Growing Good Tomatoes

       When spring arrives each year I appreciate the warming weather, the brighter days, and the increasing hours of daylight; but most of all I appreciate the start of the new growing season. Farmers and gardeners are out early tilling and turning the soil, adding needed nutrients and breaking the clods for a good growing field. Care has already been taken to plan where each thing will grow so as to increase the potential of the garden or field. Spring rains have provided the needed water to start the plants on the way maturity. The sun continues to give warmth and , before you know it, it is time to sow the seeds, bulbs, plants, and grasses for this new year. I can already taste the ear of corn, the asparagus, the beets, the onions, and the lettuce before they are well settled.

      It is with a watering mouth and great anticipation that I await the first fruit to arrive on the tomato plants. I check every day to see the green turn yellow and then that wonderful color of red that tells you the taste will jump all over your mouth with flavor. Put it on a salad, with bacon and lettuce for a sandwich, or just eat it plain, it is a treat that continues until the very last tomato has vanished for the year. It was work but the waiting and the anticipation was well worth it. We'll do it again next year and can hardly wait for the time to come to start. Let's move our crops around a bit to help the soil do its best next year, too. We'll add a bit of nutrient to help, rain and sunshine and be back in business again.

      Growing good tomatoes takes a bit of time, good planning, soil preparation, water, sunshine, and a loving gardener; fortunately, so it is with good Freemasons, too. We start each new year with a new gardener, elected for his proven skills to date. Others are elected to help him perform management functions and the new gardener chooses a few fellows he know works well in the garden and will help him achieve his plan. Teams are formed, duties are accepted, and actions to bring the new gardener's plan to fruition are commenced.

      As in growing good tomatoes it is first necessary to assure that the ground is prepared to accept the new plants and support them until they blossom and provide fruit. We Freemasons do this by insuring that we know our rituals, have the education system fully in action and prepared for the new candidates, and they all know who will do what and when they will do it. This means that the teachers have learned how to teach and the mentors know how to mentor. From the day the new candidate is put into the fresh ground of the Lodge, he must be carefully planted firmly in the masonic soil of ritual. He must be watered with brotherly love often and without lapse. He must be fed the nutrients of the prepared educational program. He must be given constant and tender care by his mentor.

      All of this is quite necessary and still the effort may fail. The most important qualification has not yet been considered. It is the nature of the plant, itself. There are very many varieties of tomatoes, each with special qualities that make them a bit different from each other. They don't even all turn red when they are mature. Each has been cultivated for growth and those special qualities. Each of us must make the choice among all the varieties as to which ones best serve our purpose. Of course, we know what our purpose is: Take good men and make them better. For that reason we can not necessarily choose our good friends, our church friends, our golfing friends, our sporting friends, nor our relatives unless they meet the qualification of being a good man who is capable of being made better. We must look closely at their actions as they do what they normally do. If we select the best qualified men, plant them in the fertile soil of our ritual, water them with brotherly love, feed them on the best education possible, and tenderly care for them every step of the way, we will grow us some good tomatoes.