Growing carrots

Forget-me-nots

How to expect a good result? In Bible talk: "the harvest"? I am sometimes asked in the practice what our part is. Do we make the good things happen? How can we support something good "out there"? Does it matter? And then I had to think about carrots.

I know how carrot seeds look, I know how to sow them --- and I know what to do in order to harvest good carrots. I do because my sister Beate and I grew up in a lovely historic yellow house with a huge back yard including a vegetable garden. 

Lets say, you want to plant carrots, you buy seeds and you realize at home that you grabbed by mistake seeds for forget-me-nots. What can you do in order to have carrots in your patch? Could you still plant the wrong seeds in the right way, water them and weed the patch properly in order to harvest carrots? Or tell the forget-me-nots, as they break through the soil, to better behave and become carrots? Nice try. So the true identity of the carrots is not in the soil, the rain, the sunshine, the patch, the person sowing the seed or the individual harvesting them. It is in the seed. It is in them, right?

​This week was published the wonderful article Let goodness grow by Cali McClure. In it she relates a council by Mary Baker Eddy, from her book No and Yes:
"We can rejoice that every germ of goodness will at last struggle into freedom and greatness, and every sin will so punish itself that it will bow down to the commandments of Christ, — Truth and Love." (p. 8)
Although we use the term "germ" today in a slightly different way than Mary Baker Eddy did in the late 19th century, it is still "a tiny organism", "a living thing". Comparable to a seed in some ways. What is comparable is their bittiness, their identification and purpose. How small, how mighty.

Every little seed or corn contains the superpower of the All of good, God. If you honor one thing you already honor the whole. Like a good gardener you can treat well the tiny seeds of goodness. Already the hint of a  good motive, an honest endeavor of a family member, authentic humility, the endeavor to overcome gripping fear, a healing process, a move towards reconciliation --- is a seed of good having in itself all the power of its own purpose. The gardener knows this by respecting the difference between carrots and forget-me-nots. Our pushing has its limits. 

The power is not in us, but we do play a part in this. The gardener part. Someone on this planet must honor the power just enough to stop waiting for the good things to happen. In order to make them happen. Christ Jesus was like that - honoring the supreme power, honoring Life so much that he could safely step aside and trust goodness to develop out of its own innate power. He speaks about the tiny mustard seed turning eventually into a large plant. 
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It is really a short distance from discouragement to productive mental activity and to a harvest. The distance is between a good human intent and true humility. Step over and remember the carrots. Stop feeding the fears - water the seeds and respect the creator. And trust the power of good to multiply - and enjoy the rich orange harvest.

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