Month: April 2024

How We See Each Other

by Rev. Lynne Hinton

There is a German folktale that goes like this: There was once a man whose ax was missing, and he suspected that his neighbor’s son had stolen it. The boy walked like a thief, looked like a thief, and spoke like a thief. But one day the man found his ax while digging in his valley, and the next time he saw his neighbor’s son, the boy walked, looked and spoke like any other child. (Feldman, Christina and Jack Kornfield, eds. Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart, 1991).

Have you ever thought about how you look at someone else? Do you meet them and size them up as this thing or that thing? Do you hold the image of someone in your mind based upon their worst action or maybe just the worst action of someone they remind you of? Or are you able to look at others with grace?

And how about yourself? Is it possible to imagine how God must look at you and find yourself using that lovely pair of mercy glasses?

I confess I tend to make judgments on others based upon what I think I see, what I choose to remember, what I imagine to be true. Sometimes I forget that more than one thing can be true about others, about myself and that maybe I have chosen the wrong thing to hold in my heart while in conversation, while at work, while in a relationship.

I like this folktale because it reminds me that too many times I make a judgment about another person and I hold that judgement to be true. Maybe they did steal my ax or maybe I just think they did; regardless, I greet them, speak to them, think of them based upon the narrative I created or cling to.

Sometimes I have been surprised. Sometimes I am face to face with my prejudice, my too-quick sizing up of another, my misguided perception, when someone altogether different from my expectations shows up.

This week, I invite you to try and look at yourself and at others with a new pair of glasses. I invite you to see yourself, other people, other beings, as God must see us all, with love, acceptance, and delight.

You might just be surprised at how wrong you have been. And you might finally recover or find the very thing that has been missing.

Too Many Beets in the Bucket

by Rev. Lynne Hinton

“You got too many,” I tell him. “I know,” he replies, “that’s why I’m thinning them out.”

I watch my husband as he pulls out the tiny red threads from the bucket of soil. A few weeks ago, he threw a handful of beet seeds in a blue plastic bucket and now they’re all springing up. It’s kind of miraculous to bear witness to life bursting from seeds; but it’s also not very productive; it’s not good to plant that many seeds in such a tiny plot of earth.

Beets are one of several cultivated varieties of Beta vulgaris, plants grown for their edible taproots and leaves. We mostly just eat the roots; and if you want a good beet root, you got to give it space. In fact, you need as much, if not more space, to have the root grow into a delicious red ball as you need for the leaves to spread out on top of the ground. Thinning is required to grow this plant.

Author Wayne Muller writes about the need for thinning in his book, Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest. He writes about a friend sharing what she learned about thinning and pruning a garden in a letter she wrote him one spring.

In one of the Sabbath practices found at the end of every chapter, Muller tells the reader, “Frances writes to me: We have an abundance of growing vegetables…I couldn’t believe how you could plant seeds and then all this stuff would just come up with abandon. I knew I needed to thin those turnips and carrots – but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I thought maybe they’ll grow anyway. So I never did thin or prune… They also never did grow. Not one turnip did I get – although there were tons of greens.”

Muller goes on to say that “thinning is, as Francis says, making space for life. We plant so many seeds, and they seem so small, so benign, they take up hardly any space at all. But everything, as it grows, needs space.”

Spring is a great season for planting. It’s a wonderful time to throw out seeds and dream of a plot of land teeming with life. It’s the great season of growth.

But it’s also a great time to be intentional about what we’re hoping to accomplish, what we want growing in our gardens. It’s the season of plenty but it’s also the season of discernment.

As you enjoy the warming of the earth, the green bursting around you, the flowering trees, the blades and stems of bulbs breaking through ground, remember not to try and do too much, plant too many seeds, involve yourself in too many projects. Remember that thinning and pruning, discarding, letting go, is also a part of a healthy garden. Just remember and pay attention to everything you’re agreeing to do; and don’t plant too many beets in the bucket.