It is said that every action has a consequence, that we reap what we sow. They sometimes talk too little about how to sow, what to sow, and why that sometimes results in a different harvest than we expect. As I planted seeds yesterday for my spring garden, I realized that I bought the wrong variety of something again, meaning that instead of green beans, I will have string beans if I plant these, which is not what I want. When you look at the packages of seeds, you trust that what they contain is accurate. However, some plants out back right now are going to seed because they aren't actually the type of radishes I expected. Rather than eat them, since I didn't expect them, I left them, unsure what to do. Then, there's the surprises in what appeared to be a bounteous harvest because I neglected the proper care and nurture of the garden. I have hundreds of beets. They are unfortunately all the size of a pea because they didn't get sufficiently thinned when young.
Sometimes, we are tricked into planting things we didn't actually want. I tell my students every term that each decision I would change is because the information on which I based my choice was either incomplete or inaccurate. When I went into science as a career, they told us we could earn $30,000 to $80,000/annum. What they didn't tell us is that those are average numbers, that most people earn near the bottom, and that the highest wages are not for science but for management. When I went to college, they told us that Biochemistry was the hot career, but when I graduated, the market was flush with unemployed biochemists from companies bought up for their patents and not for their personnel, and now most colleges don't even offer Biochemistry degrees. You make a choice, and you hope that the contents of the package actually match the packaging, but sometimes even if it's not maliciously minded, someone pulls a bait and switch, and instead of radishes you end up with horseradish. That's great if that's what you expected, but it's not what I expected, so it doesn't lead anywhere I planned to go. Even worse, sometimes in the middle of the night, some fiend breaches our field and sows tares among the wheat if we're lucky or burns down the garden completely while you sleep.
Each of us has a requisite responsibility to actualize the outcomes we hope. I detest those who believe in Jedi Mind Tricks, the Secret, the Power of Positive Thinking, as if all we need to do is think happy thoughts and whatever we wish will appear before us. As much as I love the garden, I know there is much to do to prune and dung and dig about the yard. I didn't thin the beets enough, so my beets have amazingly luscious greens but very tiny bulbs. The tomatoes drown out some of my herbs. The string beans nearly choked out other plants. I go out every day during the summer to water everything and make sure it's not only alive but thriving, but some things didn't get the attention they deserve. Too many people are "waiting on the world to change" and too many others are changing it in ways that won't lead to the world they claim they desire. I watched four people right in front of me buy groceries with food stamps, all of whom were smartly dressed, and although their lives are probably peachy, it's not creating the right kind of world.
During Sunday School today, I reminded my class that people find a way to achieve what they truly desire. If you want to harvest pumpkins, you must plant pumpkins. I don't care how much "positive thinking" you do, you can't will a pumpkin seed to bear watermelon as its fruit. If you want something, you find a way; if not, you find an excuse. You must be sure that what you plant leads to the end that you desire. Cauliflower is not steak; cows do not give pork; your garden watermelon will not look like those in the store. God plants good seeds in us, but because of sin, He mostly seems to harvest lemons. On top of that, we're very pessimistic about it, unjustly ascribing things to Him while we ignore that there are things exigent to our control. Other people are free to plant what they like, work on their gardens as they like, and grow things we happen to dislike. They have agency too, but all too often we blame God for not forcing them to grow things that validate us. If we don't remove the weeds from our garden, they may choke out our crops, and if our neighbors don't remove their weeds, they may seed into our lives and choke out our substance as well.
My garden provides both sustenance for my life as well as lessons about life. I never thought as a college student that I'd think and talk so much about the pastoral, but as a plant scientist, I realized that everything begins in the Garden. God planted us there, tried to teach us, and then when we learned how to do things God knew put His garden at risk, He cast us out until we learned enough to return to His presence without wrecking it. Our lives teach us the necessity of work, the prescience of planning, the relationships between cause and effect, and the sweetness of the harvest. We reap what we sow. We sow what we truly desire, we nurture what we want to bear fruit, and we learn to recognize the weeds or foreign seeds from the ones we actually want to keep. I am learning in my garden what God needs me to know in order to be of use in His garden. I am sure there will be more lessons, but for today, this is an early spring.
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