The Unwise Bee, the Owl Express, and Two Lamps - Talmage Parables

A study of literature should include a study of parables as a type. Not to be confused with a fable, a parable is a simple story which illustrates a moral or spiritual lesson. Of course, the most well-known and oft-cited parables would be those as told by Jesus in the Gospels, but parables are to be found everywhere, even in our own lives. 

Elder James E. Talmage served as an Apostle for 22 years and wrote two books for the Church that are widely used to this day, Jesus the Christ and The Articles of Faith. Elder Talmage also published a series of parables beginning in January 1914, stories taken from his personal experience that teach gospel principles. 

The following are three of the choicest of Elder Talmage's parables published in the Improvement Era. Spelling and punctuation have been modernized.

The Parable of the Unwise Bee

Sometimes I find myself under obligations of work requiring quiet and seclusion such as neither my comfortable office nor the cozy study at home insures. My favorite retreat is an upper room in the tower of a large building, well removed from the noise and confusion of the city streets. The room is somewhat difficult of access and relatively secure against human intrusion. Therein I have spent many peaceful and busy hours with books and pen.

I am not always without visitors, however, especially in summertime; for when I sit with windows open, flying insects occasionally find entrance and share the place with me. These self-invited guests are not unwelcome. Many a time I have laid down the pen and, forgetful of my theme, have watched with interest the activities of these winged visitants, with an afterthought that the time so spent had not been wasted, for is it not true that even a butterfly, a beetle, or a bee may be a bearer of lessons to the receptive student?

A wild bee from the neighboring hills once flew into the room, and at intervals during an hour or more I caught the pleasing hum of its flight. The little creature realized that it was a prisoner, yet all its efforts to find the exit through the partly opened casement failed. When ready to close up the room and leave, I threw the window wide and tried at first to guide and then to drive the bee to liberty and safety, knowing well that if left in the room it would die as other insects there entrapped had perished in the dry atmosphere of the enclosure. The more I tried to drive it out, the more determinedly did it oppose and resist my efforts. Its erstwhile peaceful hum developed into an angry roar; its darting flight became hostile and threatening.

Then it caught me off my guard and stung my hand—the hand that would have guided it to freedom. At last it alighted on a pendant attached to the ceiling, beyond my reach of help or injury. The sharp pain of its unkind sting aroused in me rather pity than anger. I knew the inevitable penalty of its mistaken opposition and defiance, and I had to leave the creature to its fate. Three days later I returned to the room and found the dried, lifeless body of the bee on the writing table. It had paid for its stubbornness with its life.

To the bee’s shortsightedness and selfish misunderstanding I was a foe, a persistent persecutor, a mortal enemy bent on its destruction; while in truth I was its friend, offering it ransom of the life it had put in forfeit through its own error, striving to redeem it, in spite of itself, from the prison house of death and restore it to the outer air of liberty.

Are we so much wiser than the bee that no analogy lies between its unwise course and our lives? We are prone to contend, sometimes with vehemence and anger, against the adversity which after all may be the manifestation of superior wisdom and loving care, directed against our temporary comfort for our permanent blessing. In the tribulations and sufferings of mortality there is a divine ministry which only the godless soul can wholly fail to discern. To many the loss of wealth has been a boon, a providential means of leading or driving them from the confines of selfish indulgence to the sunshine and the open, where boundless opportunity waits on effort. Disappointment, sorrow, and affliction may be the expression of an all-wise Father’s kindness.

Consider the lesson of the unwise bee!

“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Prov. 3:5–6).

The Parable of the Owl Express

During my college days, I was one of a class of students appointed to fieldwork as a part of our prescribed courses in geology—the science that deals with the earth in all of its varied aspects and phases, but more particularly with its component rocks, the structural features they present, the changes they have undergone and are undergoing—the science of worlds.

A certain assignment had kept us in the field many days. We had traversed, examined, and charted miles of lowlands and uplands, valleys and hills, mountain heights and canyon defiles. As the time allotted to the investigation drew near its close, we were overtaken by a violent windstorm, followed by a heavy snow—unseasonable and unexpected, but which, nevertheless, increased in intensity so that we were in danger of being snowbound in the hills. The storm reached its height while we were descending a long and steep mountainside several miles from the little railway station at which we had hoped to take [a] train that night for home. With great effort we reached the station late at night while the storm was yet raging. We were suffering from the intense cold incident to biting wind and driving snow; and, to add to our discomfiture, we learned that the expected train had been stopped by snowdrifts a few miles from the little station at which we waited.

