C is for CUCUMBER

OK I know this isn't much to gripe about but after all the effort, I'm left with just one cucumber. Four months of sowing seed, waiting, watering, transplanting, more waiting, more watering, more transplanting, even more waiting and watering, reading all the gardening guides online, following instructions to the last letter, watching those little yellow flowers form and eventually disappear, leaving behind what looks like a mini fruit and then finding that a month later that mini fruit is still just a mini fruit. And it happened again and again to almost every flower on every plant. By the end I had about a dozen plants, winding their way up bamboo canes, all looking perfectly healthy and green, flowering abundantly and it looked like I was in for a bumper harvest. But it never came. Too often the expected cucumber just became shrivelled and died. I read somewhere that maybe it was a pollination problem, that perhaps the pollen had been washed away during watering but I was never really sure. Anyway I kept tending the plants but they kept failing to produce. Except for one. And it made me so proud. Partly because I had managed to grow a cucumber against all the odds but partly because that one plant had delivered. I don't really think I made much difference in the end, but at least I didn't give up.

And then I thought about that parable Jesus told about the shepherd leaving ninety nine sheep all alone to go and search for the one that had got lost and how much he had rejoiced when he found it and brought it home. And I suddenly realised that my rejoicing over one cucmber growing is nothing compared to the joy that fills our Lord when He finds one soul that is lost and brings them home. I'm so glad He doesn't give up on us.

S is for SEEDS

My dad had a vegetable garden that you could reach along a narrow path from our house. The path was little more than a strip of grass, no more than two feet wide, that had been mown during the weekly lawn cutting exercise and so allowed easy access across a patch of part orchard, part scrub land that stretched to the boundary of the homestead. As soon as the longer nights began to appear, he could be found on many evenings, toiling away with a spade and grape, breaking up the soil from the previous year, adding some farmyard manure and eventually producing ten or twelve long drills into which a variety of seeds would be sown. Thus, by the time of the longest day, we were already sampling such delights as beans, peas, lettuce, scallions, cabbages and a few other miscellaneous vegetables that seemed to appear overnight but actually took months of preparation and care to produce. Maybe it just appeared that way because I didn't visit the garden too often!

And maybe that whole picture was somewhere in the back of my mind when the longer spring nights heralded a new growing season this year and my mind turned to all things green and edible that might be grown in the comforting and immediate locality of our back yard. And so it was, armed with a few seed trays, some small bags of compost and a bundled pack of assorted seeds that the whole growing process began to reenact the history of my childhood. You know I've always wondered why garden centres sell bundled packs of seeds that altogether cost less than the price of a single packet. It's like buying a value pack in a supermarket but I can't help thinking that there must be something wrong with the seeds to sell them so cheaply. Maybe they won't germinate or maybe it's just a ploy to get more people interested in growing plants. Anyhow, after several days in the warmth of a conservatory, the green shoots appearing proved that I need not have worried and soon it was time to transplant into containers that could cope with the future extensive root systems that had been planned. And so it went on, beginning with chives, lettuce, tomatoes, beetroot and even cucumber seeds and a couple of small 'plastic' mini greenhouses, I watched enthralled, as the little seeds I planted in April began to emerge into fully grown plants that by now are several feet tall in the case of the tomatoes and cucumbers and some, such as lettuce and chives have already made it into the summer salads. Just a few weeks ago small tomatoes began to emerge from the remains of the flowers and more recently a fairly large cucumber is rapidly taking over one of the mini greenhouses and just pleading to be eaten. Indeed the whole back paved areas is awash with green colour and edible plants providing a nice contrast to the many pots of colourful flowers that wife spreads around the outskirts of the homestead. And all produced from a few packets of seeds.

It's at times like this that I'm humbled by the Creator and His magnificent creation, His planning on how it all fits together and His infinite intelligence that creates a myriad of different plants from tiny seeds, some of which we can eat and others which just bring a dash of colour to our lives. And I'm humbled that amidst all this creation that I can see, He also created me and gave me the ability to think, talk and appreciate who He is and what He has done. But I'm also reminded of the great commission to tell the world of the Gospel, to 'sow the seed' and the responsibility that falls on every believer's head to spread that seed. How often I have failed to take opportunities to further the Master's kingdom and sometimes maybe i just didn't think the seed was precious enough. But when you realise that the seed you sow can give life for ever it sort of helps you to prioritise your life and everything else seems so much less important.

