BANANA PERFECT

People who like bananas, like them ripened to perfection. I know because I live with and am next door to two of these people. There is only one problem with their wish for the perfect banana – perfection is the personal taste of the consumer, the grower, and the exporter of the fruit.

For the grower and exporter, the perfect banana is the shade of green it should be to reach its final destination, the supermarket shelf, as a medium light shade of yellow comprised of just the right combination of red, blue, and green. Generally, there is about a two-week period between the green fruit being handpicked, cut, washed, sorted, dried, and labeled for packing and shipped from Central and South America to the warehouse of your favorite grocery store chain. Cool air is continuously pumped through the bunches during the 1100 plus mile trip aboard a refrigerated ship. Conditions on the ship must be perfect. If the bananas get too warm – premature ripening. If too cold – dark spots and no ripening at all. Upon arrival to the warehouse and before the grocery shelf, they are ripened with a gas. Bottom line – it takes precise environmental control during shipping for my husband and next-door neighbor to get the perfect banana. Every banana aficionado will tell you that it is still not good enough.

Bananas are purchased for my home every two to three days. I will eat one occasionally. The other permanent occupant consumes one or two daily. Trying to pick the bunch of bananas that is just ripe enough to be eaten the morning after purchasing and not too ripe on day three is a challenge. Bananas after they are gassed are on their own timeline for ripe to rotting. The ripening can be delayed but cannot be stopped. The perfectly ripe banana is a fleeting moment. This is no different than the perfection we look for in others or in ourselves.

We begin as green unripe fruit. We take our fruit (talents, bodies, thoughts.) cultivate them to the level where we think that they can be presented to the world. Like the banana, we discover that if we don’t control our environment and carefully oversee ourselves, we end up not ripening, ripening too early, bruised, and battered. IF, we should ripen to “perfection,” it is a fleeting moment. The process starts over. Life is a cycle of green and growing to ripe and rotting. Our challenge is to not get stuck in the latter.

Philippians 3:12

PONDER THIS THOUGHT---Perfection is as slippery as standing on a banana peel.