… The train for which we so expectantly and hopefully waited was the Owl Express—a fast night train connecting large cities. Its time schedule permitted stops at but few and these the most important stations; but, as we knew, it had to stop at this out-of-the-way post to replenish the water supply of the locomotive.

Long after midnight the train arrived in a terrific whirl of wind and snow. I lingered behind my companions as they hurriedly clambered aboard, for I was attracted by the engineer, who during the brief stop, while his assistant was attending to the water replenishment, bustled about the engine, oiling some parts, adjusting others, and generally overhauling the panting locomotive. I ventured to speak to him, busy though he was. I asked how he felt on such a night—wild, weird, and furious, when the powers of destruction seemed to be let loose, abroad and uncontrolled, when the storm was howling and when danger threatened from every side. I thought of the possibility—the probability even—of snowdrifts or slides on the track, of bridges and high trestles which may have been loosened by the storm, of rock masses dislodged from the mountainside—of these and other possible obstacles. I realized that in the event of accident through obstruction on or disruption of the track, the engineer and the fireman would be the ones most exposed to danger; a violent collision would most likely cost them their lives. All of these thoughts and others I expressed in hasty questioning of the bustling, impatient engineer.

His answer was a lesson not yet forgotten. In effect he said, though in jerky and disjointed sentences: “Look at the engine headlight. Doesn’t that light up the track for a hundred yards [90 m] or more? Well, all I try to do is to cover that hundred yards of lighted track. That I can see, and for that distance I know the roadbed is open and safe. And,” he added, with what, through the swirl and the dim lamplighted darkness of the roaring night, I saw was a humorous smile on his lips and a merry twinkle of his eye, “believe me, I have never been able to drive this old engine of mine—God bless her!—so fast as to outstrip that hundred yards of lighted track. The light of the engine is always ahead of me!”

As he climbed to his place in the cab, I hastened to board the first passenger coach; and as I sank into the cushioned seat, in blissful enjoyment of the warmth and general comfort, offering strong contrast to the wildness of the night without, I thought deeply of the words of the grimy, oil-stained engineer. They were full of faith—the faith that accomplishes great things, the faith that gives courage and determination, the faith that leads to works. What if the engineer had failed, had yielded to fright and fear, had refused to go on because of the threatening dangers? Who knows what work may have been hindered, what great plans may have been nullified, what God-appointed commissions of mercy and relief may have been thwarted had the engineer weakened and quailed?

For a little distance the storm-swept track was lighted up; for that short space the engineer drove on!

We may not know what lies ahead of us in the future years, nor even in the days or hours immediately beyond. But for a few yards, or possibly only a few feet, the track is clear, our duty is plain, our course is illumined. For that short distance, for the next step, lighted by the inspiration of God, go on!

The Parable of Two Lamps

Among the material things of the past—things that I treasure for sweet memory’s sake and because of pleasant association in bygone days—is a lamp. …

The lamp of which I speak, the student lamp of my school and college days, was one of the best of its kind. I had bought it with hard-earned savings; it was counted among my most cherished possessions. …

One summer evening I sat musing studiously and withal restfully in the open air outside the door of the room in which I lodged and studied. A stranger approached. I noticed that he carried a satchel. He was affable and entertaining. I brought another chair from within, and we chatted together till the twilight had deepened into dusk, the dusk into darkness.

Then he said: “You are a student and doubtless have much work to do of nights. What kind of lamp do you use?” And without waiting for a reply, he continued, “I have a superior kind of lamp I should like to show you, a lamp designed and constructed according to the latest achievements of applied science, far surpassing anything heretofore produced as a means of artificial lighting.”

I replied with confidence, and I confess, not without some exultation: “My friend, I have a lamp, one that has been tested and proved. It has been to me a companion through many a long night. It is an Argand lamp, and one of the best. I have trimmed and cleaned it today; it is ready for the lighting. Step inside; I will show you my lamp; then you may tell me whether yours can possibly be better.”

We entered my study room, and with a feeling which I assume is akin to that of the athlete about to enter a contest with one whom he regards as a pitiably inferior opponent, I put the match to my well-trimmed Argand.

