Grandpa Taught Me the Most by Never Teaching Me

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!