Everything I ever learned about gardening I learned from my
Grandpa Current and he never taught me a thing.
When I was a young boy, I loved to spend time with Grandpa
in his garden. And by garden I do not
mean a small patch of dug up sod in his small back yard. No, my grandpa’s garden was so big, he rented
land from a nearby neighbor who had enough land to have a whole farm.
I would watch Grandpa put on his work shoes and I knew that
if I did not want Mom or Grandma pitching a fit then I had better put on my
play shoes. Then I would follow Grandpa
to the shed where he would begin to pull out the tools for the day. I especially loved it when he would pull out
his red, gas powered tiller.
Next, I learned how to prepare the soil for the garden. He would take the gas powered tiller, give me
a shovel and to work we’d go. I would
watch that hard, soil turn soft, like sand and when he hit a rock, he would call
my name and I knew just what to do; no rocks allowed in Grandpa’s garden. Then we’d hop in his old Chevy and make our
way to the local nursery, which had huge vats of every kind of seed a young boy
could imagine. I remember asking, “Grandpa,
how do you know which corn or green bean seeds to pick when there are so many?” He would reach in the vat, pull out some
seeds, place them in my hand and explain his choice.
Then it was back to the garden for planting. He would make the rows because he liked them
straight and I tended to make them crooked, which to be honest bothered not
just him but me (I’ve always liked my “sock drawers” organized you see J). As he would make the rows, he would give me
the seeds. He never said much. He just sewed some seeds in one row and then would
say, “Do you see how I did that?” “Yep,”
I’d say. Then he’d say, “Now you do it
to the rest of these rows just like I showed you.” And then I would do what he did.
I loved planting, but not nearly as much as I loved to watch
the plants grow. Grandpa would say, “Chad,
the plants are com’n up,” and I would beg my parents to let me go to Grandpa’s. Then I would learn how to care for the
plants. I would watch Grandpa fertilize
them, water them, weed them, keep the soil tilled and I would do everything I
saw him do. In fact, I learned the difference
between corn sprouts and weeds by digging up a whole row of corn before
Grandpa, put his hand on my shoulder, smiled and said, “Chad, do you see what
you are digging up? That’s is baby corn.
Now, you see this over here that looks like baby corn, but has this
difference? Those are weeds. Now, go dig up the weeds and leave my corn
alone.” I never dug up baby corn again because
he taught me by letting me have permission to mess up.
And finally the day would come, when Grandma would call and
say, “If you come help Grandpa bring in the harvest, I will make you all some
green beans, potatoes and ham, ensalata and some fresh bread.” I did not have to beg my parents to make the
drive for that. As Grandpa began to
harvest the crops, I learned which were ready and which needed a little more
time. And he and I would both talk about
how Grandma would take these things we had grown and turn them into something mouthwatering.
Well, the years passed.
Grandpa grew old and his mind faded into the darkness of Alzheimer’s. He could not care for the big garden we use
to have, so I dug up a small patch of sod in his small back yard. Grandma smiled and said, “O, it’s going to be
so good to have some fresh vegetables.”
I did everything I saw Grandpa do all those years ago. Most days Grandpa just sat and watched, but
every once in a while he would walk to the edge of the dirt and I would hand
him a shovel or some seeds and he would watch me and then he would do what I
did. Of course, now I used the red, gas
powered tiller because he could not recall how and his body was too weak.
This morning as the rain was watering the land, it made me
think about all those days with my Grandpa in his garden. I would not trade
them for all the money in the world. But
today, as I was thinking about it, I realized that Grandpa taught me all I knew
about gardening, without ever teaching me a thing.
You see, Grandpa was not an educated man—he was very intelligent,
but not educated. He barely made it through
an eighth grade education. For him
sitting at a desk listening to a lecture was not how he learned and so it was
not how he taught. Some would look at
his “teaching style” and say, “Your Grandpa did not teach you a thing.” And I would get a little defensive, stand up
straight and say, “I suggest you keep those comments to yourself because that
man taught me more without saying a word about gardening and lot of other
things, than all my years of school combined. He may not have sat me down at a
desk and given me a lecture, but he did what is much harder and takes much more
time and patience. He let a little boy walk in his footsteps. No doubt he could have gotten things done a
lot faster if I was not in the way digging up rows of corn, but for him that
was what learning was about. Learning
was not about hearing about something, but about doing something. For Grandpa, the best way to learn something
was to watch some else do it, then try it yourself and if you failed it was all
the better because some of the best learning comes from first failing.
My Grandpa’s family came to the US from Ireland, but it would
seem he must have had a good bit of Jewish thinking about him. I say that because the Hebraic understanding
of teaching the Torah was much like how my Grandpa taught me to garden. The lessons of faith, the Jewish people
thought, were not best learned in a classroom, but around the table at
breakfast, in the fields, at the workbench, in the market place and around the
fire as the sun was going to sleep (See Deuteronomy 6). Of course, we see this most clearly through Jesus. Each time Jesus invited someone to be his
student, he did not say, “Come, listen to me teach, memorize everything I say
and then pass a test.” No, he said, “Come,
follow me.” Think about the messed, up
motley crew of disciples to which he gave the invitation, “Come, and follow me.” They did not have their theology worked out
or doctrine defined or ethics examined.
They could not have written a philosophy of ministry or a mission
statement. The best they could do was “leave
everything and follow him.” And that
they did. And with that registration fee
paid, Jesus showed them how to walk with the Father in everyday life. He showed them how to eat with sinners, how
to rebuke the religious, how to have peace in a storm, how to feed the hungry,
how to touch the leper, how to love an adulteress rather than stone her, how to
teach in a way that let people see God where they were and not just in the temple,
how to pray, fast, heal, believe and even how to die. Jesus did all of that by showing them and letting
them try it. He even gave them
permission to fail so they could learn the better way. Remember the time the disciples could not
cast out an evil spirit? Jesus let them
try and fail so they would come to him and ask why they failed. He then showed them that some spiritual
battles require more than prayer, they require fasting and with that Jesus cast
it out and then next time they could do it.
Why do I share all of this?
Well, because I heard that some folks among us have a legitimate
concern. They fear that the new Sunday
School model for children does not have enough sit down and instruction time. They fear that the children will not learn
the Scripture if they are not sitting and hearing someone teach it. Certainly there is a place for such a “Greek”
influenced form of instruction. I sat through seven years of it to try to be as
best prepared as I could to answer God’s call to serve. However, even my best professors knew that if
my book learning was not matched with practical experience it would all be for
not. So, I encourage those of you with
concerns to take another look at the life and teachings of Jesus. I believe he will assure you and me both that
while there is a time to sit and listen as he encouraged Mary to do at his
feet, more often, Jesus taught by doing, walking, showing and living. He was so confident that this methodology would
capture the hearts and minds of his 12 that after his resurrection he said now
you go into all the world teaching them everything I have taught you and baptizing
them in my name. He put the future of the Church in their hands. They knew so little after only three years
and yet in everything Jesus showed them he taught them more with saying barely
a word than all the great teachers in all the centuries combined. He taught them to change the world by living
their faith out in a world that was desperate to see Gods light.
So, CFNAZ, will you help me make room for both types of discipleship
at CFNAZ, not only for the children, but for the teens and adults. We have the “Greek” style down well and it
has a well-deserved and needed place, but will you also allow us to equally
emphasize Jesus’ most used style of teaching—the “Come Follow Me” model? If we can marry that with the excellent
classroom teaching we have here, then certainly we certainly, for his glory, we
could become a force to be reckoned with for good for the next generation, our
community and even for our world!
