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A farmer walks along the furrowed row, stopping every three feet, to place a potato start into the soil. His young son keeps pace, on the opposite side of the furrow, weighted with a burlap sack of starts, wholehearted in assisting his father. He places starts into the soil; unhurried, deliberate and methodical. There are times when he picks the start from out of the ground, in order to turn it, so that the eye of the potato may be placed at the exact angle.
The neighbor, who has been watching over the fence, decides to offer his opinion. "I see you're planting potatoes," he tells the farmer, "But I'll tell you this; it's going to take you a good long while at your pace. Let me tell you like it is; you'd get it done a whole lot faster if you'd plant this field by yourself."
"Well," replies the farmer, "that may be true, but I'm raising more than just potatoes."
Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything
that counts can be counted. Albert Einstein
While I agree with Einstein, we live in a word that weighs and measures, and there is more than a reasonable chance we'll be certain that we've come up short. I suppose it is because there are a lot of paradigms that trick us into believing the scorecard is still compulsory, and vital and essential for our identity and wellbeing. (I wonder when it happened? I wonder when we started living in a world where being somebody took precedence over just being.)
At the Religious Education Convention in Anaheim (over this past weekend), I am surrounded by vibrancy and activity and merchandise and opportunity and hope and bright ideas and incentive. . .and choices. Although I am lucky enough to talk with--and to--thousands of people, I still wonder if what I say or teach makes any difference. Lord knows why such mental gymnastics torment us. I suppose it is because we live in a world where seed-planting (or potato planting) plays second fiddle to posture and sentiment and social pressure (not to mention harvest ROI--return on investment).
Buy here's the deal:
The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind.
It needs people who live well in their place.
It needs people of moral courage
willing to join the fight
to make the world habitable and humane.
And these qualities have little to do
with success as we have defined it.
David Orr
I love what I do. Talking, teaching, entertaining. But, if I'm honest, there are times when I wonder why I still do "what" I do. While it may not have been answered today, it made a difference when a man approached me to say, "Thank you. For the last few years, I've been floundering. This weekend you gave me permission to embrace who I am, and where I am."
There may be an old story. But I love telling it. . .
As the old man walks the beach at dawn, he notices a young man picking up starfish and flinging them into the sea. Catching up to the youth, he asks a simple question, "Why are you doing this?'
The boy answers that the stranded starfish would die if left until the morning sun.
"But the beach goes on for miles, and there are millions of starfish. How can your efforts make any difference?"
The young man looked at the starfish in his hand and threw it to safety--into the ocean past the breaking waves. "It makes a difference to this one," he said.
I'm back in San Juan Capistrano. Outside the rain hammers the roof and patio and the wind howls. I feel like I'm home in Seattle. I've finished three days at the Anaheim Convention Center, glad for the interaction with old friends, and the connection with new friends. . .but am sorry I stayed inside and missed an exquisite and exotic full moon.
I am one, but still I am one;
I cannot do everything, but still I can do something;
And just because I cannot do everything,
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
Helen Keller
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