Good Corn.

This is the view from the top of East Lomond a hill within walking distance of my home. I was about to say an easy walk but that would be wrong because it is not an easy walk. While I was returning from my walk to the summit I watched the farmers working at gathering in the harvest of turnips.

I had never seen this before. I had this idea that this would be a high-intensity task requiring a number of people. In fact, it was all being done by machines and only required two people to drive the tractors.

How things have moved on. I do remember when I was a boy that such a task would indeed have been done by hand. 

It got this flighty brain of mine working and thinking about just how things have changed over the years. 

I then remembered a tale which shows that not everything has changed.

There was a farmer who grew award-winning corn. Each year he entered his corn in the county fair where it most often won the top award.

One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew it. The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbours. 

"How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbours when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?" the reporter asked.

"Why sir," said the farmer, "didn't you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbours grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbours grow good corn."

He is very much aware of the connectedness of life. His corn cannot improve unless his neighbour's corn also improves.

So it is in other dimensions. 

Those who choose to be at peace must help their neighbours to be at peace. 

Those who choose to live well must help others to live well, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. 

And those who choose to be happy must help others to find happiness for the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all. 

Today the news is full of stories about those who are in fact rich in wealth but are still using a lot of energy finding ways to stay rich and be even more so by avoiding paying tax. They have not learned that we are all in this together. Every penny they manage to avoid paying has to be found from elsewhere. Without us all playing our part, things will only get worse for those who are already finding it difficult.

The lesson for each of us is this: if we are to grow good corn, we must help our neighbours grow good corn.