My visitor was voluble in his praise. It was the best lamp of its kind, he said. He averred that he had never seen a lamp in better trim. He turned the wick up and down and pronounced the adjustment perfect. He declared that never before had he realized how satisfactory a student lamp could be.

I liked the man; he seemed to me wise, and he assuredly was ingratiating. “Love me, love my lamp,” I thought, mentally paraphrasing a common expression of the period.

“Now,” said he, “with your permission I’ll light my lamp.” He took from his satchel a lamp then known as the “Rochester.” It had a chimney which, compared with mine, was as a factory smokestack alongside a house flue. Its hollow wick was wide enough to admit my four fingers. Its light made bright the remotest corner of my room. In its brilliant blaze my own little Argand wick burned a weak, pale yellow. Until that moment of convincing demonstration, I had never known the dim obscurity in which I had lived and labored, studied and struggled.

“I’ll buy your lamp,” said I; “you need neither explain nor argue further.” I took my new acquisition to the laboratory that same night and determined its capacity. It turned at over 48 candlepower—fully four times the intensity of my student lamp.

Two days after purchasing, I met the lamp peddler on the street about noontime. To my inquiry he replied that business was good; the demand for his lamps was greater than the factory supply. “But,” said I, “you are not working today?” His rejoinder was a lesson. “Do you think that I would be so foolish as to go around trying to sell lamps in the daytime? Would you have bought one if I had lighted it for you when the sun was shining? I chose the time to show the superiority of my lamp over yours, and you were eager to own the better one I offered, were you not?”

Such is the story. Now consider the application of a part, a very small part, thereof.

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” [Matt. 5:16].

The man who would sell me a lamp did not disparage mine. He placed his greater light alongside my feebler flame, and I hasted to obtain the better.

The missionary servants of the Church of Jesus Christ today are sent forth, not to assail or ridicule the beliefs of men, but to set before the world a superior light, by which the smoky dimness of the flickering flames of man-made creeds shall be apparent. The work of the Church is constructive, not destructive.

As to the further meaning of the parable, let him that hath eyes and a heart see and understand.

Wise Men Still Seek Him

Our Christmas Presence readings continued with Pamela Kennedy's The Other Wise Man, which is a retelling of Henry Van Dyke's The Story of the Other Wise Man. (I didn't realize I was getting a retold version, but it turned out fine, especially since it made for a nice picture book. Still, I can't wait to read the original.) This is a story of a man set to travel with the other magi to find the Christ child, to present his own gifts of jewels, who ends up never actually setting eyes on Him because every time he gets close, he sees someone in desperate need and he cannot turn away. In the course of his journey he sells the jewels meant for the King in order to help the people he sees in need. At the end of his life he is disappointed that he never actually achieved finding the King, but is told that through his acts of love and service, he actually did.

The day after reading The Other Wise Man I read Carol Lynn Pearson's The Lesson to my children. The main lesson in The Lesson is that life's most important lesson is to teach us how to love. There are other things to learn, as well, and this is a good short read.

I then read some excerpts from Thomas S. Monson's "The Search for Jesus", we had a discussion of all these readings, and then we watched the video below. After that, each child made a small poster on the theme, "Wise Men Still Seek Him" for themselves, using old Christmas cards or graphics from the computer.

Lesson in Liberty from Cereal

Object lessons are everywhere!

Today we discussed one of the most fundamental principles of liberty and agency at breakfast. It was quite unexpected and certainly not planned, but it was the perfect object lesson. It came about because, of all things, cereal.

Over the weekend one of my sons played in a baseball tournament that was hosted by a town where Malt-O-Meal has a plant. My son's team took 2nd place in the tourney and part of their winnings was that each player received a bag of Malt-O-Meal cereal. He chose a cinnamon toast-flavored cereal which is one I rarely buy.

I wasn't feeling well this morning so cooking wasn't high on my priority list right out of the gate. I announced that it was cold cereal for breakfast. My one son happily grabbed his prized bag of cereal and proceeded to have his breakfast. His brother and sister sat like vultures, wanting his cereal and trying to guilt him into sharing. Then they tried to get me to back them up and command that the cereal be shared.

Instead, I pointed out that they had zero claim on that cereal and no right to ask for it.

