Reflection by Edgar Cahn
This kitchen is clearly not located in a McDonald’s. You don’t come to this kitchen for fast food. This tale is a celebration of place and what place can become. And here, place becomes more than longitude and latitude, more than a digital designation on a lifeless geodesic dome in a universe where geometry dictates the only relevant laws.
Place can become home where one sinks roots and relationships emerge. Think of what happens in this kitchen as a kind of photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is the process by which green plants use energy supplied by sunlight to convert inert carbon dioxide and H2O into a source of nurture that sustains life. “Photosynthesis is largely responsible for producing and maintaining the oxygen content of the Earth’s atmosphere, and supplies all of the organic compounds and most of the energy necessary for life one Earth.”
Like a living plant, this stove grounded in this particular kitchen absorbs the energy from TimeBanking to turn strangers into friends and neighbors into community. We are witnessing a kind of photosynthesis where TimeBanking supplies a process equivalent to what chlorophyll provides for plants. The photosynthesis provided by TimeBanking is a normative process powered by gatherings, reciprocity, and acts of caring that expand trust, create networks, and nurture a living ecosystem called community.
The newcomer’s energy channeled through an inanimate object called a stove located in a designated space called kitchen turned place into a living habitat on this living planet we call Earth.
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