No one has ever accused me of having a green thumb other than when they witnessed me using “Forest Green” spray paint on a windy day.
Yet here I am, sitting on a bumper crop of cherry tomatoes. To further my wonder, they are growing up all around my 50-gallon trash container.
Perhaps it was just a reminder of a memory I had inadvertently “thrown out.” It was something I should never have discarded…
My family was young and impressionable and I thought it would be important to bring our children on a mission trip to a less fortunate area of the world.
Enter Mexico’s “Garbage City” into my memory banks. When we entered the area, the first thing that occurred was that our van ran smack into an all-bones-but-probably-no-wishbones dog. Animals weren’t the only ones with protruding ribs. Small children abounded and a father like me couldn’t help but wonder about their futures – especially after an innocent football toss made one of the kids dive for the catch, only to land next to a dead rat lying in the middle of our path.
Later in the trip, an orphanage full of happy children greeted us. But even with the wonderful house parents at this site, my mind raced to imagine what lie ahead for these abandoned tikes.
A quick trip to my trash can shouldn’t be so messy. Why these memories? But again I thought, “What could come out of the waste heaps of human civilization?” Over the years, I have kept up with some of these young fatherless boys and girls who are now enterprising adults. But what of the many who remain so close to the stench, smell, disease, frustration and hopelessness of the “Garbage Cities” of the various nations? The answer that many people come up with is that the indomitable human spirit will conquer the refuse of the “thrown out.” Yet, it’s been thousands of years and the “Garbage Cities” simply increase. Programs and philosophies that are the pride of universities and governments turn out to be, well, recyclable. Nothing new under the sun. The impoverished increase. Man’s best attempts are garbage.
There once was a committed, learned man who was at the top of his class and his philosophy and zeal guided him to the top of the religious mountain of his day. But a funny thing happened on the way to implementing his man-made plans. He found the hill he was standing on was a giant landfill: “The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I’m tearing up and throwing out with the trash—along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him. I didn’t want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ—God’s righteousness.” (St. Paul from Philippians 3:7-9 The Message)
I shouldn’t think such thoughts tossing out my garbage. But I was plagued by the memories of Garbage City and how hopeless it all seemed and still does. What of the contrast between my best attempts at gardening failing and this “accidental” bumper crop of beautiful cherry tomatoes through no efforts of mine?
The Man that St. Paul ran into was Christ who was the same one of whom it was said, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” John 1:46
An overdone metaphor? a melodramatic memory? Guilt over giving up because of the pile of problems? These are children, not problems. “For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”1 Samuel 16:7
Perhaps it was simply a resignation in my heart that needed to be thrown out.
BELOW: 54 TOMATOES THAT I SPOTTED, INCLUDING ONE INSIDE THE LATTICE, AND THAT’S JUST NEXT TO THE GARBAGE PALE, PROBABLY A HUNDRED IN TOTAL:

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