In the first place, did they earn that cereal? What had they done to procure it or deserve it? It was their brother's, fair and square, earned with his own physical toil. Most tournaments give trophies or t-shirts to the first and second place winners, but this time it was something else. Had he won a trophy, would they each take a turn displaying it on their dressers?  No.  Had he won a t-shirt would they each take a turn wearing the shirt?  No. So just because it was a dividable and desirable prize, that doesn't make it something they can claim. Just because they wanted it, didn't have any of their own, and/or hadn't had the opportunity to get their own,  doesn't make it something they can claim. If he wanted to share, that was HIS CHOICE. But the prize was his, his own, and his own only and NO ONE had the right to say he had to divide it up and give it away.

I am truly appalled that so few people seem to understand this principle these days. I agree that there is an imbalance and injustice in wages paid for wages earned. I've always thought a janitor should make more money than a professional athlete or a recording artist. My son tells me that no one will pay big bucks to see a janitor work. True, I concede, but when one goes to watch the athlete, he expects a clean stadium and doesn't want to be sitting in some Joe's spilled beer and vomited hot dog; should anyone have to clean that up for dimes on the dollar? Still, no one has the right to take something that belongs to one person and give it to another. NO ONE. Not even the government. My kids tried to appeal to their "government" this morning and get a redistribution of cereal wealth, just because they wanted it, and all without having done a thing to earn it and, in actuality, have me condone robbing their brother of his earnings. My daughter said, "But he should share. That's the nice thing to do." Yes, it is. But there is a difference between sharing, willingly, and being robbed. Charity is only charity if it is given willingly and freely. Would any of my children ever develop a sharing attitude with their siblings (or anyone) if I always automatically took a portion of what was rightfully theirs and distributed as *I* saw fit? Would they ever learn true stewardship or see real need or magnify any benevolent feelings if they were constantly being robbed and left with little to steward and no choice?

"...this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat."

(2 Thessalonians 3:10)

"Thou shalt not be idle; 

for he that is idle shall not eat the bread nor wear the garments of the laborer"

(D&C 42:42)

"Wo unto you poor men, whose hearts are not broken, whose spirits are not contrite, and whose bellies are not satisfied, and whose hands are not stayed from laying hold upon other men’s goods, whose eyes are full of greediness, and who will not labor with your own hands!"

(D&C 56:17)

"He that tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread:

but he that followeth vain persons is void of understanding."

(Proverbs 12:11)

"He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread: 

but he that followeth after vain persons shall have poverty enough."

(Proverbs 28:19)

"Surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter,

and the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood:

so the forcing of wrath bringeth forth strife."

(Proverbs 30:33)

God Himself doesn't want to command in all things but wants us to choose, based on our knowledge of right and wrong; compelling "goodness" is a law of Satan and of men:

"For behold, it is not meet that I should command in all things; for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant; ... Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness; For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves." (D&C 58:26-28)

The redistribution of wealth is not caring nor sharing; it is one of the greatest thieves of liberty and agency.

Parable of the Pencil

A pencil maker gave the pencil five important lessons just before putting it in the box:

1.  Everything you do will always leave a mark.

2.  You can always correct the mistakes you make.

3.  What is important is what is inside of you.

4.  In life, you will undergo many painful sharpenings, which will only make you better.

5.  To be the best pencil, you must allow yourself to be held and guided by the hand that holds you.

We all need to be constantly sharpened. This parable encourages you to know that you are a special person with unique God-given talents and abilities. Only you can fulfill the purpose which you were born to accomplish. Never allow yourself to get discouraged and think that your life is insignificant and cannot be changed. And, like the pencil, always remember that the most important part of who you are is what's inside of you. And then allow yourself to be guided by the hand of God.

(Wish I knew who gets credit for this, but I don't. Good things to think about...)

On Children, Rivers, and Time

Our life as a dream, 

our time as a stream

Glide swiftly away, 

And the fugitive moment refuses to stay;

For the arrow is flown

and the moments are gone.

So goes the second verse of the hymn "Come Let Us Anew." As I sang this with the congregation at the close of the Sacrament Meeting where my 18-year-old son gave his farewell talk prior to leaving on his mission, I had to smile and thank the Lord. Whomever chose this as the closing hymn was inspired.

