On My Mind: Sowing The Seeds Of Discontent

"As I myself have seen, those who plow iniquity

and sow trouble and mischief reap the same."

Job 4:8

Children in the garden getting the job done!

Learning to work together for a better tomorrow.

The above verse of Scripture came to my mind today after 

I read an article on the front page of our weekly community newspaper

concerning a children's garden project at a local public school.

Entitled, "Project Grooms Gardeners" I was impressed by 

this story of a special education teacher interested in teaching

children how to develop a love of gardening. 

Gardening is one of my favorite hobbies too.

I think learning how to grow and maintain a garden as a

 regular part of school curriculum, where children are permitted

  to get their hands dirty while planting seeds and pulling weeds

is a marvelous idea.  The end result of beautiful, blooming flowers or 

 tasty vegetables will hopefully awaken the kids' natural sense of curiosity

as well as spark their creativity and might just inspire many

of them to develop a lifelong love of growing things.

However, as I read the article further, the teacher/ project coordinator went

 on to say, "When you're looking at the green industry, the focus of it and

need for innovators, it's a industry dominated by older white males.

We need children to come in, we need girls and minorities, we're

not saying everyone else can't come in, but we want children to

look at this and recognize it's a lucrative future."

So, the enterprising project of growing and nurturing tiny seeds into

a thriving garden of beautiful plants quickly dissolves into the pushing

of a political narrative with the words, "dominated by older white males"

reflecting the current trend promoted by certain people groups within our 

 troubled nation to disparage the white race.

What do these words spoken by this teacher/project coordinator have to do 

with teaching kids how to plant a garden? Am I overreacting here?

Absolutely nothing and I don't think so.

"Bad Teacher, Bad Student"

How can she state that the "green industry"

or what us common, non-politically correct folks 

recognize as agriculture, has been dominated only

  by white men of  a certain age group?

   This is not only untrue, but, clearly reveals the underlying

ignorance and obvious racial bias of this teacher.

"...were not saying everyone else can't come in..."

Just who is "everyone else" here?

I am a white woman of a certain age group who

clearly remembers buying a bushel of beautiful sweet potatoes

from a road stand owned by an older black farmer 

several years ago.

However, if  I had been the one being interviewed here and 

 glibly opined that, "the green industry" a.k.a. agriculture

was a field which has been primarily dominated 

 by "older black males"  I am fairly certain that

the newspaper would not only have edited my words,

but perhaps accused me of being "racist" as well.

Why not teach our children, regardless of their sex, race and skin color,

that agriculture once flourished in America in centuries past, and that

 many people, regardless of their sex, race, and skin color, courageously

set out to carve better lives for themselves by taming the wilderness 

of the frontier and farming the land?

Why not teach our children, regardless of  their sex, race, and skin color,

 that in order to plant a successful garden at school, or within their own backyard,

they not only need to educate themselves regarding the conditions of the soil,

but they need to practice both patience and practicality, not only

in caring for the seeds planted in the dirt, but with planting seeds

 which will produce good moral character and are cultivated within the heart-

seeds of kindness and understanding, compassion and mercy, happiness and hope.

"For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks."
Luke 7:45

So God Made A Farmer

Paul Harvey