Oh, but life is good! Even with all the trouble in this world, there is a great deal to be glad about, as Pollyanna would say.
Some of my favorite things in this world are great music (of course), great musicians, and great conductors. I like good music, good musicians and good conductors as well, but truly great ones are rare and therefore more precious, like gold. The great music is the music that finds you wherever you are and transports you at the speed of light to unknown worlds, undreamed of by mortals. Great musicians are the magicians that work such magic and great conductors are the tour guides. Yes, great music is one of my favorite things.
I absolutely love a good party. It can be a plain old birthday party in someone's back yard or a fancy dress-up affair with all the right people. I just love being around people who are talking, laughing, having a good time and in general have forgotten that the bills have to be paid and the car needs to be fixed. Some of the best moments in life come when people are just people and they talk. I love it.
Aren't trees amazing? They are always beautiful. Whether it's the South American Ombu tree or just an ordinary Oak tree in your front yard, trees are a wonder. Some trees bear fruit like the Peach tree, and just keep giving, year after year when all you do is water them. Some trees have edible seeds like the Walnut.. Some trees like the Maple tree, have sap that flows yearly, making yummy syrup. Some trees are just plain beautiful, like the Mimosa tree with it's whispy flowers. I am in awe at the power trees have to not only produce oxygen, but to clean the air as well. That and a thousand other things make trees one of my favorite things.
Children are the supreme creation, in my opinion. I like people, but little people can be so charming, so innocent, so likable, so forgiving, so, well... just superb. I love how they can do something really dreadful like smear cooking oil all over your kitchen floor and five minutes later greet you with greasy hands and a kiss saying, “I didn't mean to!” I also love how with one smile from a three-year-old, suddenly the world just got a whole lot better. I love how they can say things that come right to the heart of the matter like when they give you that 'over the glasses' look and say, “You said you would help me yesterday and you didn't.” Children have a way of seeing through hypocrisy that sometimes makes parents uncomfortable. But if we didn't have those little people going around checking up on us once in a while, what would we end up like, I wonder?
Of all the things I love, the world itself would have to be the biggest. There are so many wonderful things to see and experience in this world. Everyone's neighborhood seems to have some great thing waiting to be explored. In fact, the place is just full of things to see and do. I love mountains, waterfalls, forests, plains, rivers, springs, canyons, oceans, cliffs, and every little detail about them. There seems to be an endless variety of landscapes in this world, and as if that weren't enough, there are people to match every one of them. I would like to take a trip around the world, and not just to travel from point A around and back to point A again but I would like to visit every place in the world and see every people, National Geographic-style. What I have seen so far has been great, and I can't wait to see the rest of this wonderful world. I feel like Robert Lewis Stevenson who wrote:
The world is so full of a number of things
I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings!
So, what are we waiting for?
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Suggestion of the Harvest?
I have a garden. I know that if I plant pumpkin seeds, I will reap pumpkins. The idea is so simple, even a child can understand. I want to eat pumpkins, so I plant, water, weed, harvest, store and finally eat them. But suppose I took my child into my garden in the spring and asked him to plant pumpkins but did not know or believe or teach the child about the rest of the process. Suppose I asked the child to plant pumpkins because I told him so, or because someone else said it was a good idea. Again, suppose I ask the child to trust me, that planting pumpkin seeds is a good thing, though I do not tell him why. And suppose there are other people around the child trying to convince him to plant whatever he wants, because it doesn't matter anyway. What would that garden look like at the end of the season, given these assumptions?
In the world of nature, the law of the harvest is just that, a law. If you plant pumpkins, you will reap pumpkins and nothing else. If you wish for watermelon with all your might, though you cry, scream, pass laws, threaten or cajole, if you do not plant them, they will not grow. Also, once you have planted those seeds, if they are not cared for properly, according to natural laws, those seeds will not mature. They must have water, proper nourishment, sunlight, proper temperatures and weeding. All of that must be done at correct intervals within the growing season, or the plant fails and there is no harvest.
Of course, all of this might be obvious to even the least educated among us. No one in their right mind would think of planting a garden without first looking at what they are planting, what the growing seasons is, what kind of fertilizer might be needed, etc. It is laughable to imagine anyone who would give a child a bunch of seeds, and say that they are good seeds, but would do and say nothing else. The child would fail, the garden would fail and there would be no harvest, except perhaps a harvest of weeds.
