Harvest time
What did we sow, and what are we reaping today? What are we planting now that generations to come will harvest?
The last half of September offers a rich harvest, in our neck o’the woods. The fertile valley soil yields up all kinds of fruits and vegetables that were planted last spring and nurtured through our hot, dry, windy, smoky summer. September brings healing rain and enough sunshine to ripen what survived this long.
It’s also time to think about planting things that need the winter to set roots and grow: shrubs, trees, spring-flowering bulbs. Tending a landscape small or large reminds us that everything we do has a ripple impact on the future.
This year, as a country, we are reaping the fruits of decisions, policies, and world-views set decades ago. Perhaps centuries. Our nation has not yet managed to transform itself into a truly inclusive community; we still see the results of long-held beliefs that certain groups are better, more suited to controlling wealth and government, than others. We still see the results of false narratives of poverty as a choice, of unemployment as a scam concocted by the lazy, of addiction and mental illness as character flaws. We still see the results of fear mongering that paints migrating people, BIPOC people, women, LGBTQ folk, and other members of our human family as dangerous, needing to be controlled.
We still live with the harvest of the ideology of white male supremacy supported by violence, dressed up in the guise of defending the “freedom” to resist the requirements of government if they impinge on the ability to own weapons, make profits, control women’s healthcare, or exploit the resources of our beautiful planet.
The fruits of this ideology include the threats made to public health officers and school board members if they dare to implement protections for children’s health in the schools via mask requirements. They include the (fortunately small) rally in Washington D.C. to protest the imprisonment of those who committed violence at the Capital on January 6. And they include the ongoing efforts to constrict access to voting, excluding large groups of people from our beloved democracy.
So we must ask ourselves: what are we planting today that generations to come will harvest? Are we planting the seeds of inclusion, fairness, justice, and love? Or something more toxic?
I send this with love, hoping that your own personal harvest is rich and healthy, and with gratitude for what you plant in my life.