This week, several of the online gardening sites had information about plants to set out in August for a final fall harvest. I had forgotten that that was even an option. I did remember that kale is a late possibility. A friend of mine left kale out even after winter snows and harvested all winter long. My friend maintained that the freezing sweetened and tenderized the kale.
I have enjoyed kale in Italian Wedding Soup and a few other dishes, but I am not totally convinced about kale. Sweetening and tenderizing seem like good ideas. I do understand that kale is a very healthy vegetable. Too often my mind doesn’t see all the possibilities.
We all can be stuck in our old patterns of thinking even when we have evidence of a better way of looking at a situation. We don’t need to punish ourselves for the limits of our current vision, but it is helpful if we can open our minds to new possibilities. This can be difficult in religious setting since there is much that is precious to us that we would like to preserve. Maybe the question is, “How can we hold on to that which is valuable or even essential, while being open to whatever new directions God may be directing us toward?” This has never been an easy balance to achieve as the history of the Christian church has demonstrated over the last two thousand years. It is, however, a necessary struggle that we must attempt, if we are to be all that God wishes us to be.