Give Me Fruitful Error Full of Seeds

The Season of Hope:  A Community Day Center Blog on Food, Gardening and the Human Spirit

GIVE ME FRUITFUL ERROR FULL OF SEEDS

May 22, 2012

Over the last few weeks, many seeds in our garden have started to sprout.  First it was the radishes, standing in a tight row and jostling each other under the sun.  Then, come the pea shoots, swaying in the breeze, looking so gangly that we thought they might topple over.  Newly sprouted spinach make lame attempt to masquerade as fat blades of grass, while the collard greens and Swiss chard competed for our attention.  Even the potatoes are stirring in their most unnatural habitat of 2 synthetic bags.  We can spend all day marveling at the infinite possibilities these seedlings represent:  the promise of long, warm summer days; visits by butterflies and bees, the sharp crunch of that first bite into a radish; the sweetness of freshly steamed peas; spinach salad with plenty of beacon bits still warm.  Then, we read about two brothers in China who buy fresh vegetables from the market and turn them into musical instruments – carrot panpipes held together by leeks, Bok choy harmonica, yam ocarina, etc. – with which they perform concerts of traditional songs and modern pop tunes.  (To watch:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17340348).  We realized instantly that we have utterly misconstrued the potentials of vegetables and the purpose of seeds.

radishes and carrots in tight rows

pea tendrils

 

spinach

potatoes

Ask any one where does a plant’s potential lie and you are likely to hear the usual adage:  that the entire fruit is already present in the seed; or that from an acorn a mighty forest will grow; or that all the flowers of tomorrow are seeds of yesterday.  We are told to Judge each day not by the harvest we reap but by the seeds we plant.  So what is a seed?  A Botanist will say that a seed is the union of male and female genetic material from flower(s) and has three parts:  the rudiment of future roots, stem and leave; an energy reserve (which is why we find seeds so nutritious) that will enable growth; and an outer coating that protects the seed before it is ready to germinate.   A geneticist will say that a seed is the message that one generation of plants pass on to the next in a game of “broken telephone.” Overtime, that message --that is, the manifested characteristics of the plant -- is no longer the same as the original one.    Because of this tendency towards genetic variation over time, an ecologist will say that a seed is the plant’s ticket to travel.  Diversity is the plant’s investment in the future and its preparation for a changing world.  Through genetic diversity, it is possible for some dispersed seeds to establish themselves under new environmental conditions.  This is how flowering plants conquered the world. 

edible pansies

The sentimentalists in us would say a seed – like a person -- is a paradox.  To reach maturity and bear fruit, a seed requires light and dark, day and night, genesis and destruction.  It must break its protective outer layer, before it can begin a new live.  The poet Mary Sarton (http://www.languageisavirus.com/may-sarton/writer_interview_with_may_sarton.php  wrote:  “… to be ever faithful gardeners of the spirit, [we must] know that without darkness nothing comes to birth, and without light nothing flowers.”  Each day, the guests at the Community Day Center live with light and darkness:  the darkness of living with little or no resources; the darkness of disability and addiction; and, the darkness of being relegated to the margin of our society.  But, there is also light:  the light of a warm and safe place that serves a satisfying meal; the light of acceptance and friendship; and the light of the Center staff who understands that life challenges more than it accommodates, so works to foster new life from destruction, self-sufficiency from crisis.

 In darkness, Richie confesses,“ I found it easier to cope by drinking and using substances to get me through the day…my military experiences…my divorce,”. Angel wants to work, but people are not hiring.  The economy is pretty bad so it is hard to get a job. “I am an alcoholic.  Sometimes I put myself in bad shape and depression doesn’t help.”   Jay has been through detox and rehab, but said they weren’t what he needed.” That is why I come here (Day Center) all the time because I feel like this is family. I am not alone when I am here.  You did it.  You put that lump in my throat.  That is why I love this place. I keep that happy face when I am here.  As hard as this is for me, well this is my medicine too,” said Jay.

Even as our guests are taking one step in front of another to escape homelessness, they are shedding light to others.  Not with money because they don't have much, but more importantly of themselves. When a man was left at the bus stop, Patrick brought him to the Day Center and showed him where to go for food and services. Once in a while Steven would purchase deli meat and tomatoes from this food stamps to add to our grilled cheese sandwiches. Ron, Bernard, Oswaldo help us with planting and watering the plants in our garden. Others like Jay, Angel, Walter would unload my groceries, clean the kitchen or bring out the trash.  Each of our guests do this without complaints (my children, are you reading this?) because they believe and appreciate what we are doing at the Center.

Yet, if we think of light more broadly, we will see how our guests at the Center also shed light on our world.  (Just as we now see vegetables as food as well as musical instruments.) Reflecting on Emily’s blogs from the week of May 14th, we see that our guests taught us a great deal about how we make decisions under the condition of extreme resource limitation.  Our food choice is driven by a multiplicity of factors among which consideration of health must compete with the exigencies of hunger, cost, availability of free food, and accessibility to ready-made food.  Emily’s interviews with our guests revealed that how we prioritize is often a function of how we must manage our immediate circumstances; and this affects our ability to balance short-term satisfaction against long-term benefits. Importantly, Emily’s blog also points out that, absent knowledge, our good intentions may not translate into the best charitable actions we can take – e.g., donating sweet, high caloric food to shelters and soup kitchens.  With this understanding, we can begin to chart a way forward to advocate for and provide healthy food for our guests.  In a larger arena, such understanding can guide the development of policy and social safety network that has at its heart the actual experience and perception of the people to be served.   Vilfredo Pareto (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency), whose development of the concept of economic efficiency is revered by generations of economists, declared:   Give me the fruitful error any time, full of seeds, bursting with its own corrections. You can keep your sterile truth for yourself.  This time, the economist is right.