Derek Angelo shared with me a most insightful story. It’s about a carrot, an egg, and a cup of coffee.

 “A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up; she was tired of fighting and struggling. Her problems were severe.

 Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil without saying a word.

 In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl. Turning to her daughter, she asked, ‘Tell me what you see.’

 ‘Carrots, eggs, and coffee,’ she replied. Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity: boiling water. Each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened. The ground coffee beans were unique, however.  After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water. . . ‘Which are you?’ she asked her daughter. ‘When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?

 Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff? Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and hardened heart?

 Am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you. The choice is yours.”

 And mine. And you. Every one of us.

In Scott Peck’s book, The Road Less Traveled,” the first paragraph has only three words.  Life is difficult. No one can deny it.

There can be monumental invasions into our tranquility like illness, death of loved ones, economic and family problems.

Or, the accumulation of the many irritations of every day living. How do we respond to them? Like the CARROT?

Karl Barth, one of the great thinkers of the past century reminds us, that, “there is a saving element in every situation.”

Accepting defeat should never be an option. There is an old adage that reminds us that whenever a door is closed to us, another one opens up. A saving element.

Recently, Larry Stamper, retired Methodist minister and former Mayor of Burbank, sent me an e-mail that gives pause for we seniors. He said, “I see many seniors becoming more conservative in their thinking, more set in their ways and inflexible.” This indictment is reminiscent of the EGG affect.

They are suspicious of life, calloused and merely waiting. For the end of life. Years ago I read a statement by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German playwright (Faust), poet, novelist and dramatist. “WE MUST ALWAYS CHANGE, RENEW, REGUVENATE OURSELVES; OTHERWISE WE HARDEN.”

The challenge of the afore mentioned mother is relevant. Become a COFFEE BEAN.

Amen. Selah. So be it.

 

Adversity

WORDS TO THINK ABOUT:
G. W. Abersold Ph.D