{"id":2446886,"date":"2019-07-28T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-29T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=310258"},"modified":"2019-07-28T21:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-29T03:00:00","slug":"paul-andersen-is-your-life-microwave-or-slow-cook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/paul-andersen-is-your-life-microwave-or-slow-cook\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Andersen: Is your life microwave or slow cook?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A combat veteran named Shawn is my latest, greatest contemporary philosopher. A returning moderator and co-leader for last week\u2019s Huts for Vets program, Shawn is a Thoreau-back for living a deliberate life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI decided that my life should not be on microwave. It should be on slow cook,\u201d he says. \u201cWith a microwave, there\u2019s no savor, no flavor. It\u2019s just done, and that\u2019s it. With slow cooking, you smell the food before you eat. It\u2019s all about slowing things down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shawn is a hulking mass of a man who knows what it\u2019s like to be \u201coutside the wire\u201d when he was on a combat deployment to Iraq in 2006-07. His honors include the Bronze Star, Combat Action Badge and a Meritorious Unit Citation. He came home, as have many veterans, humanized by war.<\/p>\n

Shawn has a strong appetite for life. On his first Huts for Vets trip last year, he underwent a crucible on the 10-mile trail to Margy\u2019s Hut. \u201cThat hike almost killed me,\u201d he grimaces, \u201cand for the first time in my life, I was vulnerable before my wife.\u201d<\/p>\n

His wife, Jodi, was also on the hike that year. As Shawn puts it, \u201cShe waltzed up that trail coaxing me on.\u201d It is important to note that Shawn was pushing 300 pounds that year. His arms were bigger than my legs, and it was hard to tell which was the mountain and which was the man.<\/p>\n

After being humbled on that trip, Shawn vowed to change things, so he worked off 80 pounds, something he credits to the keto diet and a committed regimen of exercise. Now he\u2019s a lean, trim 220 \u2014 \u201cmy fighting weight,\u201d he calls it. His arms are still bigger than my legs.<\/p>\n

Shawn explained how the microwave life is a quick heat, a fast fix, a timed frame of living that\u2019s measured by seconds. Shawn decided not to live that way, so now he\u2019s a slow-cooking measure of humanity. (Try slow-cooking Shawn, and you\u2019ll need an industrial-sized crock pot and a lot of patience.)<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I go to church,\u201d explains Shawn, an ordained preacher, \u201cI like to put a roast in the oven on a low temperature and slow cook it. When I come home, the smell of that roast permeates the house with a savory fragrance that gives everyone an appetite.\u201d<\/p>\n

Slow-cooking Shawn is thoughtful, receptive and open to ideas. That\u2019s why we invited him back to Huts for Vets as a co-moderator and trip leader. Shawn is a thinker, and he articulates his views like the loquacious preacher he has become.<\/p>\n

His views are worth listening to because Shawn exemplifies the many thoughtful and somewhat troubled veterans who have become philosophers in the aftermath of combat experiences that have pitted them against the big questions: life, death and the meaning of existence.<\/p>\n

If one is to examine moral injury \u2014 perhaps the most accurate description of the psycho-emotional damage from war \u2014 that examination requires the objective persistence of philosophic depth. You don\u2019t get that with a microwave. It has to slow cook.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not what American culture seems to foment where most of us live on microwave settings, getting things done in a hurry without the tempering of deeper thought. Things may get warm and edible, but they may not be tender, succulent or truly palatable. Only slow cooking does that.<\/p>\n

But many of us don\u2019t have the time for slow cooking because of too many commitments and too little space on the day timer. So life becomes a hurried, fast food affair; something to fill the void, but not always to feed the soul.<\/p>\n

Shawn reminded me of the traditional values in which I grew up \u2014 before microwaves \u2014 when my mother flavored our home with a Sunday dinner, taking the time and care that goes into a heart-warming meal to be shared with others.<\/p>\n

Slow cooking requires care and patience, key ingredients in the recipe of life. Shawn dispenses that recipe as he preaches, whether to a congregation at a church or to a group of fellow veterans on a wilderness peak.<\/p>\n

Paul Andersen\u2019s column appears on Mondays, and he may be reached at andersen@rof.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A combat veteran named Shawn is my latest, greatest contemporary philosopher. A returning moderator and co-leader for last week\u2019s Huts for Vets program, Shawn is a Thoreau-back for living a deliberate life. \u201cI decided that my life should not be on microwave. It should be on slow cook,\u201d he says. \u201cWith a microwave, there\u2019s no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2446886","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-22 05:20:43","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2446886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446886\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2446886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2446886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2446886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}