What impact may Burien, that gem touched by the Salish Sea, have on communities we border and touch?
by Mike Hearl.
Well, we have finally arrived at “Y” in the acronym of S.A.L.T.Y… which, to refresh our minds, stands for: Soul – Adventure – Legacy – Transformation – You.
A most vast and complicated subject is it not, this “YOU”, the dear reader?
I’m not going to pretend to have some sort of “inside baseball” knowledge of what makes you tick. That would be most presumptuous. So, I’m going with a most essential insight offered by a respected authority: an itinerant Jewish rabbi from a “podunk town” in Galilee, recognized as a reliable truth-teller, who boldly stated… “You are the salt of the earth.”
There are two essential qualities of salt that will serve to help us get at the meaning of such an assertion. First, without the presence of salt there simply would not be any life on this planet. Scientific Fact: “In living organisms, mineral salts (sodium, potassium, chloride, calcium, among others) are found in virtually every living cell.” That pretty much covers the whole waterfront, right?
Speaking of “waterfront,” it doesn’t take some genius to point out that without saltwater covering 2/3 of the earth’s surface, we’d be in a heap of trouble. Read: No Ivar’s!! I like the fact that of all this extremely important saltwater bobbing around the globe, a bit of it touches shore and kisses the face of lil’ ol’ Burien. And where salt touches, good things happen. Here’s one of my all-time favorite quotes from Izak Dinesen (Karen Von Blixen). I liked it so much that I wrote it on an inside wall of our little beach house. (Much to the surprise of, and lack of permission from, my wife). “The cure for anything is saltwater: sweat, tears or the sea.”
That brings us to the second essential quality of salt. Since the dawn of humankind, salt has acted as a preservative, curing vegetables, meats, fish, etc., making foods edible and nourishing long beyond their “expiration date.” (Sidebar: If you want a fascinating read, pick up Mark Kurlansky’s book entitled, “Salt”). This power of preservation is accomplished by “inhibiting the growth and survival of undesirable micro-organisms and creating an environment that promotes the growth of desirable micro-organisms.”
Simply put, what salt does is produce an environment in which “bad” gets inhibited and “good” gets promoted. Don’t you wish you could just sprinkle this magic on some of those “undesirables” you come into contact with… and, you know, “cure” them?
YOU, sir, madam, ___________ (fill in the blank) have such power resident in you… after all, YOU ARE “the salt of the earth.” And the power you possess goes beyond just the micro-organism level. Big power comes with big responsibility. Especially when anything or anybody coming into contact with you can, or will, be changed… for the “good”… or for the “bad.”
Moving beyond the invisible microscopic level outward into the personal realm, here is something I know is undeniably true about you and your household. You touch your neighborhood. You are the “salt of the ‘hood.”
Let’s pull the lens back even further, zooming out, to consider the impact that Burien, that gem touched by the Salish Sea, might have on those communities we border and touch… White Center, Boulevard Park, Tukwila, Sea Tac, Normandy Park and last, but not least, that big, bad city on our north named after the Chief who hailed from our neck of the woods. Again, we possess the secret sauce that can create an environment that can inhibit the “bad” and promote “good”.
Soooo…the question becomes… do you DARE to act like salt… close by…next door… down the block… in the city… around the region? And there’s even a bigger question. One posed by that same itinerant Galilean rabbi … “If salt loses its savor, can it be made salty again?”
Stay SALTY,
Mike Hearl
