One True, Good Seed

Once, a kind and hard-working young man met a determined and faith-filled young woman. They thought they’d like to grow a garden together.

The two came in possession of a single, small heirloom seed. It was a humble beginning, but trustworthy counselors assured them it was a good seed — the kind whose desirable qualities had been carefully preserved and passed down from one generation to the next. Leading with faith and intuition, they planted their seed and began tending to it. They were new to growing plants and sure to make mistakes, so they arranged for a Master Gardener to live on their grounds. Here he could counsel, inspire, and dig about with them.

The heirloom seed had hardly sprouted when the Master Gardener advised them to build a fence around it. “If you wish this seed to grow and multiply, you must protect it. Animals and garden pests are attracted to the newness and the tenderness of your plant. The fence will keep them out.” When the Master Gardner showed the couple his plans for the fence, though, the couple was shocked.

“That fence would accommodate a very big garden,” the young woman observed. She stared at their single, sprouting seed, and thought of how vast the Master’s fencing plans were in comparison.

“Yes,” The Master Gardner replied. “But don’t worry. Your garden will one day grow into the fence, as you tend to it year by year.”

“It seems quite an upfront risk. What if we build the fence and our little seed fails?” asked the young man.

“Then you can plant another,” the Master Gardener assured him. “When you are in possession of a single seed it may live, and it may die. When you are in possession of a garden fence, you have set apart soil to cultivate, harvest, fail, and try again.”

And so the couple built a very big fence around a very small seed.

Their little seedling grew slowly, almost imperceptibly. It was difficult to be patient, especially when they compared their garden — if you could even call it that — to those of their neighbors. To the east of them was another young man and young woman, who’d newly gotten a start on their garden as well. They hadn’t started with a single, small seed though. They’d come into possession of a whole row of gloriously blooming rose bushes. What a beautiful start to their garden, and with little cost of work to them so far!

To the west of them was an old man and an old woman, with the most lush and beautiful garden. They seemed to possess every variety of life-sustaining fruit, and flowers that took turns blooming in great beauty. They had worked their soil for decades, and it was soft and rich in organic matter. Though they had reached an old age they could be found out in their garden every day, tending to what each season required of them.

Shortly after the young couple had built their fence, the old couple to the west came to congratulate them on finishing it. They too had built a fence when they were young and hopeful that their garden would grow.

“We hope ours looks like yours one day,” the young woman told them.

“Hope is a good start, but it’s work over time that will make it so,” the old man said.

“Your fence is a beautiful symbol of your commitment to put in the work over time,” smiled the old woman. “Congratulations to you both.”

“It’s what the Master Gardener advised us to do,” the young man said.

“If only that other young couple to the east would take his counsel,” said the old man. “Their rosebushes are healthy and thriving now, but they know nothing of pruning or insects or fertilizing. Without a fence, the deer will take their fruits. Without direction from a Master Gardener, their bushes are in danger of growing sick and dying.”

“I wish our garden was blooming like theirs is now,” the young woman sighed.

“Your fence and your Master Gardener are far more valuable than a row of rose bushes,” promised the old woman. “On the first day of a garden’s life, it’s the keepers of the garden — not the garden itself — who can tell me what it will look like 5 years down the road.”

And so time passed — for the young couple and their young garden, as well as for their neighbors to the east and the west. The Master Gardener helped the young man and woman protect their precious heirloom seed. They watered it, pruned it, and protected it from insects. It proved to be a durable, adaptable, fruit-bearing plant. When the fruits started to come they were many, and they were good. They also produced new seeds, and the couple was confident they could grow those seeds into fruit-bearing plants as well. As they worked day by day and year by year with their Master Gardner, they began to cultivate something they were proud of — something that could sustain them, and in time, others too.

The couple found, in time, they lost time and desire to compare their garden to that of their neighbors. They were growing something suited so perfectly to their own needs and preferences that it was impossible to compare to anyone else’s. The couple to the east, with their beautiful rose bushes, never would build a fence of their own. As the old man had predicted, their roses were eaten by animals and eventually, the bushes that were so glorious for a few thriving summers, got sick and died. They abandoned their garden with pictures for remembering and lessons earned by experience.

The old couple to the west would tend to their garden and mentor their young friends to the end of their lives. Before going the way of the earth, they would give their own carefully cultivated heirloom seeds to the young couple who was getting older and wiser with time.

“This is how we wish to be remembered,” they said. “To have the good seeds from our old garden grow in yours. Then one day, you can pass them down to another young couple getting their start.”

And so it would be. Just as the young woman wished it, their garden would grow to be as lovely as that of their old neighbors to the west. Unique — inasmuch as they were — but every bit as lovely. The Master Gardener would watch with great joy as his prophesy was fulfilled, and their garden grew into their fence, as they tended to it year after year.

“And to think we started with a single, small heirloom seed,” the now old man said to the woman, as they had become the neighbors to the west, staring out at their magnificent garden in the sunset of their lives.

How to begin, with a whole world to feed?

By nourishing just one true, good seed.