A Second Law of The Harvest

The other day I told my wife “The apricot tree is loaded this year and they’ll be ripe soon.” But I was thinking ‘I hate picking those things…and we have so many other things to do. MaryAnn doesn’t like apricots much anyway. Maybe I’ll just let it slide this year.’ But this morning it hit me. I don’t know how to put it very poetically, but it went something like this ‘You idiot! The Lord is blessing you with a good batch of apricots. You may not think you need them now, but if you do, you’ll be glad to have them. If you want the Lord to bless you when you need things, better take ahold of what He’s blessing you with now. If He sees you thankfully accepting what He’s offering today, He’ll remember you when you really need something.’

Maybe I was remembering something my first father-in-law had said. He had grown up working for everything he had, spent some time as a US Soldier in a German prison camp during the last few months of “The War”, and raised nine children on a shoestring. My own father had been raised in a family of 12 children in a two-room house through the Great Depression and, though he served on the other side of the world in the Navy, survived similar times of hardship without really knowing it was so. They both had lived with the common understanding ‘You don’t work, you don’t eat!’ Simple as that. There wasn’t time, when they were growing up, for parents to give a child a session in psychotherapy (unless that meant “a boot in the butt”), or to coddle them when they felt like they didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning. Getting by was a family affair and every member working was a matter of survival. My father, though he loved his children very much, raised us with much the same mentality…and none of us have had to worry for long about where our next meal was coming from or about keeping a roof over our children’s heads.

Zip through time to the other day when we observed a child, probably about 10 years old, sitting at breakfast in a restaurant complaining loudly for all to hear about what he wanted and didn’t want, while his parents ignored him, making it everyone else’s problem to listen….or to yesterday when I saw a young family in a grocery store. A toddler was sitting on the floor crying and yelling about which candy he wanted. The parents, obviously feeling helpless and looking for all the world like good parenting meant pleasing every whim the child voiced, were trying to kindly guess what the child wanted. In both situations it was obvious that no expectations of behavior or appreciation were involved…simply that the child had to have whatever he wanted, when he wanted it, and that it was the parents’ sole duty to perform without question. I won’t say what I wanted to tell them about how to handle the situation…or how they could have started while the child was much younger to handle the situation, but I will say that I really wonder if children who are unfortunate enough to grow up with such parenting will EVER gain the capacity to understand Eternal Principals like The Law of The Harvest, Sacrifice, Individual Responsibility, Delayed Gratification and Service.

I’ve had similar thoughts many times over the years as I watch and worry about the next generations and the sense of entitlement that seems to be creeping, no BLUDGEONING its way into their understanding of how life works. I pray that at least SOME parents are teaching their children to turn off the idiot lamp (including handheld versions), get out and WORK for what they need without expecting everything to be handed to them. I worry about what they will be able to do if a widespread economic crisis (or even an individual one) unfolds around us and we face days similar to what my parents experienced in their childhood (and I don’t think there will always be so called “safety nets” available…without one having to sell his soul to get temporary relief). I see dark clouds on the horizon and I hope we will be able to avoid the desperate chaos some societies have experienced. By today’s standards, my parents' expectations and the methods they used to instill a solid work ethic would be viewed as “abuse” by many. And perhaps sometimes they were a little harsh. But, more often than not, I find myself thanking my Heavenly Father for what I was able to learn from them. And I realize more and more that, though they weren’t perfect, the values I learned through the responsibility they habitually required of me actually open the doors of understanding of the Eternal Principles that will take a community through hard times; The Law of The Harvest, Sacrifice, Individual Responsibility, Delayed Gratification and Service and others.

So, with these thoughts in mind, I was out early this morning picking apricots.

They will be great frozen, mixed in smoothies, bottled, eaten fresh, or whatever we choose to do with the blessing we received. The same with peaches. And grapes make great raisins. And on and on…

The Law of The Harvest, as I understand it, goes something like “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” Now I have a Second Law of The Harvest in mind. It goes something like “GET OFF YOUR DUFF and Take Appreciative Advantage of The Lord’s Blessings NOW So That He Will Continue to Bless You When You REALLY Need It.”

Get your kids and go pick some apricots with them, or whatever you’ve been blessed with…remembering to do it early in the day so they don’t bruise.