Mixed Vegetables

 

        I came across a story I saved from many years ago, that struck me, as I was reading, as actually something profound, given our current state of affairs, within our country with all the racial tension being ramped up.

“There was a lady who was anxious to plant some early garden seeds and put her packages of seeds on the table before going out to prepare the ground.  When she had it all ready for planting she told her children to go in and bring out the seed packets.  The youngest came out and asked, “Can we mix them together, Mom?”  

           Thinking they were talking about the packets, she answered, “yes.”  Shortly they came out with an 8 qt. bowl nearly half full of seeds all mixed together!  ….the empty packets left in the house!  The mother just stared in disbelief and the children couldn’t understand why their mother was acting that way, as they thought they did as they were told. 

          The father came up and couldn’t help but smile….so they planted 3-4 rows  of “mixed vegetables”….red beets, lettuce carrots and radishes….and are now waiting to see how it will turn out!”      (I’m not sure of the source of this but I think it was from an Amish/Mennonite Newspaper called “The Budget” some ten or more years ago!)

I’m sure this wasn’t written for the purpose of an analogy of how we should live in our country, but I think it provides a great picture of how God wants us to live.  

God, in his infinite wisdom, made the cultures of people very different from one geographic area to another.  I read once this has to do with climate and we are designed to better acclimate to our surroundings, given specific differences in skin color and facial differences.  That may or may not be true, but it is plausible.  

Because of modern advancements and people’s desire to make changes, our cultures have mixed over the years and each in turn has had to acclimate to a different climate and even cultural changes.  It’s made each of our cultures richer as we’ve learned so much from each other.  That’s a good thing!

There are those, however, who would choose create an environment of discontent, and while I won’t go into any specifics, I’ll just say it’d be a better world if we could, like the seed packets that got all mixed up in the anecdote I began with, to ‘grow together.’  It may require shifting our thought processes a little to allow for the ‘spreading of roots,’ but if we do it with a loving heart rather than anger and hate, it would be to everyone’s benefit.  

No person is better than another.  Some are educated differently, and cultures teach differently.  But in God’s eyes we are just his children and that’s how it should be.  Perhaps if we could see ourselves as seed in a seed packet, that got mixed up with others, it’d be a much richer world, as we would all produce our best, based on the SONLIGHT, and sunlight, nutrients in the earth, rain and snow for moisture, and the necessary nurturing any garden takes.  

Photo credit: free pictures of a mixed vegetable garden