You know I've made mistakes in my gardening career. Sometimes I didn't read the instructions properly, sometimes I forgot to water, other times I watered too much but almost always the seeds germinated anyway. And you see, it is God who brings the harvest, not us, but above all we must, even in our imperfections be obedient and faithful and sow the seed.

Just a word of warning if the seed has already been sown in your heart. This year I planted some lettuce seedlings in a old length of spouting. Initially they grew well but within a few days they were all gone, courtesy of the greedy mouths of rabbits and birds. Jesus told a parable about such seed being sown in different places in Matthew 13 with varying degrees of success. Let me ask you, what is it that stops the seed growing in your life?

D is for DONKEY

Donkeys gets a bad press sometimes and possibly not always without some basis for that criticism. They've crossed my path on many occasions and enough instances are memorable enough to be recorded in the annals of my own personal history. We had a favourite Christmas single at home, called 'Little Donkey' sung by, I think, Nina and Frederick and describing the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem. I don't recall it occurring to me at the time that there is no mention of a donkey in the biblical Christmas story but I liked the melody anyway. I guess what more stands out in my head are the local sayings that are imprinted in my mind, such as 'I could eat the cross off a donkey' or 'flap you ears and pull like a donkey.' Less memorable were those occasions when you could be described as a 'big donkey' or even a 'stupid donkey' though by the very nature of the latter statement, the unsuspecting orator was suggesting that not all donkeys were indeed void of intelligence!

And this of course I know at first hand, having had the unforgettable but not memorable experience of riding a donkey on the beach at Newcastle or being part of a donkey train through the Gap of Dunloe in Killarney. In both situations the four legged creatures were well programmed and highly disciplined, always travelling at a predetermined pace and one soon became aware that the rider had absolutely no control over his legged vehicle and just had to sit there, enjoy the view and suffer the agonies of an uncomfortable bottom, accentuated by every uneven step. Some years ago I was reacquainted with the species when one arrived at the door of my home, close enough to ring the bell and with no obvious reason for being there or indeed leaving. So after some gentle persuasion, for I discovered that little else works in trying to move a donkey, it retreated from the front step and took up residence on the adjacent lawn. Eventually, following another period of discussion, we managed to move it slightly further from the house but never far enough away to be convinced that it wouldn't move closer when we were out of sight, which of course it did. Eventually after some time, days, I think, its rightful owner came and took it away though whether he was glad to be reunited, remained uncertain.

Such thoughts were in my mind as I rummaged through the book of 2nd Kings, reading all about those two great prophets, t he soon to depart Elijah and his understudy Elisha and it was with intrigue that I came across this verse in chapter 6 which stated, 'there was a great famine in Samaria and indeed they besieged it until a donkey's head was sold for eighty shekels of silver.' For people to be reduce to eating such an ignominious part of an animal that they deemed to be unclean and paying the equivalent of two pounds in weight of silver for the 'delicacy' gave some idea of the desperation that the famine was causing, though probably not as much anxiety as the sight of the Syrian army all around the city whose siege had resulted in the famine in the first place. It was Elisha who would predict, by divine guidance, that within a day the famine would be over and the Syrian army would have fled the scene, because of God's intervention and I suppose any remaining donkeys would be safe from the butcher's knife. And of course that is exactly what happened but something else in the story caught my eye. The first men to discover that the enemy had departed hurriedly were four lepers who had previously come to the decision that if they stayed at the city gates they would be killed, if they went inside the city they would die anyway so chose to surrender to the Syrians in the faint hope that they might get some food but knowing that if they should be killed, it was no worse a fate than they already faced. Imagine their shock to see the enemy camp deserted and their surprise to see food, drink, clothing and gold left behind by the fleeing army. But in their joy, they didn't forget the city that they had left and the people perishing inside. They said, 'We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news and we remain silent.' (ch7 v9)

I'm so conscious that we have Good News of Jesus' salvation and yet we remain silent, too eager to fill our lives with things that ultimately will have no value and disappear. I guess it all comes down to what we value the most, our own lives and the material things that we acquire to satisfy us or our Saviour and the spiritual food that is freely available through Him for all who believe. And you see it's not just something He would like us to do, it is our responsibility to not be silent but to tell others of the good things we have found. Remember while we don't, they perish.

In John ch 12 we read, 'Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey's colt.' That much maligned animal was important to Jesus the King of Kings but can He depend on us to carry His cross?