Reflections by Doc Arnett

The other day I was checking progress on my small crop of honeydew melons. I noticed one that had a good yellowish color. So, I walked over, bent down, and gave it a good thump. It had a nice, ripe sound to it. But it also had a big, discolored spot that made me suspicious about the true nature of its internal qualities. Having an Old Timer pocketknife conveniently located in my pocket, I opened it up and then opened up the melon.

It was disappointing, I’d have to admit. While pink looks mighty fine on pansies, roses, and baby girls, it’s not an enticing color for the inside of a honeydew melon. That melon’s innards didn’t smell just right, either. So, I left the halves lying on the ground.

About a week later, I walked by the garden on my way to the horse barn. “What in thunderation is that ugly black thing?!” I wondered. I wondered this because I saw an ugly black thing, circular in shape and about six-to-eight inches wide sitting in the low grass at the edge of the garden. Then I saw the seeds and realized it was the greatly degraded carcass of the melon.

In stark contrast to the shrunken, leathery, moldy looking mass of the pulp and rind, the seeds were bright and golden looking, standing up in neat formation above the shrunken remains. Even though the fruit itself was ruined and repulsive, it had produced what appeared to be perfectly formed, healthy seeds.

Sometimes in the efforts and intentions of our lives, things don’t turn out the way we’d hoped. What we’d purposed falls far short of what we accomplish. Maybe it’s a simple arts or crafts project; maybe it was a key life goal. Maybe it’s a school paper or what we’d hoped would be a beautiful landscape project. Maybe, it’s a marriage or a job or a trip or a career. For whatever reasons and by whatever means, it’s failed. Instead of the awesome result we’d fully intended, it’s really turned into quite the mess.

But sometimes, if we take a closer look or a different perspective, we’ll realize that there is still good there. Even what at first seems repulsive can actually hold promise. It’s not as pretty as we wanted but we gained experience and insight and wisdom. Cultivated character, strengthened stamina, developed determination.

In the process, we made new friends, met new people, or strengthened other relationships. We helped someone else to better results along the way to our own particular failure, so it wasn’t a complete failure, really. We may have a bit of a mess on our hands but there’s still good there, too.

We loved, we helped, we learned, we contributed. Even in the thing that fell short, that didn’t work out, that didn’t end up how we wanted, we still participated as fellow travelers and mutual contributors. As pilgrims and sojourners, we traveled a few miles together and saw new scenes. We walked in sympathy, struggled together, gained empathy, offered a hand. In other words, even in that which didn’t land us at our desired destination, we sowed some good seeds.

In might look like quite the mess now and certainly is not as pleasant in appearance or flavor as a plateful of sweet, juicy, refreshing melon. But give the seeds a chance. There’s still good to be had, even from our failures.