dar334

I was braving the heat earlier to plant 16 Lupine seeds, 2 seeds in 8 different spots  around the lighthouse that covers our well head.  I took some mulch from the pile that was left over from last spring and tossed it by the handfuls between each spot.  (Ok.  My mind just pulled off the main road of this ponder.  Hand.  Full.  Why is there an “l” missing in handful?  Shouldn’t it be handfull?)  Anyways ………………………..

As I was tossing the mulch, my mind started thinking about the message Pastor gave yesterday.  He told us a story about a little boy and a goldfish.  The family was taking a vacation and the little boy’s dad didn’t want him lugging around a goldfish so he told the boy he had to set his fish free when they got to the lake.  When they arrived, the little boy walked out on the dock, said his goodbye, and dumped the goldfish in the lake.  The little fish just stayed in one spot, it didn’t even attempt to swim into the wild blue yonder.  (Pastor didn’t put it that way but it’s the way my fingers wanted to type it)  The little boy stood there waiting, and the fish just remained in the same spot.  The little boy decided he would walk away, perhaps the fish was waiting for the boy to leave before it swam away.  After a little while, we’ll say after lunch and a nap, the little boy went back and there his little fish was, still in the same spot.  Pretty soon a bass came up and gulped down the little goldfish.  I will admit, I was afraid that was coming, and all we needed at this point was Nancy playing a piece from the movie “Jaws”, which made me just realize the next story is about a shark.  Ironic?

He then told about his fascination with sharks and the fact that a shark grows in proportion to its environment.  When placed in an aquarium it will only reach maybe 6inches in length, but if put in the ocean it can grow to 8 feet in length.  Then I started thinking about the moral of these stories.  Quite honestly, not through any fault of our Pastor, my mind got off track during his message to when we had an aquarium.  We had an algae eater, we called it a scumsucker, and it grew and grew and I started having nightmares about it after it had flopped out of the aquarium and I found it on the floor before it died and had to pick it up and drop it back in the aquarium.  I don’t know how to even begin to spell the sounds coming from my mouth while I did this and the dance that followed ….. well ….. I could have been in a jungle with feathers covering my body while dancing around a fire and others playing bongo drums.  Shortly after that experience, I gave the scumsucker away.

When I came in the house because the heat was draining me, I plopped a pillow on the floor and laid down in front of the fan to complain about the heat.  After my rant about hating the heat, my mind went back to the message and I had trouble remembering if I had even heard the moral of these stories.  I asked Jim if he remembered and told him I  wondered if it had to do with surrounding ourselves with people with Bible based faith, perhaps the amount we grow in our own faith is directly related to the environment in which we put ourselves.  He agreed, then added the importance could also be being active in a church and regularly attending studies with other Christians, thus growing further into the people God intended us to be.  I then started thinking about circumstances where I’m in the presence of people who swear, drink, criticize, judge ….. and isn’t long before those words I’ve worked so hard to eliminate from my vocabulary,  those criticisms and judgements I’m constantly working on eliminating, succumbing to having more adult beverages than I should have, and why?  Because I’m adapting to my surroundings.

That’s it for now, I’ve cooled down and I need to plant some sunflower seeds next.

-dar