mills said...

Angela - thankfully Andy had Sainsburys' pancakes up his sleeve! Alas since I am dairy free I had to have rice milk goo (instead of last year's dairy goo).

Debbie - I've often thought that myself...some years I almost get it right on the last pancake!! (Not, alas, this year.)

"The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people."- Richard Foster