How to Grow a Soul

Levi's digging out eyes. I tell him to.

He's come with a big one in hand, the potato scrubber with a Yukon Gold still wet from the washing, places it next to me at the cutting board, me weeping with onion.




I brush away culinary tears and say that the eyes will have to go.

"The eyes?" No one's brows arch like Levi's, crinkling that freckled nose.

"Yes, the white sprouts dotting here and there. Just pluck them out. We don't want to eat those." My lachrymal glands produce more reflex onion tears and I brush and Levi's back in the mudroom, scrubbing. Then to quarter Levi's spuds, peel the carrots, dice... I glance up at the clock.... chop faster.

"But what are potato eyes anyways?" Levi's back, two potatoes dripping in both hands this time. He plunks them down at sinkside, wipes his hands on his pants.

Eyes, mine, flit again to clock face. The ground meat has to be browned too. I put Levi's tubers on the cutting board. "Why don't you ask Opa, Leev?"

The rocking chair in the living room creaks, joints aching. Dutch father-in-law, he's in already, washed up from dirt digging, reading as he waits for me serve him, his farming sons in the field, his grandsons and daughters readying the garden, serve this food dug up from earth.




"Opa?" Levi kneels beside his Grandpa Voskamp's chair, taps his arm, plaid shirt. "What are potato eyes?"

"Potato eyes?" Opa lays his book down in lap, peers over his glasses at Levi. Farmer Husband's father still marinates his words in his homeland, Dutch accent soaking through the syllables.

"Those are the sprouts. Like a bud shooting out. What, have your potatoes got eyes?" Levi laughs then nods head this way and that, making finger glasses over his own eyes.

"But why? Why did God give them eyes?" Children don't take the world for granted; all things have meaning.

"Why?" Father-in-law chuckles, looks my way at the counter and I smile, nod over the stripping of carrot coats.

"Well, that's how a potato grows when you plant it." He lays hand wrinkled with memories on Levi's shoulder.

"It grows from the eyes."

I lay down my orange root, arrested.

My interior life is no different than spuds.

All soul growth comes from the eyes.

"The eye is the lamp of the body.
If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light."

(Matthew 6:22)

Lord God, how I see is how I grow.
Perspective is everything.
"Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things..." (Psalms 119:18)


~~

Ugly Beautiful.... Shifting eyes to really see, see the Christ-beauty in the seemingly ugly... For if my eyes see good, my soul expands, full of light... Snapshots of this week's Ugly Beautiful

"But blessed are your eyes, for they see."

(Matthew 13:16)

Related:
Shack Perspectives
The Ugly Beautiful
Get Closer to the Ugly
Seeing Past

Consider shifting perspective and noting ugly moments as beautiful, a way to grow a soul more like Christ. Join the Gratitude Community!

And if you've posted your Ugly Beautifuls lately, slip me a link -- it'd be a joy to post your shift in perspective!

How to begin: Just grab a scrap of paper lying around and begin giving thanks, with your own 1000 Endless Gifts:

Why begin your own One Thousand Gift List --(drop me a line if you do, and I'll add either your name or a web link to the Gratitude Community --- -- it's a privilege to join you in living thanks ...) Read the listing of the endless Gifts

Photos: burlap bag of spuds, Farmer Husband and his Father dirt digging for seed depth, chick breaking out, sinkful of dishes, working man, blooming chaos...