Thursday 4 June 2015

Seeds for Future Seasons



I am fond of this little picture.  I call it The Seed Collector.

The crones in my family knew the importance of harvesting and keeping seed for the future seasons. 

Having grown up in the age of supermarkets we are so far removed from the source of our food that we don't even think about cows when we buy milk, or hens when we buy eggs.

All the skills my grandmother, mother and aunties learned as a matter of course, since being a wife and a mother was a certainty, such skills were not optional extras.

My one surviving aunty recently gave a man a few bean seeds because he complained that he couldn't get any beans to grow from the seeds he bought.  He called to say that he was harvesting enough beans to supply the neighbours with his crop.

The men in my family could build, make furniture, plant fruitful gardens, knew when and how to prune the many fruit trees they planted and maintain their homes until the day they died. I can't remember ever getting in a plumber or a painter or a roof repair man.  My father was in his eighties, up the ladder, painting the roof again for the year to keep it leak proof.

We grew up with supermarkets. My children grew up with malls.  We might do well to remember that nothing actually grows in there.

Although the malls are huge and high, they are not pyramids. They won't be seen on postcards or attracting sightseers on coach tours 1000 years from now.

Perhaps it's a good time to rethink how we use our free time. If you must sit on the computer, Google how to ...   Teach the new babies ...  Give television a miss.  Knit while someone else reads from a book.

Jesus save you and bless you.

 




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