Lesson From A Happy Meal

I didn't want to dissolve my appetite for the wonderful dinner Bettyann had planned for us but I did need to get something in my stomach since I hadn't eaten at noon.  This diabetes, I contracted in my fifties, still requires that I eat regularly, which I still have not complied with but always have good intentions. So, while standing in line I thought of having a Kids Meal.  Not much food.  Then came a sense of embarrassment of sorts: "Is this for a boy or girl?'  I thought the server was asking someone else the question as he looked at me square in the eyes. No, he was asking me. "For a boy," I stammered.  While I sat there at the counter, eating and fiddling with the action figure I decided I could always use it as a give-away to a boy who might come with his father or grandfather to my shop.  Then I began reading all of the "stats," etc. of the morsels contained in box of which I was eating. It set me to wondering about a "flap" the food police had with McDonald's over something about feeding children fat or poison or whatever it was. 

For some unknown reason, the other morning ago I thought about it again and goggled an article from Forbes, entitled:  "Foods Tastes Better With McDonald’s Logo, Kids Say,” where the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine had showed where children overwhelmingly prefer the taste of food that comes in McDonald’s wrappers. The study had preschoolers sample identical foods in packaging from McDonald’s and in matched, but unbranded, packaging. The kids were then asked if the food tasted the same or if one tasted better. The unmarked foods lost the taste test every time. Even apple juice, carrots, and milk tasted better to the kids when taken from the familiar wrappings of which I had eaten a day or two before.  A Happy Meal! I suppose it made me happy if not quinched my appitite. “This study demonstrates simply and elegantly that advertising literally brainwashes young children into a baseless preference for certain food products,” said one doctor from Yale’s School of Medicine. “Children, it seems, literally do judge a food by its cover. And they prefer the cover they know.”  One of these times, I'm going to check it out, for myself, by surveying some kids eating when I order my next kids meal.

I really think that the science of advertising is often about convincing the world that books can and should be judged by their covers. Even before I check kid's opinion on the "greatness" of McDonald's food, I'm going out on the limb and say they most likely will testify that they like the taste of Mickey D's chicken nugget better than identical "nuggets from "grandmother's" stove purchased at Costco or Publix, even if grandmother makes the best mac and cheese in the world. In thinking a bit deeper, I realize that from an early age right through mine, branding has it's way in telling what I think and feel, who I am, what I love, and what matters.  Now, that's right down scary! 

Lest I blame television and marketing entirely for the trickery of brand recognition, I need to recognize that those rascal advertisers continue to have employment because it works. And oh how it works.  That is, long before marketers were encouraging customers to judge by image, wrapping, and cover, we humans were judging by these methods anyway. When the ancient Samuel was looking for the person God would ordain as king, he had a particular image in mind. In fact, when he first laid eyes on Eliab, Samuel thought confidently that this was the one God had chosen. But on the contrary, God said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”

As one who spent a portion of my early adult life in the study of "preschooler" development methodologies I am not too startled to see how that inherently nugget or carrot in a McDonald’s bag is the "best ever" to a young child. Yet how often am I, too, blindsided by mere wrappings, the cultural repetitions that mold me, the images and liturgies that shape my affections? Is the mistake of a child in believing the food tastes better in a yellow wrapper really any different than my own believing I am a better person dressed with the right credentials, covered by the latest fashion, repeating the right belief-systems? It's trickery! Covered in whatever comforts me or completely stripped of my wrapping, I'm still the same Bill - no pun intended.  

But according to one ancient writer, there is one exception. The Apostle Paul writes of a kind of clothing that changes the one inside myself. Thank you Paul for your taking on the inspiration of the Holy Spirit when you wrote in a letter to the Galatians: “All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” 3:27-28 

Unlike the catch and costliness of well-marketed wrappings, the robes he describes are free. The beautiful and difficult word of Christianity is that Christ requires only that I come without costume or pretense.

Father, God, only You see the many wrappings that I have collected.  I'm sure there are many that I don't even realize with which I judge the world.  This morning, I come to a place of surrendering them all. I ask You to take from my tired shoulders wrappings of self-importance and false security. Please tear from my determined grasps those wrappings of self-pity and shame. And then cloth my needful soul with wrappings of salvation, array me in fresh wrappings of righteousness, giving me the hopeful liturgy of Your presence, and remind me that I am wrapped in Your holy name from the inside out.  Amen