Harvesting

Have you ever noticed that the best fruit is often the hardest to pick? It's at the top of the tree or in a tangle of vines. If you don't reach it, though, the fruit rots on the branch. Unless you actually close your hand around the juicy red tomato, the soft, fuzzy peach, or the long green bean, you lose it. It's so easy to say about those that are hard to get, "I'll do it later." But the next time you are standing in just the right place to see that fruit, the decay process has likely begun.

Life is a lot like that. We all receive certain gifts: needed time, opportunities, good health, a job that uses our talents, and, especially, the children in our lives. Children grow and develop, just as fruit does. If we miss the time we have with them when they are young, that time never returns.

It's so easy to assume that we have plenty of time to interact with the children in our lives. After all, they seem to be around a lot. For human persons, however, physical presence isn't all there is. Children have a spiritual side too. The opportunity to nourish the spirit of a child is a wonderful gift for both the child and the adult. Like all gifts, though, we have reach out and get it.

Few adults in our society have time for children. After all, the Information Highway beckons, e-mail boxes fill up, exciting movies are showing, somebody is ringing the cell phone, newspapers have to be read, news has to be watched, and business has to be done. Meanwhile, children grow up, and the spiritual fruit that could have been harvested falls to the ground and decays, lost forever.

Interacting with children sometimes seems difficult for moms and dads who have spent the day in the adult working world. Talking with children, however, can be easy and fun even after a long day in the business world. First of all, it is necessary to turn off all electronic distractions. If either the adult or the child is being mesmerized by figures on a screen, no conversation can happen. After that, a pleasant question or two about the child's activities, a game, or a storybook can start off a wonderful time together.

The time we spend in soul-to-soul contact with a child is a most precious gift from which everyone benefits. All we have to do turn off the distractions, reach out, and pick that fruit.

Mary Sue Laing, M.Ed.
Resource Teacher, St. Ambrose School
newskill7@msn.com

by Mary Sue Laing, M. Ed., New Skill, Inc. Academic Tutor