There seems to be a new buzzword these days - "feedback". Apparently, provided you call it "feedback" nobody is allowed to get upset even if you really rip into them, criticise everything they do and leave them a dejected and demoralized wreck. As long as you can say "hey I'm just giving you some feedback" then it is clearly all their fault if your "feedback" upsets them.

 But really when you think about it "feed back" is little more than a euphemism for throwing up something you ate. So next time you feel the urge to give some "feedback" to somebody try saying instead, "hey I just want to throw up all over you because something disagreed with me". If nothing else it might make you stop and realise it is probably much closer to the truth than you are really comfortable with. 

 But when Jesus said to Peter if you love me feed my sheep (John 21:17) He made it clear that there is a way to feed one another that is loving and nurturing as well as nourishing. However the way we feed others determines whether we are actually giving them food for thought or are simply "dishing it out".

 What is it about home cooking that makes it so much better than cafeteria cuisine? After all food is food is food isn't it? A carrot from the kitchen and a carrot from the cafeteria are both carrots, probably even from the same supplier. Why should one be any different from the other? And yet we would all prefer a lovingly prepared home cooked meal over the impersonal fare a cafeteria dishes out on any given day.

 Strangely enough the answer does not lay with the cook either. The answer actually lays in the relationship between the cook and the eater! What makes a home cooked meal so much nicer AND so much more nutritious and healthier than a meal dished out at the cafeteria is the bond of love that exists between the cook and the eater. So much more goes into a home cooked meal than what is on the plate. Each meal is the product of an intimate knowledge of likes and dislikes, individual needs and individual problems, capacities and incapacities, tastes and timetables  In short all those things that can only come from spending hours, days, weeks, and years of quality time and quality involvement with each other in a loving relationship that has genuine and loving care and concern for the other at its heart. The type of loving relationship that alone says "we are FAMILY!".

 So next time you are planning to give somebody the "feedback" you think they need, remember that unless you have taken the time and made the effort to spend quality time and involvement getting to know all about them in a loving and caring relationship that says to BOTH "we are family". And unless you are prepared to sit down with them, and eat that meal you are serving up together with them, as well as help to tidy up after then the truth is you are simply doing nothing more than impersonally DISHING IT OUT in the cafeteria of your own self-righteousness.

 D.J. Ludlow

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D.J. Ludlow copyright 2014

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