Needing to Give Away

For weeks now I have been driving by it, trying to decide if it is generosity, stupidity, naivete, optimism -- or maybe even a social experiment.  Near the street, in front of a house near the church, the homeowner has planted a postage-stamp field of corn -- perhaps half-a-dozen plants.  Inconspicuous during the early part of summer, their true identity gradually became undeniable -- especially now as the tall, ear-laden stalks stand sentry at the end of the sidewalk.

"Exactly how many of those ears does that guy actually think he is going to eat," I wondered to myself when I first noticed them maturing.  Positioned at the highly trafficked, pedestrian heavy neighborhood intersection of three streets, the corn virtually advertises for pilfering.  A passerby would hardly need to get out of the car to reach over and snap off an ear or two for supper.  They are simply growing there -- opportune.  So, is the guy oblivious, or is he simply appealing to the better nature of his passersby?  Could it be that he is not interested in the corn at all and is actually doing research, with a hidden camera positioned to monitor and record behaviors?

Or could it be a simple act of generosity -- a gift to whosoever needs a meal? 

There is that compassionate enjoinder to farmers in the book of Leviticus that says, "When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God"¹⁰ (19:9-10).

As a kind of ground-level welfare system, the law served to remind the community that they were responsible for one another.  Could it be that the homeowner is implementing his own little version of the law?  Something inside of me rather hopes that this is the real motivation.  Perhaps one of these days I will stop, and knock on his door and ask. 

In the meantime, the thing that unsettles me the most about this neighbor's little agricultural project is the cynicism it has revealed in me -- how poorly I thought of my fellow kind.  Maybe I need to spend more time in Leviticus, remembering that God does not intend our life to be about "us" verses "them" but only "us" in the largest collective terms.  And maybe it's time I planted a little corn of my own...

...just to give away.