Planting and Plucking

Ecclesiastes 3:2b "... a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted."

Some people are born with green thumbs. Interestingly enough, the history of 'green thumb' presumably dates back to King Edward I of England. According to the Old Farmer's Almanac, King Edward I loved peas. He enjoyed fresh green peas so much that he had half a dozen serfs working to keep him supplied, a prize going to the one with the greenest thumb, presumably from hours of shelling.

I have shelled many a pea pod in my day. When the sun would shine mid-summer, my siblings and I would be dressed in play clothes and moved out the door to the half acre garden where all of my parent's plants lived and breathed. These memories seem to have a crusty, golden feeling to them, like an old mirror that has some rust around the edges but the reflection seems almost accurate. Walking toward the garden, late morning, the grasshoppers would have already started their click-clacking, the cabbage moths would be floating between dandelion patches and the mosquitoes would still be shaking off the morning dew.

We kids would be equipped with five quart empty ice-cream buckets or else five gallon water pails to collect the produce of the garden. As we approached the growing vegetables, it would be amazing to think that just 10 weeks before, these enormous plants had sprouted from seeds. Most parents think the same things about their kids when they get older, I think. I've heard so many adults say, "They just grew up so fast." It's easy for grandparents to say that; they aren't in the midst of diaper changing, discipline and sleepless nights when seven-year-olds are coughing every four and a half minutes. Someday in the not too distant future I will probably say the same thing about my girls and then I will have realized, I'm closer to grandparent's age than I am to a new father.

Off topic, sorry.

Planting wasn't so hard. Dad would bring out the old tiller, its rotating claws looking like a machine from a science fiction movie. The motor on that thing would frighten the dickens out of our gun shy dog while the cat, Ozzie, would simply yawn at the goings on. When the tiller started up, it was like a parade; dad driving (or being pulled along) followed by skipping young ones stopping to pick up a rock to attempt mothacide (I never did hit one of the cabbage moths but it was still fun). Tillers aren't fast but they are powerful and as dad finally hit the garden we watched the claws dig up the black dirt bludgeoning the clumps into small clods. We would follow behind picking up juicy worms to fish with. It was a good summer life.

The '80's were a time of small jean shorts and tank tops. Sunscreen was rarely used; nobody cared about sunburn. We spent hours in that garden. My dad and mom would put some seeds in each of our hands and tell us how far to space them. After we got bored, I watched my brother look around near the end of his row and dump most of the seeds in one tiny clump. Impatience is a necessary part of childhood.

For those ten weeks we watched the plants grow. What our hands had put in the ground, our eyes watched come out of the ground. At first they were just plain, small sprigs of green, but soon the leaves began to open and in the instance of peas, the tendrils of vines stretched for the sky seeking to grasp anything which to climb.

Just like kids. It seems like from the minute they are born they are looking for things to climb, things to pull them up whether chairs, hands, steps, light fixtures, garage doors or radio antennae on a large combine. Kids long to be higher, where the adults are, assuming life is much better at a higher altitude. It is most beautiful; they never stop reaching for the next step. Like peas, they reach one rung and keep going for the next all the while growing taller and taller.

During most of the summer, that's what peas do: they climb. Then, when the heat of summer beats down, the peas start to blossom. The fragrant blooms fill up the garden. It seems the whole world is filled with the beauty of the pea plant. Walking down the rows of peas, if you could step close, you could watch the fingers of vines wrap around the chicken wire fence as if holding on for dear life. They don't want to be on the ground - the air is much better up there.

Then, when the blossoms have come and gone, the pods form - first flattened, but then seemingly filled with moisture, they burst outward seeming to stretch the seems of the pod itself. They look like they'll pop like a balloon if you just touch them, but the pod itself is hard. It is weathered and strong as a safe. It can withstand quite a bit of pressure.

And there we were, we kids, in mid-summer pails in hand walking out to the pea plants to pluck from them the pods only to bring them back to the house to shuck them. It was not hard work, but to a child, anything repetitive is dull. We would hurry down the rows picking as fast as we could, missing many, but probably eating many more raw, right from the vine. There aren't many vegetables as delicious as the fresh sweet pea. They are quite a bit like candy, crunching between your teeth, squishing. Even the juice of the pea pod can be chewed and swallowed although swallowing the whole pod is not as enjoyable.

Sooner or later we would return to the kitchen hauling pounds of pea pods. We would spend the afternoon pulling back the tip which would pull the pea string (that's what I called it) to make opening the pea pod that much easier. Then, you would pop one end of the pod and run your thumb down the middle freeing each pea from its nest. By doing this, one's thumb would turn a nice, pea green. Thus, a green thumb.

We spent many a summer with brown skin, dirty-black clothes, and green thumbs. There is something inherently good about working the soil - planting and plucking. The cycle of life replicated every year gives life a complete kind of meaning and feeling. Planting means spring; plucking means summer, plucking up means fall when we would go back into the garden to free the chicken wire from the dried vines of the peas. But that is life; it is a circle.

And it is beautiful.

Mark 4 - if you get a chance, read how Jesus describes planting. Read carefully and find a little extra meaning behind the seed.