DESCRIBE NOT PRESCRIBE

DESCRIBE NOT PRESCRIBE

“What am I doing?”  It is a question withdrawn from my thought bank frequently. I don’t dwell on the question and obviously it is redeposited because it is withdrawn repeatedly. Imagine my surprise when a sustaining possible answer emerged.

“What am I doing?”  I am planting a seed in me and hopefully in you. I describe with words what I see or have lived or seen and what I feel or have felt. I don’t desire to prescribe what you feel or do with what I share. The seed is my description. I can no more dictate (prescribe) what will happen to the seed should it penetrate your soil than I can the seeds that I will soon sow in the dirt surrounding my house as spring approaches.

Every encounter, be it human or with nature, is a seed…and seeds can come from or can be deposited in those who are near the cradle or near the grave.

I don’t interact often with babies or toddlers. I am amazed with their wonderment and curiosity about ordinary things…a green leaf plucked from the neighbor’s shrub, the dried brown maple leaf blowing across the lawn, or the small rock scooped up from the playground. Extending a small hand and offering the item to me pulls me into their world of curiosity and wonderment. Why this leaf – why that rock – what do they see that I have grown too jaded to recognize? The seed of curiosity lands on fertile ground.

I was greeted boarding a plane by the chief airline attendant at the threshold with, “Wait a minute” (which turned into several). No other greeting or acknowledgement was uttered. Her demeanor toward me, the customer, suggested that she may have missed the exit ramp for other employment several times - that I was interfering with the flow of her work. She cast the seed of annoyance on my soil – soil already broken by standing in the security lines far too long. After four hours of flying and coming through immigration, I decided that her attitude would not prescribe the seed to be sown in my soil. I can travel and do things that make me happy. Others like the attendant, travel but are perhaps working beyond the exit ramp to other employment for reasons I don’t know. Seeds can be anything: questions, doubts, tears, fear, mourning, grief, pain, laughter etc. I traded the seed of annoyance for a seed of gratitude and compassion.

I can describe how I felt from both encounters. I can tell you what I think is germinating and potentially sprouting in my soil. Hopefully, the fruit of the seed will be deposited into my bank of conscious thoughts. What I cannot do is prescribe what you feel or will do with what I described. However, I can hope that a seed will sprout in your soil, the reader, and awaken something that enriches life.

Ecclesiastes 11:6

PONDER THIS THOUGHT---“Wisdom is not in the fruit, but in the seed” P.S. Jagadeesh Kumar.