On Interstate 5 just south of Mt. Vernon, Washington, lives an enterprising farmer who hopes to hawk his wares to the thousands of travelers who drive past his property every day.
“OLD-FASHIONED HONEY” his sign announces in big letters. Beneath this line he brags, “Like Grandpa Enjoyed.”
What do you suppose this farmer is trying to tell us with his sign? Not just that his own honey is delectable. He’s also saying something subtly negative about the modern honey (in other words, the opposite of his “old-fashioned honey”) someone might foolishly decide to purchase at the supermarket around the corner. Isn’t he?
Does he intend for us to believe that his neighbors’ bees have developed a new, less tasty way to process pollen, while this advertiser’s bees still do it the time-tested way?
Everybody knows better, of course. Including the farmer who put up the sign. Words like “old-fashioned” and “Grandpa” are aimed at our hearts instead of our heads. They’re calculated to sell us nostalgia instead of nutrients, aren’t they?
Rustic honey merchants aren’t the only folks who like the feel of such words. What do you suppose a preacher is trying to sell you, for instance, when he invites you to an “old-fashioned” revival? Or when he bills his Sunday sermons as “old-fashioned” preaching?
Even more intriguing to me are the voices calling us to return to “old- fashioned values.” Are they implying that things like integrity in the marketplace and faithfulness in the marriage bed went out of date when Sony began to mass-market the cathode ray tube? Have virtues such as truth and loyalty been replaced with modern look-alikes that are neither true nor trustworthy?
The Washington farmer’s sign notwithstanding, you and I know that the properties of honey have not changed since the first bee buzzed in Eden. Nor have the standards of right and wrong, of good and evil, altered one iota since Time began.
Doing right won’t ever be old-fashioned.