I was still pondering my son's message, part of which included one of my favorite quotes. P1 was speaking on "Hastening the Work of Salvation" and near the end of his talk shared how our family loves Lord of the Rings and that there is a quote that has stuck out to him:

Frodo:  "I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this would have happened."

Gandalf:  "So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide.  All you have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given you."

P1's thoughts on the quote: "I think of these quotes in terms of what's sometimes going on today. Frodo wishes that he didn't have to deal with the ring anymore. In some ways, we as Latter-day Saints can sometimes get lazy or scared; we just don't want to deal with things anymore. Sometimes we don't want to go out of our comfort zone, or we don't want to go that extra mile. But this can slow down God's work.

"We only have so much time on the earth to do the things that Heavenly Father asks of us.  And they really aren't very hard things.  As Gandalf says, all we have to do is decide what we are going to do with the time we're given.  Are we going to use that time to do the little things that the Lord asks of us and actively hasten the work?  Will we step out of our comfort zone?  Or go that extra mile?  Or will we just ignore Him and slow it down?"

Interestingly, the speaker following P1 spoke on the family. P1 had spent some time exploring ways to "hasten the work" in our own families, so amazingly it went together.  As we sang that closing hymn, "... our time as a stream..." brought to my mind past experiences and an article I'd written on them that brought everything full circle in a comforting way with a powerful, personal witness.

IT KEEPS ON ROLLIN’

January 23, 2012

It’s stuck in my head:  “Ol’ man river, ‘Dat ol’ man river… He jes’ keeps rollin’, He keeps on rollin’ along.” My dad used to sing this old Show Boat tune and I’ve been thinking of it a lot the past few weeks with the coming of a new year.  Like the ever onward flow of the Mississippi, time keeps rolling along, too, whether I’m ready to move on or not. 

Each New Year’s celebration brings mixed feelings.  Looking ahead with faith, hope, and excitement; grateful for the blessings of the past; I still savor, and mourn, what is over and only kept in memory--each fleeting year of my children’s childhood. I’ve loved every second of their lives and sometimes panic when I do the math and realize how much time has passed and how little time is left before they move on.

As sometimes happens, these emotions got the better of me one day. It wasn’t just any day.  It was the last day of a family vacation, and the last day I could say that my son had never been to public school; he was to begin his freshman year the following morning by taking a couple of electives at the junior high school. It had been a fabulously fun and luxuriously leisurely camping trip and I didn’t want to go home.  Even though the decision for him to take some public school classes had been made with much prayer and I knew it was right for him, I still didn’t want to let him go.  He, on the other hand, was eager and looking forward to the new adventure.  Our opposing emotions collided at the end of a morning hike; he was upset that I wasn’t happy for him and I was upset that he was so excited.  Then I said, much too loudly, “Well excuse me for loving you so much that I want to spend every possible second with you that I can.”  I burst into tears and ran to the dock on the lake. 

I sat sobbing on the dock and it didn’t take long for him to follow me there.  We sat there on the lake, mother and son, both in apologetic silence.  A quiet, confiding conversation emerged and we found a new understanding of one another.  Aware that the ticking of the clock of life would crescendo once we went home, I tried to breathe in those last few moments of summer, and essentially, the last few moments of my son’s innocent childhood, and store them forever in my heart.

You might think all was well from that moment, but it wasn’t.  And I don’t even wish I could say that it was, for as I continued to struggle with missing my son and the way life was before, I turned to prayer and pondering and was blessed with an epiphany. 

There is a place I like to go on my runs that is out in the fields in the country, where the only sounds are red-winged blackbirds, an occasional vole foraging in the brush, the wind in the grass, maybe a red-tailed hawk looking for the vole, and the running water of a canal.  I went there a lot the first few weeks of school that year, to pour out my heart, to cry, to listen.  One of those days, I sat quietly staring at the moving water, watching leaves come and go in the current.  Most leaves came into view on my right, passed in front of me, and traveled to my left out of sight.  A few of the leaves, on the fringes of the current, got stopped up by rocks or canal debris, their progress halted.  One of the leaves got stuck in a small whirlpool, only to circle and circle and circle the same 6-inch area over and over and over.  Suddenly, and yet with a slowly spreading radiance emanating from the deepest places of my soul, I knew that this was Heavenly Father showing me, plainly, unmistakably, beautifully, and lovingly the course of mortality.

