Small Potatoes are the Tastiest

April 29th, 2010
· by admin · Filed Under: Faith · Guidance · Spiritual Health

Jesus said, “If you are faithful in the small things, you will also be faithful in the large things.” So we must pay attention to the small things.

Prompted by the words of Jesus I decided to title my article Small Potatoes are the Tastiest. I remembered when I was a boy growing up in England during the Second World War. We had a victory garden. There wasn’t much food being imported into Britain at that time, so people created victory gardens where we could grow our own food.

In our victory garden we grew vegetables; we had potatoes, peas, beets and cabbage, and some fruit such as raspberries and strawberries. It was fun working with that garden, and I was the one to go out and pick the potatoes. I loved to pick them when they were very small, what we called new potatoes. I’d take up the potato plant and all those new little potatoes were hanging there; I would shake off the dirt and gather the new potatoes to take them in the house and wash them. Then we’d have them for dinner. And they were always the tastiest, especially with lots of butter on them.

The small potatoes were always the tastiest. And I thought, “That’s really true about life too; it’s the small things that are really the tastiest.”

I thought about some of the small things my parents did which they didn’t really think about but which affected my life and the direction of my life.

I thought about my mother, who would take us on picnics when my Dad was in the service and the country was at war. My mother would take us down to the bus station and we’d catch a bus for some distance then get off and go across some fields to a little stream near a small village to have our picnic. I can still see it. It always created in me a sense of adventure, of not being confined to one place because of what was going on around me. That was a seemingly small thing, but it was a real gift to me and has affected my life all the way through.

My Dad didn’t like to show his affection too much in an outward way. But one way he would do it is that we would wrestle; I’d grab him around the neck and we’d wrestle lovingly and he’d let me win. And I think that contributed to my love of the martial arts that I later went into and which in turn led into my spiritual path, and eventually into becoming a Unity minister.

It’s the small things we remember that really touch our lives; it’s the kind word, it’s the loving touch, it’s a loving glance, it’s an attentive listening, being present, just being there for us. It’s those things that make the difference.

There’s a true story about a young man called David who now is a Junior High School teacher. When David was a young boy, he loved throwing stones and one day he was in his backyard and he threw a big stone over the top of the fence. He heard a crashing sound, so he threw more stones over the fence, with a resulting crash of breaking glass.

A few days went by and the man next door came over; he was there talking to his parents when the boy came home from school. The parents were ashamed and disappointed in David. But the man said to them, “I’d like to bring David to my home to show him some things.” So the parents agreed to that and David sheepishly followed this man into the garden next door toward the shattered greenhouse.

David was wondering what was going to happen to him. But the man simply said to him, “Look, I want to show you these flowers. Look, these are gladiolus and they grow so tall and in so many different colors. Aren’t they beautiful? And these here are violets; these were my wife’s favorites; I miss her so much and whenever I look at these violets in the deep purple I remember her. These over here, these are orchids; they are difficult to grow but you’ve never really seen such a beautiful flower, you cannot believe your own eyes until you see that orchid and the different varieties with the exquisite shapes and colors these flowers produce.”

He stayed about an hour in the greenhouse showing the boy all the different flowers. Finally the man said, “O.K. David, you can go home now.”

David said, “I knew on that day that I was going to grow up and be a teacher, because this man had shown me how important it was to teach, to show, to share.” He said, “He could have yelled at me or done all kinds of things to punish me, but he didn’t; he just showed me his flowers and how beautiful they were.”

Those kind words made the whole difference in David’s life.

It’s the small potatoes that are the tastiest.

The keys of heaven turn on small things. Heaven is born on this earth in these small things: an hour in a greenhouse, the gift of a teddy bear, a small spark of hope, leaven, or a small seed planted in one’s mind that grows to become a Unity minister.

We are the agents of the Divine Spirit on earth and it’s up to us to awake to that possibility with us. We don’t have to do grandiose things; when we think of heaven it doesn’t have to be something dramatic or grandiose. It’s that which expresses in and through us and it’s born on earth through the small things that we do for others, for our world, and for ourselves.

God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-eight years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions.