Seeds

"Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often."
Mark Twain

I was out tree gazing in the woods the other day, and it struck me that each of the tall pines towering above me began as a tiny seed. That's a lot of growth potential. I returned home to emails and facebook messages, a few containing political jokes about Haiti and parodies of Hitler. It really made me sad. Those messages reminded me of all the tiny seeds we toss about absentmindedly everyday. I am all for freedom of speech, but I think we should be mindful of the seeds we plant with our words. They have tremendous growth potential as well. What kind of garden do we really want to grow? Victor Frankel, a psychiatrist who survived the Nazi concentration camps and published more than 30 books on theoretical and clinical psychology, was fond of saying, "I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented with a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast."

As I travel far from home, I hope to be a conscious gardener.