The poet Austin Dobson said it this way:  

Time goes, you say? Ah no!

Alas, Time stays, we go.

The leaves in the water were showing me that the intended path of life is one that “keeps on rollin’.” Birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, parenthood—growing up is traveling the current of mortality.  It’s right in this life for each person to enter and exit, to move through and on.  Just as those leaves passed through that section of canal, never to return to that particular place in their journey, their journey went on, and it was good for it to do so.  Those leaves that didn’t travel on were the ones at a loss; their progress was halted and they were left in stagnant waters, or they floated in futility in fruitless, pointless circles.  Neither of these latter scenarios could be what Heavenly Father intends for His children.  It was from this moment that I accepted the change.

I remember once telling my mother that I wished my kids would stop growing up, that they’d just stay little forever.  She smiled at me sadly and said, “I used to think that way, too, until it happened.”  You see, my brother died when he was 7 (I was 13). His was a moving on, just in a different current.

Robert Frost once said, “In three words I can sum up what I’ve learned about life:  It goes on.”  Thank God that it does.  I still have days that I’d love to have my kids little again.  Some days I look at photos from years ago and don’t know whether to laugh or cry.  But I love the people they’re growing up to be.  As much as I miss the delights of the past, I relish in the new enchantments of today.  And always, I’m grateful for every extra minute homeschooling has given me to spend with these amazing individuals.

Mothers also get to decide what to do with the time that is given them with their children.  With an 18-year-old departing missionary (tomorrow!) I am keenly aware that we are given a great gift in that time, but that it moves along pretty swiftly.

Parable of the Peach Trees

When we bought our current house, the first thing we did was to plant a half-acre orchard with apple, plum, cherry, apricot, pear, and peach trees. We planned, plotted, and planted, dreaming of fresh juicy goodness at our fingertips and shelves stocked with endless bottles of fruit. In our inexperienced naivety, we thought only of the blessings of the harvest, not anticipating the trials of pests and problematic weather. We didn’t foresee the years of despair over a late or early freeze and the subsequent loss of a year’s worth of fruit, or the years of overwhelm from a bumper crop with its sticky floors, fruit flies, lack of sufficient jars, and fruit rotting faster than I could get it preserved. We also didn’t foresee the valuable lessons in work and family and responsibility that would come from our small field, and I certainly didn’t plan on the object lesson of a lifetime that would finally teach me something I desperately needed to learn.

I have three peach trees. This past summer these trees produced profusely and I was downright drooling in anticipation. I watched them and worried them, willing the weather to be kind and helpful. As the blossoms turned to small green balls, I was protective, and greedy. Now, I grew up around fruit trees and I know that I should thin the fruit. This means removing unripe fruit from crowded clusters, allowing remaining fruit room to grow. But I wanted every single peach hanging on those trees and just could not bring myself to pull a single one.

As summer progressed, each tree somehow had a different destiny. One tree, through freezing or the wind, naturally thinned itself. It offered fruit, but only single peaches well spaced on the tree. These peaches grew to be perfectly sized and flavored. The other 2 trees bore burdens of copious crop; one poor tree succumbed to the weight of the load and the branches broke cruelly, nearly destroying the tree. Devastated at the damage my greed had caused, I then tried to thin the peaches on the third tree. It helped lighten the heaviness and thus preserved branches, but at that point it was too late to affect the fruit much and what we harvested were very small peaches with little fleshy goodness.

As I compared the trees and their produce, I was struck by obvious parallels between the contributions of my peach trees and the contributions of my life: If the fruit I offer is to be the best, I must not try to produce more than I can shoulder and nourish. I must thin out those things that place demands upon me, even sometimes when their blossoms are beautiful and I want that particular fruit.

