A lesson from my Nana

I can’t really ever remember hurting any animal when I was little.   The only bad thing I remember doing was when I was hmm, I don’t even know how old, just that I was young.   I got a earthworm out by Nana’s, took one of her matches that she had to either light her heater, or to light one of her smokes if her lighter wasn’t handy.   I took a match and stuck it in the skin, lit a match and then stuck it on the other match.   Cruel I know, I have no idea why I did something like that, but my Nana caught me and she taught me a lesson that day.   Nana was a earthy person.  She was of nature!   She loved the outdoors.   She had taken me grubbing for worms before when she went fishing.   So I thought she wouldn’t really have a problem with this.   I’m not sure if the lesson was to keep me away from her matches or if she really meant to teach me something.   But what she told me stuck with me, and I don’t ever remember being mean to any of God’s creatures from that day.   She actually brought up the fact how she had took me grubbing for worms.   She asked me did I remember how many worms we found.   I told her yes.   She said well under the ground there are earthworms, just like the ones we got for fishing.   Those kind of worms aren’t for fishing.  Those kinds of worms make things grow, without them, there would be no flowers or grass, or trees.   The only reason they were put here was to be in the earth now why would you want to hurt something like that.   I don’t remember if I cried, but I felt bad.   She didn’t fuss at me, she did ask for her matches back though.

So I think about this lesson she taught me a long time ago.  A lesson we can use not only in nature but also in our lives.  There are always invisible forces at work.  There is the silent and unseen work.   When I say work it could be a prayer someone is praying about you and you don’t even know it.  There is the own work of our own spiritual lives.   Something keeps telling me to be still, go back to meditating like you used too, but I havn’t let myself be still as much as I used too.

I believe in our lives, like Nana’s lesson to a young Derek, as well as in our world, like something small as an earthworm or as large as humankind, there is always so much more than meets the eye.