What is salad? Is it everything? Did you ever notice that if you order a salad at a restaurant, that it’s green, with stuff like lettuce, tomato, onion, cucumber and some dressing? A salad has mixed, raw vegetables, right? Oh, okay, if you prefer, then you can make it with beets, beans, or some other cooked vegetables. Wait, there’s also salad where you can add meat, like pepperoni, ham bits, salami, you know, maybe make one of those antipasto salads. Of course, we want to remember that there are a few other variations, as well. There’s the potato salad, macaroni salad, pasta salad and the three bean salad.
Let’s also not forget about the salads that we serve as sandwiches, like egg salad, tuna salad and chicken salad. What is salad? What isn’t salad for that matter? I looked it up in Webster’s. It says, “Salad: 1) a cold dish of raw vegetables, as lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers, served with a dressing, sometimes with meat, cheese, etc. added. 2) A dish of any of various raw or cold cooked foods, usually sliced or chopped and mixed with (of all things) mayonnaise (yuck) or other dressings, as in potato salad, egg salad and tuna salad. 3) Any herb or green vegetable, as lettuce, eaten raw, as in salads. 4) A mixture or assortment.”
Some mayonnaise containers and some Miracle Whip jars actually say “Dressing” or “Salad Dressing mix.” I don’t remember anyone ever filling up their plate with fresh vegetables and then asking someone to pass the mayo, so that they could glob it onto their “salad.” I guess they mean potato, chicken or tune salad. I’m back once again to my question: “What is salad?” I guess anything can be salad. If you think about it, tuna and chicken salad are actually “meat salad.” If you baked them, they would turn, suddenly, into a casserole!
Life has many areas that leave the final interpretation up to the individual. That is simultaneously both empowering and alarming. It is the very reason why God gave us His Divine Word to guide us. Even that truth can be challenging to understand, because of the aforementioned challenges of self interpretation. The good news, however, is that we also have His Divine Spirit to help us discern the Word and rightly divide it in His truth. Listening to Him would then be a very important skill to perfect.
In my world, salad is defined in a much more narrow sense than the one which allows mayonnaise into it. I hope to hold the Word of God to the truth, without also limiting it to my own interpretation. I think I see why we have the salad bar. Blessings!

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