from Kris B.

The word abundance simply means a large quantity of something.  It comes with no positive or negative connotations one way or the other.  As a society, however, we almost always attach abundance as a descriptor to positive things – abundant joy, an abundance of blessings, health in abundance, and the all-encompassing abundant life.  Don’t get me wrong; I’m all for abundant joy, health, and blessings, but abundance can also come in the form of illness, struggles, and sadness.  It’s just that we don’t normally say that a person is filled with abundant sadness, though such a statement is perfectly correct.  This is probably not the place for a semantic discussion about abundance, though that could prove interesting. 🙂

So why did I even bring this up?

Summer, which is defined by teachers as the season that comes to an end when school starts, is winding down.  Its days are no longer in abundance.  And, the crops in our summer garden also are no longer in abundance either.  In fact, we have pulled the last of the cucumber vines and pepper plants.  Now its time to plant for fall…and hope for an abundant crop.

Our garden did fairly well this summer despite a stretch of extremely hot temperatures.  We had an abundance of celery, cucumbers, red peppers, a few tomatoes, spinach, kale, and lettuce of all kinds.  So, was that abundance all good?

The thing about fresh produce is that when it’s ready to be picked, it’s also ready to be eaten.  And even the healthiest of eaters can only eat so many vegetables.  Let’s just say that we didn’t plan our planting very well.  We had tons of cucumbers, which is a good thing because I love them.  I’ll eat them on salads and sandwiches.  I’ll eat them as a snack.  But this year, there were even too many for me to eat fresh so I made A LOT of pickles.  Pickles are good too, but again, they have to be made when the cucumbers are ready, not necessarily when it is convenient for you to make them.  So, the night before I left for twelve days in Alaska, I was making pickles.  And while I was gone on that trip, Weber texted and said there were more cucumbers.  He too got to make pickles!

And then there are those leafy greens…

The biggest lesson that we learned from our garden this summer is that one can indeed have too much lettuce!  We have always been big salad eaters.  A side salad with lunch and dinner is the norm at our house.  And since we’ve been following Weight Watchers, we’ve been eating more main course salads.  You would think that with all this salad eating, an abundance of lettuce would be a good thing.  Not necessarily.  We learned that there is such a thing as an overabundance of lettuce.  Even with eating as much as we could and giving it away, or at least trying to, (Apparently out friends are not as fond of salad at every meal as we are.), we still had lettuce that went to seed before it was eaten.

Note to self…stagger the planting of lettuce next year!

This brings me back to my thoughts on semantics…abundance and overabundance…

Is abundance a good thing and overabundance a negative?

That works with my lettuce scenario.  An abundance of lettuce is good, an overabundance, not so much.  But, it still doesn’t work with negative things.  Neither an abundance or overabundance of sadness is good.  And is there really such a thing as an overabundance of happiness or joy?

Something to think about…and while you do, may your lives be filled with just the right amount of all the things you need…cucumbers, lettuce, and happiness!