Pancakes

During the twelfth year of training at the Monastic Academy for the Preservation of Life on Earth, Forall’s mother came to MAPLE for the funeral service of a family friend. Her visit happened to coincide with her birthday, and Forall decided to make her pancakes for breakfast. (This was both a birthday offering and a way to accommodate her dietary sensitivies.) I was cooking breakfast that day, attending to other dishes we would serve, while Forall made the pancakes himself. He worked with great focus and diligence, using the pancake batter to shape letters that would spell out “HAPPY BIRTHDAY.” I noticed that he had to attempt certain letters several times—the bar across the middle of the A, for example, kept coming out wrong. I suggested to him that he could use a spatula to drag the batter from one leg of the A to the other to create the bar, rather than trying to dribble the precise amount of batter needed in the right spot. Without looking up from his work, he replied, “I won’t compromise, Zopa.” Eventually he produced a couple of As that were suitable to offer his mother, and the rest of the community got to eat the leftovers.