Much more than it seems to be I think.
Aristotle called it the nectar of the gods. And 2400 years ago the prophet Isaiah said the Messiah would come eating honey so he might grow up knowing what was good.
Honey is certainly more than a simple jar sitting solidly on a grocery shelf.
It is the soul of a field of flowers.
It is a child with a sticky piece of toast learning that suddenly fingers taste good.
It is an unforgettable bear named Pooh pursuing a sweet obsession in a book a long time ago.
It is a going away gift for a Pharaoh on a journey into the hereafter-as everlasting as the gold ornaments that accompanied it.
Honey is Sunday breakfast with funnies and waffles and plates you'll clean up later.
It's the only justification you can think of for sweet potatoes-and still a good reason to lick your knife (when you're alone).
It's school days and paper sacks and thank goodness it's not egg salad again.
In a world of fastfoods and non-dairy creamer and artificial ingredients, it's the little plastic cup full of gold that somehow got overlooked when "progress" passed through.
Honey is the chapter they forgot to write in the book called "In Pursuit of Excellence." Yet its making is a marvelous work of nature that makes the best factories of man look disorganized, lazy and of very little real value.
Honey is the glow of beauty on the faces of striking women.
The touch of healing in a thousand remedies around the earth.
It is sweetness and life and its golden touch enhances our days from their beginning to the very end. And when at last the years have streaked our hair with gray and phrases like "darling" and "lambie pie" don't fit anymore, it is the one expression of pure affection that never wears out between us, "Honey, I love you."
Because honey is indeed synonymous with love itself. A beautiful blessing created in a mysterious way.
An expression of love and a special gift to man.
Dick Paetzke, 1987
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