Artichokes & Illusions

Sent by Jan

In my front garden I have several artichoke plants and due to the generous rains this year the plants are full of artichokes. One plant in particular was overflowing with artichokes and I had been happily making plans on what I was going to do with them. I thought I might make an artichoke lasagna with some of them and then maybe bring some of the overflow to church for members to take home. It was fun to have such a bumper crop to work with.

A few days ago I looked once again at the big overflowing artichoke plant and decided I would harvest the plant in the afternoon. When I returned home that afternoon from running errands, I found that the plant was void of all artichokes! I couldn’t believe it! Someone had come along and taken all of them. Not one was left. I was not happy. As I stood there surveying the empty artichoke plant, a few neighbors came over. I told them what happened and all three of us grumbled about how folks just help themselves to other people’s things. One neighbor suggested that she knew who had taken the artichokes because she had seen a neighbor taking flowers out of another neighbor’s garden and how that just wasn’t right. We parted not feeling very good about our neighborhood.

Fast forward a few days when I was once again tinkering in my garden which was quite over-grown. I was busily weeding and cutting down bushes to a manageable size when I could better see the artichoke plant. Lo and behold –  all the artichokes were still there! The plant had become so top heavy from the weight of the artichokes and the loaded branch had fallen over into the weeds and was hidden from view. Was I surprised! You bet. And chagrined (I had done all that complaining with the neighbors!). Nothing had been taken from me. All was intact. It was an illusion! I thought about how many times I have been taken in by something that wasn’t true – by an illusion. That is error’s sneaky way of trying to get us to buy-in to an illusion. All it needs to do is to get us to believe it – and that becomes our reality. But like the artichokes – it never happened, it isn’t real. This has been a great lesson to me to be more vigilant, to look more closely and not be fooled into believing a lie. I will also make sure to share with my neighbors that all is well, nothing ever happened. I’m sure we’ll all have a good laugh about it.