Bean thinkin'

I opened a bag of pinto beans last night to soak.  For some reason I was craving a pot of beans.  Probably because I’ve been working on the book about my mom and it never failed when I went to her house to visit that she didn’t put on a pot of beans.  It became a familiar smell when I visited.  Rarely did I walk into the house when she knew that I was coming that a pot wasn’t on.   One of the “highlights” of my date with Twinguy was our discussion on whose mom made the best beans.  The ones at “The Pig Palace” where we had dinner didn’t  compare.   Neither do mine.  No matter how many times I’ve made them, duplicating what my mom did the many times I watched her, mine never quite taste as good.  Probably that magical ingredient that she added…love.

I managed in the course of opening the beans to pour into the pot to soak overnight to knock them off the counter, spilling most of the contents.  I got out the broom, swept them into a pile and got out the dust  pan remarking to Quincy (yes I talk to my dog a lot) “that’s what you call a hill of beans”.

This morning while giving a verbal warning to an employee about something she had failed to do, she remarked that “we were being unfair…that the issue was as worthless as a hill of beans”.   Apparently, that is pretty worthless.  Of no value at all.  

Sometimes though the things we place little importance on because they aren’t that important to us in the scheme of things are of a lot of importance to someone else.  In the case of the employee,her failure to leave copies of her notes in a chart left the person who needed to see her note to make their note in a bind.  While she failed to see why it was a big deal, those that came after her found it to be a very big deal.  A hindrance to them to be able to do their job effectively.

So I started thinking about things, situations in my life that I could probably respond with Ahh, that’s about as worthless as a hill of beans” or so insignificant it could hardly matter.  Suddenly, all these seemingly unimportant things that in my mind don’t amount to a hill of beans when seen from another’s prospective did have some value.  Did it really matter for example that I wasn’t at the Sunday School desk last Sunday.  Not really in the grand scheme of things . After all, if I’m absent then I just do the totals the next time I’m there.  But my absence probably did amount to more than a hill of beans to Brian, the mentally challenged guy, who counts on me for his Dr.Pepper and a hug each week.   Or the medication that I forgot to get refilled.   I didn’t think much of it…but my body did as my blood pressure got higher and higher until I got back on it.  My ex-husband used to get furious about me not putting things back where they belonged after I used them. I would think What’s the big deal?  Hill of beans.  Not worth the effort to get aggravated about.  But today when I went to use my stapler and someone had borrowed it and not put it back and I had to get up and hunt for it, I understood the frustration.  

Of course, I googled to see where the expression came from. 

Before machine planting, many vegetables were planted in groups of four to six seeds. This group of seeds was called a hill.The purpose of planting in hills was to make it easier for the young sprouts to push up through the soil.Together, five or six can break the dry crust of the soil, where one might not be able to. Also, much of the home grown seeds did not germinate, so planting five or six together assured that a couple would grow.In a large field of many millions, one hill didn't amount to much, therefore a hill of beans was worth just about zero.

What struck me about the history above was the last line about one hill not amounting to much in a large field of millions.  I immediately thought of the Bible story about the shepard who leaves the 99 sheep to go and find the missing one.  Every one of us is important to God…Even if we are one among the millions. To God, none of us are worthless.  None of us fit in the “hill of beans” analogy.

And most things we think are insignificant, might have been very much so to someone else.  Our Chaplain at work pouted all day one day. I finally asked him what was wrong.  You didn’t say Hi to me this morning when you came in, he said.  He was right.  I hadn’t.  I was trying to get my office door open so I could get to the phone call I had just been paged for.  The 2 seconds I didn’t take to say Hi had not amounted to a “hill of beans” to me.  After all, whose day depends on whether a co-worker says hello.  Apparently his did.  His feelings were hurt. And I felt bad about it the rest of the day.

It probably seemed insignificant to the co-worker who borrowed $5 from another one for lunch and told her she’d pay her back the next day that she forgot about it and didn’t.  But to the co-worker who needed the $5.00 the next day for her own lunch and didn’t have it, the promise to pay back the next day was rather significant.   

I had a point but I have forgotten what is was.  LOL  I guess that it’s even the things we consider small and not important can be.  The value of something cannot be gauged simply by how important it is to us.  To someone else, it may be of great worth.

A hill of beans may be of little value to us in the United States, but to a starving village in Africa, a hill of beans might represent life itself.  Something to think about.  That’s what I’ve “bean” doing today. 

L