Acorns and Perspective

A Blast from the Past

We live in the central mountains of California and are surrounded by beautiful Oak Trees.

This year the kids and I are busily learning about how to sprout acorns in the spring and have been harvesting the newly fallen acorns during our daily 2-mile morning walk.

We have a neat little park near our home that we share with our little community.

As Homeschoolers, my kids are the only munchkins on the trail each day. We pass the same walkers every morning, quite a few of them are elderly.

This year we are all excited about the acorns that have been landing on the path each day. We gather a few handfuls and bring them home to test them and store them for the spring.

I learned a valuable lesson this week. Actually relearned.

While we all look at the same world, everyone looks at life from their own perspective.

photo by Aaron Burden

While the kids and I were looking at the acorns on the ground as our own oak tree store, the elderly walkers we meet every day on the path were seeing them as stumbling blocks.

You see, apparently one of our friends had slipped on an acorn just a few days ago.

Praise the Lord, she’s OK, but I cannot see the path the same way.

Yesterday, Peanut and I took action.

We pulled up some mustard sticks and created our own broom and cleared part of the path.

He was so excited to help our friends out that we decided to bring an actual broom and do a good job.

Today we walked 1/2 a mile before reaching the villainous part of the trail and he happily brushed away most of the “safety hazard”. Actually, all the boys helped, he is the only one that made it on film.

The walkers we so appreciative.

Perspective is everything. I was surprised that I had only seen the fun little nuts on the ground, rather than the danger to others. It was a good lesson.

My challenge to you is to find something in your life to point out perspective to your own children today. I’d love to hear about it when you do!