Monthly Archives: September 2016

Seeing (A Lesson from Green Beans)

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I was picking beans yesterday by myself. It was a gorgeous morning, chilly at first and then the sun got hot. It was a second picking of our second planting of beans, and I had two large bowls I could fill. I got to work.

The funny thing about picking beans is that, when you first move the leaves, you don’t see any beans. They blend in. Under the leafy roof is a house of stems, branches and vegetables that mimic each other, hide each other. At first glance there are no beans at all.

And then, something shifts. The light maybe. An adjustment of the eyes. And there they are. They stand out. They appear. As you move more leaves, more stems, they show up. A handful, a dozen beans that had been there the whole time. You just couldn’t see them.

I filled both bowls to overflowing. Had to go back with a third bowl, actually. There were a lot of beans. And bean picking is hard work. You lean over, kneel down. Your back hurts. It pulls at your leg muscles. And it takes a while to do. Two rows took me most of two hours.

So while I picked, I thought. About beans. And about people.

See, when my back hurt, I stood up and stretched. If I’d wanted to give up and leave the rest of the beans to rot in the garden, I could have (I didn’t, thus the third bowl). The point is, it was basically up to me.

But I know, in my head, that someone on this planet, today, was doing something, serving someone, picking something because they HAD to. And they couldn’t stretch when their muscles ached and rebelled. They couldn’t stop. There was a quota to meet–of produce picked or jeans sewn or men served. And if they didn’t do enough, they were yelled at. If they couldn’t get enough done, they might be beaten.

So I wondered, as I picked, what that would feel like. So I tried it. When my back hurt, I picked another plant, a few more beans, just to see what it felt like. It wasn’t even remotely slavery. It wasn’t unjust or even a semblance of the pain that men or women or children endured, just today. But I thought of them. And that is new to me.

I wonder if seeing people is very much like seeing green beans. At first, it can be easy to miss them. They hide in the everyday open all around me. I’m busy. I have a job to finish. Their problems don’t impact my life. My own back hurts, so I overlook them. And then, by some act of grace, something changes. The light shifts. The leaves move. And I notice.

And I cannot un-notice people. I want to, to be totally honest. But I can’t. There they are. Maybe a handful. Maybe a dozen. Maybe only one. But like the green beans, they are real, and they were always there. I just didn’t have the eyes to see them.

I’m way behind in the journey towards really seeing people. I know that. My sad little excuse for a social experiment in the bean patch won’t feed a starving child or free someone from their slavery. But it’s a start.

And wonder if the first step toward the doing someTHING is really about seeing someONE for the very first time. And then choosing to keep on seeing them and choosing not to turn away.

Appreciation

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I went to Kohl’s today. Decided I was going to go try on blue jeans until I found a pair that I really liked. I even remembered my Yes2You reward coupon (go, me!). So I took Timmy and I looked at jean racks in every area I could find. He pushed the cart. And I tried on like 10-12 pairs of jeans. And I found some I liked. Really fit well. Bought two pairs and a few other things and headed out. We went grocery shopping and then headed home. And after getting his lunch, I sat down at my computer.

I’d gotten an email. It was “from” the manager of the Zanesville Kohls, thanking me for shopping today and inviting me back again soon. And all I could think was…SERIOUSLY?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I like to be appreciated. I’m sure the Kohl’s people are glad I shopped at their store today…it helps their bottom line. But they didn’t notice ME. Their computer saw my number scan at a register which added me to an email list. It wasn’t real. I know it, and they know it. And yet, they have the system in place to send the email.

But why?

Because apparently we are now so desperate for appreciation that we need “the manager” of the store we shopped at to acknowledge us. We apparently need to be thanked for buying ourselves new jeans, to be patted on the head (via email) for going about our day.

And, the truth is, I hear a lot of resentment when we’re not feeling appreciated:

  • “Well, I was in there for like 40 minutes, and not one single salesperson even looked at me.”
  • “Oh, I don’t go to that church. I never felt accepted…all the women seemed so stuck on themselves.”
  • “Don’t shop there. I went there once and spent a lot of money, and no one even acknowledged me.”

We don’t feel appreciated, so we get resentful. And resentful people spend their money elsewhere. And of course, the Kohl’s email probably does work. Probably somewhere, someone got a similar email to this one and it just blessed their socks off. And good for them. I probably need to be easier to bless.

But the thing is, if it had been a true act of appreciation, I would have been blessed. When a friend takes time from her day to speak kindness into mine, to notice me in a positive way, I do feel appreciated. But “appreciation” can never really come from a mass email. I mean, would I really not shop at Kohl’s again because no one acknowledged my time in their store today?

I guess the thing just seemed so strange, I needed to vent about it (and what else is blogging about, right?). Still, I think we can take away 2 things.

  1. In our world, there are a LOT of people feeling unappreciated right now. People on both sides of a LOT of lines. Political lines. Racial lines. Denominational lines. We’re divided, and we feel unnoticed. And we’re resentful. Let’s practice true appreciation. Let’s be the people who say thanks, take notice, give praise, and build up.
  2. And two, let’s recognize that where I shop and whether someone notices me or not (even someone close to me) is not really a mark of my worth. Let’s just delete silly emails from stores and websites designed to make me “feel good.” Let’s call resentment what it is and choose to let it go. Let’s give people more credit that they really weren’t out to put us down or ignore us. And let’s trust in the fact that our value is far greater than a store’s email can express.

Yes, it feels good to be appreciated, and we need it. But false appreciation actually makes us feel worse. So let’s make true appreciation a mark of our lives. No matter where we buy our blue jeans.