This personal parable reminded me of some profound expounding Brent L. Top did on the story of Mary and Martha in his book Living Waters. Of the many wonderful things he wrote on the subject, this particular paragraph hit home: “The Savior told Martha, ‘Thou art careful and troubled about many things.’ He was acknowledging her conscientiousness but also reminding her that her conscientiousness in some ways had become a weakness. The phrase ‘troubled about many things’ could also be interpreted as, ‘You are distracted. Your attention and efforts are divided, and as a result, all that you do is less effective.’ In our day, the Lord has commanded us to be ‘anxiously engaged in a good cause’ (D&C 58:27), but that doesn’t mean we have to be anxiously engaged in every good cause. Trying to do all things or be all things to all people all the time results in Martha-like frustration. I believe we must learn, like Martha, that being cumbered with over-involvement in too many good causes can actually divert us away from the things that matter most. Martha wasn’t sinning or being evil in any way. All of her efforts and attentions were drawn to doing good for someone else (in this particular case, the Savior). But instead of finding fulfillment and peace and joy in her labors, she was more frustrated and worn out than ever. She thinks the problem is Mary—for not helping out with all of the preparations—but the real problem is Martha herself—for being over-involved and distracted from that which mattered most.”

While it’s hard to thin peaches, it’s harder to thin out the many things in our lives asking for attention and energy. In fact, it can be positively painful. But it’s not as painful as cracking under too much weight. It’s not as painful as realizing that as “by their fruits ye shall know them” (Matthew 7:16-20,) not only what type of fruit you produce, but the fruit’s value is revealed as well. President Gordon B. Hinckley said, “I have been quoted as saying, ‘Do the best that you can.’ I do wish to say that it be the very best.” Doing your very best doesn’t necessarily mean doing the most. Best alludes to quality, not quantity. The best peaches weren’t the loads of small ones with little flesh around the core, but the ones with lots of room to grow and develop.

In the thinning process, it’s not always easy to look at a cluster of peaches and know which ones should be sacrificed for the good of the tree and the fruit that will ripen. Likewise, it’s hard to know what to trim from our lives. Top continues, “Just as Martha was, we need to be stopped dead in our tracks once in a while and examine what we are doing and why we are doing it. Eternal priorities absolutely must guide our lives and actions and choices…” He asks, “How many things in your life—good, desirable, honorable, righteous things—are actually getting in the way of the ‘good part,’ an intimate relationship with God? As C.S. Lewis wrote, ‘God wants to give us something, but cannot, because our hands are full—there’s nowhere for Him to put it.’”

Finally, we cannot discuss fruit without mentioning the most precious produce—our children. How horrifying would it be at harvest to find the fruit of our loins as under-nourished and under-developed due to either greed for personal yield or distraction and overwhelm. Neither is acceptable. Elder William R. Bradford of the Seventy counseled Saints in general conference to unclutter their lives of diversionary encumbrances. “We need to examine all the ways we use our time, our work, our ambitions, our affiliations, and the habits that drive our actions. . . . A mother should never allow herself to become so involved with extras that she finds herself neglecting her divine role.” (“Unclutter Your Life,” Ensign, May 1992, 28.)

As this New Year begins, I hope we’ll all have the courage and conviction to perform the necessary thinning in our lives that we may cultivate the most excellent fruit possible.

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Originally published in The Sentinel January 22, 2013, I've been revisiting this lesson in my head the past few weeks as I've looked at and thinned my heavy laden peach tree again this summer.  Sigh.  I'm trying to be VERY careful with what I take on and expect of myself and my children this school year.  I am feeling much like my droopy peach tree with undersized fruit lately and it doesn't feel good. It's time for the semi-annual task of re-evaluating everything.

Parable of the Popcorn

I revisited the Parable of the Popcorn today.  I used it in my Primary lesson and then when my son was scrambling for a Family Home Evening lesson tonight, I handed it over to him.  I LOVE this parable and think of it often.

The Parable of the Popcorn

By William James Mortimer

Behold at the time of the harvest the ears of corn did bring forth kernels which were dried and prepared for the poppers hand.

And then it was that the popper did take the kernels, all of which appeared alike unto him, and did apply the oil and the heat.

And it came to pass that when the heat was on some did explode with promise and did magnify themselves a hundred-fold, and some did burst forth with whiteness which did both gladden the eye and satisfy the taste of the popper.  And likewise, some others did pop, but not too much.

But lo, there were some that did just lie there and even though the popper's heat was alike unto all, they did bask in the warmth of the oil and kept everything they had for themselves.

And so it came to pass that those which had given of themselves did bring joy and delight to man munchers, but those which kept of the warmth and did not burst forth were fit only to be cast out into the pail and were thought of with hardness and disgust.

And thus we see that in the beginning all appear alike; but when the heat is on, some come forth and give their all, while others fail to pop and become as chafe to be discarded and forgotten

Which kind of kernel are YOU?