What's growing?

Decorative autumn corn

My friend Arthur writes:

"My parents owned a livestock farm from my high school years until after my marriage. I loved the farm and made it my home.

Many bags of seed corn have I planted, so I know first hand what takes place.

As the kernel of corn planted in the ground absorbs moisture from its surroundings, it begins to change. It is a slow process of molecule to molecule transferring from the soil to the kernel. Then several days later, the sprout swells and breaks through the tough skin surrounding it and heads towards the surface.

The sprout begins its life above the earth as a single green blade. It quickly becomes two blades, and then on upward as it gains strength from the soil.

Each day adds to its growth, until many weeks later it develops one or two ears of corn and they slowly "fill out," and the one kernel becomes hundreds of kernels. The promise of a single kernel of corn has been fulfilled, but the full ear did not appear first.

The kernel of Truth in the human consciousness develops much the same way. When the seed of some eternal truth first dawns on us, though awe inspiring and beautiful, it is not always fully understood until later. "

It has to grow in its own quiet way. If we love and nurture that truth, it will sprout and develop, send down its squiggly roots, and shoot up its slender blades.

Watching corn grow teaches us patience, hope, and expectancy. Just so, whatever we are cherishing in our thinking grows -- until it becomes part of who we are, how we think, and the way we live. And like the single kernel of corn, multiplies in its maturity to be shared among many and planted broadly.

Since this is true of whatever we are cherishing in thought, let’s be sure that what we are cherishing is something we really want to have become part of our lives.

The good news is that our Maker gives us the intelligence and wisdom to make these choices, helps us honor truth and goodness, the genuine corn, so much that there remains no entry for worldly weirdness to hijack our thinking and take it in unpleasant directions.

Want different results? Try something new!

And what, you may ask,

are these?

What would you do if you were one of many small Japanese grocery store owners, and watermelons were a problem? They are too round and rolly, and take up too much space.

Do you just live with the problem?

Creative Japanese farmers found a solution. Soon they were growing cube-shaped watermelons. While the melons are small, the farmers place them in a box, and as they grow, the young fruits take on the shape of the box.

Although this is a story about fruit growing inside a box, what a great lesson it serves for thinking outside the box!

How often we feel trapped because things “have always been” a certain way. Yet in the infinity of a universal Mind, there must be solutions even to situations that seem hopeless or discouraging. Adopting an attitude of hopefulness opens thought to new possibilities.

When our young family was applying for a mortgage to buy a home, I had unintentionally given an overestimate of my husband’s salary to our contact at the bank. When I discovered the mistake a few days later, I felt very discouraged. From what we had been told, his actual salary was likely to be insufficient for us to qualify for the loan.

We agreed to think outside the box of discouragement. Together we looked away from the economy and facts and figures, and instead to God as Spirit for solutions.

If this house was right for our family, we felt a universally good God would show us how it was to come about. If it was not the right place for us, then there was something more suited to our needs, and this caring God would help us find it.

As it happened, we qualified and lived happily in that home for many years.

While I didn't need to invent a box for shaping watermelons, I did learn an important lesson about being willing to take a new look at circumstances, to look for answers beyond the boundaries of how things appear to be.

Watching boys grow - one day at a time!

A time for reflecting on

unexpected thoughtfulness and caring

Kim, who has raised two, remarked early on with great enthusiasm, “I never knew boys could be so much fun!”

Her sincere joy shocked me to the core. At that time we had a daughter who was predictably feminine —dolls, an eye for pretty clothes, cheer-leading tryouts, boyfriends.

I would have had no idea what to do with a boy. So it was amazing to me that somebody my peer was finding this preschool male experience fun, stimulating, exciting. And her words came back full force when our daughter later presented us (one at a time) with two grandsons.

Yup, little boys in our lives for sure. We figured out what to do with them one day at a time, often following their parents’ lead, and praying a lot as well.

It was important then, and it is important now, to remember that these boys, and all children for that matter, have an infinitely wise and caring Father-Mother who looks after them, gives them wisdom to discern between good and bad, gives them good and productive ideas and the desire and ability to follow through with these ideas.

Case in point. The other day when asked if he felt older, the nine-year-old thoughtfully replied, “I don’t feel older; I just feel more responsible.”

In fact, he really is showing more self-restraint and consideration for others. And no doubt there was a conversation with a parent somewhere behind that statement. Boys grow up in very good ways, day by day.

His second-cousin is fourteen. As I was ready to leave the Christmas gathering this evening, he saw I had too many bags for one trip. “Would you like help carrying these out to the car?” he offered.

“Sure would!” I replied smiling inside and out.

Boys grow up, day by day. And it shouldn’t be amazing, but it is a wonderful thing to see responsibility in the form of thoughtfulness and caring replacing the stereotypes.

I second Kim’s statement of years ago, amended slightly. “Boys are so much fun, and they are amazing as well.”