Sowing and Reaping

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest that you reap, but by the seeds that you plant.”
​~ Robert Louis Stevenson

     There is nothing to harvest in the greenhouse yet. In fact, there won’t be any substantial harvest until the summer is past and I’m away at college. But, we do have seeds planted. Last week, we planted lettuce and kale seeds. This week, we planted broccoli, cucumbers, and more kale. There’s nothing to show for that work yet, except tiny little sprouts in the beds planted last week.

     I was thinking this week, though, (there’s a lot of time for that while you’re weeding) that planting seeds and helping them grow has some connections to life outside of the garden. And it goes beyond the obvious life cycle parallels. I was always told that any nice things I did were seeds planted in people’s hearts. Seeds of encouragement. Seeds of hope. Maybe just a seed of a thought that in today’s troubled world, people are still capable of showing kindness. Those seeds rarely ever produce something immediately. They require patience and persistence. You may only plant the seed, and another person may water it, and still another person may be the one to experience the harvest. But, nothing can grow without a seed. So every act of kindness, no matter how small, is important. It may take years to produce a harvest, but eventually, it will. Just like the seeds in the greenhouse will grow into full plants and produce food to be used in the ACS cafeteria, the seeds of kindness that we plant every day will grow and produce their own harvest. In both cases, it’s well worth the wait.
                                                                                                                                                                                                ~ Serena Bacon