Say Yes To The Tomato
Three stories about accepting and using gifts.
The Spaniards arrived in America after surviving a long boat trip. They were hungry.
In essence, they came to the home of the people already living there and knocked on the door. They came uninvited.
However, the Native Americans didn’t turn their backs on the new arrivals. Instead, they offered gifts. Seeing the hunger of the boat people, they offered gifts of food.
One of those gifts was the tomato.
The Spaniards had the ignorant impression that tomatoes were poisonous.
Instead of accepting the gift and taking the time to understand what they were being offered, they cut off the hands of the people bearing them.
This isn’t just another story about the countless atrocities committed on these gentle people.
It is the story of being afraid of a gift and saying no to it, sometimes gently, sometimes violently.
Often, we say no to the gift out of ignorance or fear.
But imagine what it feels like to the gift bearer. If you brought the gift, how likely would you be to bring another to the one who said no?
Say yes to the gifts you have been given and to the talents you have to share with others.
Say yes to the tomato.
The following story happened in Chicago when I was there for a conference.
There were four of us standing in line at Starbucks. It was a beautiful Saturday morning, and the store had just opened.
Directly in front of me was a young man wearing a backpack.
As we stood there, he did something very unusual.
I watched as he straightened a box of coffee on the display beside us as we stood in line.
Wow, I thought. That is awesome. He put that in order.
As the line moved closer to the front, he kept straightening whatever he was in front of. When he got to the chips in the basket, he straightened them and gave them a tiny love pat as he moved to the counter.
He straightened the bars at the counter, fixed the napkins, picked up some trash, and ordered his drink.
Once the drink was ordered, I watched him as he moved to the pickup counter.
He didn’t stop.
At that counter, he straightened more items, wiped off the spigots, shook out and wiped down the rubber mats on the side of the counter, and picked up more trash from the floor.
When he wandered away to push in the chairs around the table behind me, I asked the woman at the counter, “Does he work here?”
“Yes, but it’s his day off.”
Wow,” I said, I would love it if he did that at my house.”
She answered, “Yes, you would. He is very dedicated.”
Dedicated to his work, even on his day off.
What if we were all that dedicated to our work? Not just on the mini scale but the big one. Imagine that.
He noticed everything. I thought I noticed things but missed half of what he saw.
Of course, he knew his surroundings. But for many of us, knowing our surroundings means ignoring or putting up with them, not constantly noticing them to make them better.
It’s indifference in disguise.
It’s not always easy to be the one who notices things out of order and does something about the desire to take care of what isn’t quite right.
There are names for it that are incorrect and harmful to the ones hearing it.
In a sense, it is chopping off the hand that offers a gift.
This young man didn’t do that to himself or allow others to do it to him.
His gifts included diligence, order, and conscientiousness—beautiful gifts, and he lived them.
He said yes to the tomato.
And others said yes to the tomato when they appreciated and honored what he was offering just by being himself.
One more story.
One of our neighbors had a dead tree, but it was on the part of the land that the township owns. I called the power company about it, and they came and cut off the limb that threatened to fall on the power line.
They left the rest of the tree.
The tree got worse. Big dead limbs were hanging out over the road.
Every time I went for a walk, I looked up at the tree first and asked it if it was going to fall that day before continuing underneath it.
Finally, the township’s tree crew came and cut down the rest of the tree.
Del came to see what was happening, and we watched for a while. and asked if I noticed that they were not wearing protective gear.
I had not. But Del did. Because Del goes out into the woods almost every day every summer and takes care of people’s forests, he knows trees.
He always wears a hard hat, steel-toed shoes, and chaps as he works with chainsaws, no matter how hot it gets.
It’s crazy not to, yet those men were doing that.
What to do? Let it be? Not ask why? So no to my tomato?
I wondered how the wives and mothers of these men might feel if they realized that their loved ones were doing hazardous work in shorts, sneakers, and T-shirts.
For them, I had to do something.
But I had a dilemma.
If I called the township office, they would know my name. Perhaps they think of me as a troublemaker, and it would be harder for me to get the building permit we would need for our next home project.
Or, I could contact OSHA, but I would still be a troublemaker.
Or I could let it go.
It would be easier. Instead of using my gift of noticing and then putting things in order, I could let it go.
But isn’t that indifference? Isn’t that why we often end up with incompetents running companies and governments? Because it is easier to look away.
I realized I couldn’t.
I said yes to the tomato.
I accept that I can be a troublemaker.
I said yes to the gift of being able to see something that isn’t right and attempt to correct it.
Yes, to the tomato.
Three stories about accepting gifts, living gifts, and sharing gifts.
And finally,
I watched a video of a young group of boys training together. As their leader handed the last boy a certificate of achievement, he said, “Although all of you have already received your certificate, you could not get to the next level until all of you got there together.”
True words. We have to do it together.
We have to say yes to our gifts and share them.
We have to support and encourage each other’s gifts.
We have to say yes to the tomato.
Because we all go together, or we don’t get there at all.