Harvest times tend to come along all at once. I went out last week to offer volunteer services to my vegetable garden, and realized that the peas, raspberries, onions, and potatoes all needed attention at the same time.
I know how to pick and shell peas. I know how to pick raspberries. But I realized I didn’t have a clue about the right time to pull onions or dig potatoes.
So I called a friend. Who is, fortunately, kind enough not to laugh at my ignorance.
“You need to bend the tops of the onions over,” she said.
The tops of my onions had fallen over already, on their own.
“Then you can pull them,” she said. “But they’ll need to be dried.”
More questions. More advice.
Before this year, I didn’t have to phone friends about these simple details. I simply asked Joan. She always knew. Not something she learned by studying textbooks. Nor something she learned in class. And not some formula she could punch up on a calculator or find on a diagram.
I’m sure she never knew how she knew about onions. Or roses. Or coffee. She just knew.
Learning by osmosis
Dictionaries and encyclopedias define “osmosis” as the ability of one kind of fluid to pass through some kind of filter into another fluid.
I think of osmosis as the process of learning, without ever knowing that you’re learning. It just filters into your consciousness.
Maybe your mother said, “See, the tops have fallen over.” Or, about potatoes, “Just dig with your fingers, and feel how big the potatoes have grown.” Or, “Don’t mix silverware with stainless steel in the dishwasher.”
Whatever it was, the message got planted in your consciousness forever.
It ain’t book-larnin’ that makes you smart. It’s what you absorbed by osmosis -- knowledge, ideas, attitudes that passed imperceptibly through the filter between you and someone else.
Some of those things are good (at least, in my values). Things like kindness, hospitality, tolerance, and sensitivity. Nobody can tell you how to put yourself into someone else’s life situation, to understand what it feels like for that man to be lonely, for that woman to suffer constant pain, for that child to fear abuse.
Not a conscious process
You learn those lessons by watching how someone else responds.
Mothers, particularly. Mothers aren’t always right. But even when they’re wrong, in general, they interact do what they do with love. That in itself is worth learning. I thought I had a close relationship with my son until, as we scattered his ashes, Joan’s words reminded me that she had known him nine months longer.
The Bible calls it “hesed,” loosely translated as “womb love.”
Of course, you can also learn bad things by osmosis. Prejudice against other races, nationalities, and sexes. Contempt for the less fortunate. Selfishness. Narrow religion.
Perhaps no one actually intended to pass on those attitudes. But they did. And their ways of thinking became your ways of thinking.
Nowadays, you can Google what to do with onions and potatoes. Wikipedia will tell you more than you ever wanted to know about racism or intolerance. But rational explanation will not change your attitudes and perceptions. Those, you absorbed by osmosis.
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Copyright © 2020 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved.
To comment on this column, write jimt@quixotic.ca
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YOUR TURN
Most of the letters about last week’s column, on the scattering of Joan’s ashes in Kootenay Lake, were expressions of sympathy and appreciation. Here are a few of them,.
Moira White: “I have tears in my eyes reading about your scattering Joan’s ashes. I’m glad you got to do it as a family and glad that you found her cottage, but wow! So much love, gratitude, love, longing, peace, and sadness.”
Margaret Kyle: “Thank you for this beautiful description of your ritual in honour of Joan and her life here on earth. And thank you to Joan for her life lived well. I could imagine the young child, Joan, playing on hot summer days in the water and just having fun and freedom.”
Marilyn Josefsson: “Your words and your final journey (in this life) with Joan were greatly moving and brought tears to my eyes. What a beautiful thing to do.”
Beth Robey Hyde: “I was touched by your account of scattering Joan's ashes, and reminded that my brother's ashes are tucked into a desk, waiting for me to decide when and where. Thank you also for introducing me to Richard Wagamese.”
Nikki Martin: Thank you for your beautiful words, and for those of Richard Wagamese. I was deeply touched by your remembrance of Joan. It was so gentle and full of love, so simple and profound.”
Tom Watson connected the “sacred journey” in my quote from Richard Wagamese: “That's very touching. You, your daughter and two grandchildren were also part of a sacred journey.”
Isabel Gibson: Another lovely tribute to Joan and the life you shared together -- still share, in many senses. I hope you will continue to see and feel the cloud of her witness.”
A couple of letters came in, a little late, about the previous week’s column, about turning to God in times of stress, and whether we’ve content with a God who is “in here” and “everywhere,” or still yearn for a God “out there” who can fix things for us.
Arlene Erickson: “It doesn’t really matter how we cancel the idea of God in control. When push comes to shove, we call on that God for help. We want to give the responsibility to something else -- not ourselves. We have to be very immersed in an experiential connection that is almost impossible to explain. When we have experienced direction given by that connection the response is mind boggling.
“People are on their own spiritual journey. Experiential connection happens with searching. There are many reasons for people not to search for themselves and rely on traditions. The spiritual journey each person is on is right for them and I respect that.”
David Gilchrist wondered what qualified as “intervention”: I came within a hair’s breadth of death a couple of times; but the most remarkable and inexplicable “intervention” happened at age 20 in the BC logging woods. I was standing on the end of a large log, directly under the High-line (1 1/4" steel cable), waiting for it to bring a choker (cable dangling from the highline for me to wrap around that trunk), and then haul it away. Loggers do NOT give advise to each other: just not done. But suddenly Wes Eddy said, ‘Dave, I’ve never seen a highline break, but it could happen.’ [JT note: if those logging cables snap, they’re like a gigantic elastic band that snaps back and destroys anything in their path.]
“I was green, and Wes was experienced; so I did not hesitate even a second - I moved IMMEDIATELY. Where I had been standing when Wes spoke to me, the log was scarred by the broken ends of that steel cable!
“Intervention? I don’t know. I have wondered ever since if I was spared for some special mission in life (which I haven’t yet discovered, and am running out of time!) But that message through Wes only a second before the cable break -- and the fact that he was moved to break the code of the forest by saying anything -- was it just coincidence? If it was “intervention", then why me?”
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Psalm paraphrase
I’ve chosen a paraphrase of Psalm 85, this week, the alternate reading in the Revised Common Lectionary, because I like it better than the self-congratulatory tone of the preferred reading, Psalm 105.
Sometimes merely surviving a storm or a crisis is cause for celebration.
1 I am truly fortunate.
2 I made mistakes, but you did not penalize me for them.
Thank you, God.
8 I believe in you again.
In the depths of the storm, I doubted you.
I doubted me. I doubted everything.
I despaired. I thought I would die.
9 But you saved me, in spite of my stupidity.
10 The storm is over now.
11 Clear skies stretch ahead of me;
warm winds press me on, like a helping hand in the small of my back.
12 Indeed, you are good to me.
One day like this makes my misfortunes tolerable.
13 Thank you, God.
I am no longer at the mercy of the elements.
I can set a safe course to my destination, following your directions.
You can find paraphrases of most of the psalms in the Revised Common Lectionary in my book Everyday Psalmsavailable from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.
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TECHNICAL STUFF
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PROMOTION STUFF
To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols. Some spam filters have blocked my posts because they’re suspicious of some of the web links.
Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca He’s also relatively inexpensive!
I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom. She also has lots of beautiful photos. Especially of birds.
Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom (NB that’s “watso” not “watson”)
ALVA WOOD’S ARCHIVE
I have acquired (don’t ask how) the complete archive of the late Alva Wood’s collection of satiric and sometimes wildly funny columns about a mythical village’s misadventures. I’ve put them on my website: http://quixotic.ca/Alva-Wood-Archive. You’re welcome to browse. No charge. (Although maybe if I charged a fee, more people would find the archive worth visiting.)