Peanut conjectured assumption

What I thought I knew turned out to be a conjectured assumption.

I do not know when I was introduced to George Washington Carver. It must have been in middle school, what we called junior High. Reading was challenging for me in those years, so I hated it and did as little of it as possible.

I came across a picture in my American History book. The black and white image was of a slight man standing in his laboratory wearing a white lab coat and holding a beaker or something. He was likely the only black man whose picture was in my history book. (Surely, that’s not true, but I would not be surprised if it were. I was living outside the capital of the Confederacy at the time.) I read the picture’s caption and was intrigued to overcome my hatred of reading and slowly read about this fascinating man. I have been fascinated by him ever since.

I learned that Dr. Carver discovered over 300 uses for the peanut. And an additional 100 uses of the sweet potato. But one thing I mistakenly credited Dr. Carver with was the invention of peanut butter.

(View a short video on YouTube, George Washington Carver “The Plant Doctor” Revolutionized Farming Industry at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdz8XTNttdc)

My middle-school years were lived out in Chester, Virginia, just south of Richmond. On the road between the two was a Planters’ Nut Store. On most weekends, a human-size Mr. Peanut, top hat, monocle, white gloves, and cane would be standing on the edge of the road beckoning us to come In. We could purchase a bag full of still hot-out-of-the-oven roasted peanuts in the store. I left Virginia feeling like I was leaving an old friend behind.

Just after finishing seminary, Jan and I moved to pastor a church north of Picayune, Mississippi. There we were introduced to “boiled peanuts.” People set up caldrons on the side of the road selling the nut. I tasted them once and consider such misuse of peanuts a travesty.

The first food I remember eating is peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. My grandkids taught me to call them “PB &J s.” (Should that be Pb & J?” I guess not since Pb is on the periodic tables as the metal lead.)

All that is more than I set out to write. Go back with me to Dr. Carver. I assumed that Dr. Carver included peanut butter in his three hundred uses. I was chasing this peanut of a blog idea when I discovered he did not!

The Aztecs and Incas are the first to grind peanuts into a paste. The US National Peanut Board credits two inventors with the earliest patents for modern peanut butter. A Canadian, Marcellus Gilmore Edson of Montreal, Quebec, obtained a patent for producing peanut butter from roasted peanuts in 1884. And in 1898, John Harvey Kellogg, known for his line of breakfast cereals, was issued a patent for a “Process of Producing Alimentary Products.”

(How many times in your life have you read the word “alimentary?”)

I am not the first to make that assumption. Nonetheless, I was blissfully wrong. Our friends and acquaintances around us have many ideas about God, His ways, and His purposes, which are more assumptions than facts. Listen closely to what the people around you say about God. You will probably discover that their theology is more based on spiritual fantasy and folklore than Biblical truth.

Here is some excellent advice from the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Thessalonians; “Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good.” (1 Thessalonians 5:20-21, CSB)

Listen closely to your preacher/teacher, be attentive to the author of your devotional materials, and diligently reflect on sacred Scriptures in your daily readings, but always give the final affirmation of your beliefs to the Holy Spirit’s leadership.

 I have found that consultation with others who are steadfast in their hunger for more of God is irreplaceable. If you commit your spiritual life to the influence of religious nincompoops, you will become a spiritual nincompoop and never realize it.

 “Iron sharpens iron, and one person sharpens another.” Proverbs 27:17

 “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you.” John 14:26

Photo – I took this photo late in the evening on the way back to Spokane, Washington from Mount Rainier National Park.