Growing Good Corn

 
There was a farmer who grew award-winning corn.
Each year he entered his corn in the state fair where it won a blue ribbon...

One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about
how he grew it. The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbours.
"How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbours when they are entering
corn in competition with yours each year?" the reporter asked.

"Why sir," said the farmer, "didn't you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn
and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbours grow inferior corn,
cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn.
If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbours grow good corn."

He is very much aware of the connectedness of life.
His corn cannot improve unless his neighbour's corn also improves.

So it is in other dimensions.
Those who choose to be at peace must help their neighbours to be at peace.
Those who choose to live well must help others to live well,
for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches.
And those who choose to be happy must help others to find happiness
for the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all.

The lesson for each of us is this:
if we are to grow good corn, we must help our neighbours grow good corn.



The Seasons of Life


There was a man who had four sons. He wanted his sons to learn not to judge
things too quickly. So he sent them each on a quest, in turn, to go and look
at a pear tree that was a great distance away.

The first son went in the winter, the second in the spring, the third in summer,
and the youngest son in the fall.
When they had all gone and come back, he called them together to describe
what they had seen.

The first son said that the tree was ugly, bent, and twisted.
The second son said, "no - it was covered with green buds and full of promise".
The third son disagreed; he said it was laden with blossoms that smelled so
sweet and looked so beautiful, it was the most graceful thing he had ever seen.
The last son disagreed with all of them; he said it was ripe and drooping
with fruit, full of life and fulfillment.

The man then explained to his sons that they were all right, because they
had each seen but only one season in the tree's life.

He told them that you cannot judge a tree, or a person, by only one season,
and that the essence of who they are and the pleasure, joy, and love that
come from that life can only be measured at the end,
when all the seasons are up.

If you give up when it's winter, you will miss the promise of your spring,
the beauty of your summer, fulfillment of your fall.

Moral: Don't let the pain of one season destroy the joy of all the rest.
Don't judge life by one difficult season.
Persevere through the difficult patches and better times are sure to come
some time or later.
~author unknown~ 




The Seasons of Life - video