Fertile soil: The secret ingredient

In this life, we are all really fellow farmers, working toward producing good crops. We might not be in the fields, but we are in the factories and office buildings, retail stores and homes, putting out a product. Metaphorically, none of us wants bad fruit. Nobody wants the bad produce of a harvest gone wrong.

I have spent a lifetime building my character, disciplining my thoughts and trying to make the right choices, but still, I don’t always turn out the best harvest. In fact, many of my best efforts are just rotten.

There’s something else I’ve never really considered, and leave it to my friend Tim to point it out. Although he isn’t a farmer, he’s had his share of both good and bad harvests in his life. He’s honest about his failures, and humble about his victories.

‘I have found the only way to produce a good crop is to have fertile soil,” he said, “and the only way to get that is to constantly turn over the soil and add lots of crap.”

You might cringe at the word choice or turn away from the thought, but you cannot dispute the truth.

So, maybe next time, when my life gets turned over, I’ll remember the coming fruit. Maybe next time when someone shovels a smelly load into my life, I’ll thank them for helping me out with the final product.

Fertile soil. It’s not as easy as I thought.