Life of every kind, including human life, is subject to the law of the harvest. Try as we might, we cannot escape the reality of that law. We all know people who have tried. They say things like, “It's my life and I'll live it the way I want.” And what they are really saying is, “I'm going to plant these weed seeds because I really believe, because my friends told me so, that I am going to get pumpkins, but even if I don't it's OK because weed seeds are easier to plant and don't take any kind of work to grow and I don't like work.” This world if full of people who try to live life avoiding the hard work of planting, watering, weeding, watching, fertilizing, and harvesting a garden. They think that it doesn't matter; that the law of the harvest does not apply to them. So, if at the end of their lives they are hungry, what is to be done?
In the same way, it is less than pointless to try to teach children values without connecting them to the source of those values and the law of the harvest. Just as you cannot plant pumpkins and expect them to magically grow, without nurturing and understanding, so you cannot plant values in children without connecting it to who they are and why they should do such a thing. To be more blunt: If we are only here by accident and if when we die that's the end of everything and their will be no accounting for our lives or no 'harvest' as it were, then what is the point of teaching anything? If there is no accountability then there is no purpose and we should just take what we can get until we die.
Why should we think that the law of the harvest ends with the end of our lives? Why should we think that we will not be accountable, when for as long as anyone has ever lived no one has ever been able to plant weeds and reap pumpkins? By the same token, why do people persist in trying to teach children moral values without any moral accountability? I know that I am accountable to only One. That is why I do what I do. Without the why, I'm just planting because someone said it's a good idea and as a result I won't take care to keep the weeds out, water it or anything. It's just a seed with no purpose, no connection. This law does not go away because we are ignorant of it. And children do not grow beautiful gardens or beautiful lives without understanding the law and the One who gave it.
In the world of nature, the law of the harvest is just that, a law. If you plant pumpkins, you will reap pumpkins and nothing else. If you wish for watermelon with all your might, though you cry, scream, pass laws, threaten or cajole, if you do not plant them, they will not grow. Also, once you have planted those seeds, if they are not cared for properly, according to natural laws, those seeds will not mature. They must have water, proper nourishment, sunlight, proper temperatures and weeding. All of that must be done at correct intervals within the growing season, or the plant fails and there is no harvest.
Of course, all of this might be obvious to even the least educated among us. No one in their right mind would think of planting a garden without first looking at what they are planting, what the growing seasons is, what kind of fertilizer might be needed, etc. It is laughable to imagine anyone who would give a child a bunch of seeds, and say that they are good seeds, but would do and say nothing else. The child would fail, the garden would fail and there would be no harvest, except perhaps a harvest of weeds.
Life of every kind, including human life, is subject to the law of the harvest. Try as we might, we cannot escape the reality of that law. We all know people who have tried. They say things like, “It's my life and I'll live it the way I want.” And what they are really saying is, “I'm going to plant these weed seeds because I really believe, because my friends told me so, that I am going to get pumpkins, but even if I don't it's OK because weed seeds are easier to plant and don't take any kind of work to grow and I don't like work.” This world if full of people who try to live life avoiding the hard work of planting, watering, weeding, watching, fertilizing, and harvesting a garden. They think that it doesn't matter; that the law of the harvest does not apply to them. So, if at the end of their lives they are hungry, what is to be done?
In the same way, it is less than pointless to try to teach children values without connecting them to the source of those values and the law of the harvest. Just as you cannot plant pumpkins and expect them to magically grow, without nurturing and understanding, so you cannot plant values in children without connecting it to who they are and why they should do such a thing. To be more blunt: If we are only here by accident and if when we die that's the end of everything and their will be no accounting for our lives or no 'harvest' as it were, then what is the point of teaching anything? If there is no accountability then there is no purpose and we should just take what we can get until we die.
Why should we think that the law of the harvest ends with the end of our lives? Why should we think that we will not be accountable, when for as long as anyone has ever lived no one has ever been able to plant weeds and reap pumpkins? By the same token, why do people persist in trying to teach children moral values without any moral accountability? I know that I am accountable to only One. That is why I do what I do. Without the why, I'm just planting because someone said it's a good idea and as a result I won't take care to keep the weeds out, water it or anything. It's just a seed with no purpose, no connection. This law does not go away because we are ignorant of it. And children do not grow beautiful gardens or beautiful lives without understanding the law and the One who gave it.
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