Love, like all things, has to be nurtured.
Without nurture, love can die.
What is preferred,
love that is dry and wilted or love that produce fruits at their very best?
In the mountains, there are two farms, both on opposite sides of the highway.
One appears to be on higher ground and the other lower. However, they are level.
The farms are owned and run by two families and for
a laugh they agreed to name their farms thus: The farm on the Western side
of the highway is called 'Upson' and the farm on the Eastern side of the
highway is called 'Downs'.
Now, this may seem humorous and many family jokes made
but in reality, the names of the properties reflect the nature and mental
attitude of their individual owners.
Generally, in small towns everyone is well known but
because these two related families have very long and difficult to say names they
came to be known and called the Upson or Downs.
The Upsons are a happy family. Mr and Mrs Upson are generally rather ‘up’
and rarely ‘down’. Their farm produces rapidly
growing crops and the quality of their produce is excellent. The soil is rich and dark teeming with
organic life, holding much nutriment and is well irrigated. Every morning Mr Upson rises early has
breakfast, reads a bit of the newspaper with his coffee and he is ready for his
day of ‘soil toil’ as he calls it. He kisses
and hugs his wife regularly and plays many games with the kids. They are a very amenable and happy family.
The Downs are rather different. The Downs are generally ‘down’ and rarely ‘up’. Their farm has slow growing meagre crops and
the quality is very poor. The soil is
mainly heavy almost rock hard clay with little nutriment for growing anything
and the soil is not well irrigated.
Every morning Mr Downs rises early, grumbles to his breakfast, eats it sullenly
and growls to anyone nearby but to no one in particular. He does not give hugs
but does condescend to patting the kids on the head. Mr Downs is not a happy chappie; his wife is
miserable and a bit scared of Mr Downs.
In fact, Mrs Downs has tried everything.
At appropriate times, to gain some attention, she has even dressed in stockings,
suspenders and brief see through panties and bra, to no avail.
The Downs family are a miserable bunch with both
husband and wife often having heated and argumentative ‘discussions’ which end
in much yelling and abuse. As for the
kids, they are a bunch of whiners who whinge and carry on about anything. Not a very happy household.
One day, Mrs Downs was in the local Italian bakery
buying fresh bread. As she entered the
store she could not help but feel warm and wonderful inside her being. It was the fresh baked bread yeasty smell of
her childhood, the sweet smell of icing on her wedding cake. It was the look of Mario lightly dusted with flour
as he wafted through the store whistling ‘O Solo Mio’ that reminded her of
early days when she would bake delicious cakes, buns, biscuits and bread for
her family.
It made Mrs Downs wonder. When did her luscious fruit loaf turn into
sour dough?
‘Mario?’
‘Yes Signora?’
‘Mario, why so things in life change and we don’t
notice?’
‘Because Signora, life moves so quickly sometimes
we stop taking notice. And
when we stop taking notice, not paying attention, that is when life can go
astray.
Look at my loaves of bread, my beautiful Vienna
loaf. I have to take care of
the yeast, the sugars, use quality flour, mix and knead in my own particular
way, have the oven at the correct temperature and cook for the right time and
remove before things go wrong. In short,
I have to pay attention to what I am doing.
But most importantly Signora, if I did not look after my oven and trays and show the flour and yeast I love them, you would not enjoy my bread so much. Me and my flour Misses,
we are a team.’
Now although Mrs Downs had heard all this before she
never thought it related to her.
§
Co-incidentally, that day, Mr Downs was in the local
pub. He ran into his brother, Mr Upson.
‘George...’ Mr Downs began.
‘George...how come your crops and ground is so good
and you have so much money?’ he asked.
‘Mate, in quiet times I often think that of you. Why is your soil, crops, happiness and life
so poor. It bothers me.'
Mr Downs was quietly becoming upset.
‘It really does bother me. I hate to see you folks across the road
suffering. But you know what mate? It is all very easy to fix. With a bit of effort, in no time at
all you can have a life like mine.’
‘How so George?’
'Your beautiful wife and
the kids, they are all too miserable because you are too busy thinking about
how rotten your life is instead of seeing the positives and getting on with it.
Mate, learn to love what you are doing. Get
off your bum and till the soil. Unless the soil is tilled, fertilised and
watered like you care, you will always have nothing'.
He continued....
'You know, they say the
man who has everything loves what he does and does what he loves. Unless
you learn to love and nurture that love, you will continue to live in a world
that is barren.
We all enjoy eating fresh luscious juicy fruit.
We we can’t enjoy the fruit unless we nurture the buds and blossoms
and put in the labour.
‘Simple, you are in a rut. You are a sour bastard who is too lazy to get
off your backside and do the work. Instead, you blame and make everyone else suffer. Your beautiful wife and the kids, they are unhappy because you are spreading your self-induced misery.
Mate, learn to love what you are doing. Get
off your bum and till the soil. Unless the soil is tilled, fertilised and
watered like you care, you will always have nothing'.
He continued....
'You know, they say the man who has everything loves
what he does and does what he loves.
Unless you learn to love and nurture that love, you will continue to
live in a world that is barren.
We all enjoy eating fresh luscious juicy fruit.
We can’t enjoy the fruit unless we first nurture the buds and blossoms
and put in the labour.
However, if the fruits are not cared for, they
wither and dry on the vine, fall off the tree or become rotten before they are
either fully grown or harvested'.
Show that you care.
Till the Soil
VERDE
