Coco Calling No.169 - A Tale of Two Pumpkins

My owner has just staggered back into the house and is now flopped out in a chair drinking beer. And why? Well, it’s because he’s just moved two pumpkins. All on his own! One was really quite a modest offering. But the other is truly a whopper. Certainly on par with the one he grew last year.

What is curious about this story is that the smaller one received all of the care throughout the Summer. It was watered and fed and literally tucked up at night. Whereas the whopper was left to its own devices. Because space was scarce, it had to be planted in a distant bed beyond the reach of the hose and where it was literally forgotten about. And yet this pumpkin weighs more than seven stone whereas the cossetted one is a two stone tiddler. So this outcome has left my owner scratching his head.

Maybe his fingers aren’t quite as green as he thought. Or maybe one of the plants was stronger than the other. Or maybe he should simply let Nature take its course each year and save himself a whole load of bother!

Whatever the answer, the tale of these two pumpkins serves as a reminder that humans aren’t always as in control of everything as they like to think. Nature is an extraordinary force, and even though it’s taking a terrible battering from seven billion humans running riot in the world, it always has the ability to surprise and to bounce back because God made it that way.

Sometimes it’s only when humans are able to stop and submerge themselves in the natural world that they come to realise that there is something very much bigger and greater than they will ever be. So many of us need Nature to purify our souls and to wash our spirits clean. We should never be surprised when Nature does something that we weren’t expecting. After all, it’s the handywork of God, the Master Craftsman, so way beyond the level of our worldly comprehension. The same Master Craftsman who can create an oak tree out of an acorn or a flower in an arid desert. Compared to all of this, do you think our pumpkins really deserve a mention?

“I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in.”

(George Washington Carver: 1864-1943: American agricultural scientist; the most prominent black scientist of the early 20th century).

To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wildflower. Hold infinity in the palm of your hand And eternity in an hour.”

William Blake: 1757-1827: English poet, painter and printmaker: Lines quoted from “Augeries of Innocence”).

“Nature is too thin a screen; the glory of the omnipresent God bursts through everywhere.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson: 1803-1882: American essayist, poet, lecturer and philosopher).

“But ask the animals, and they will teach you or the birds of the air, and they will tell you or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? (Job 12:7-10)

#pumpkin #harvest