One of my earliest memories of Marina Del Mar Elementary School was the day a little seven year old me witnessed a miracle.  Kindergarten was not what it is today.  Most of the time was spent normalizing wild children into a homogeneous group.  We played together and the teacher was there to mitigate and bring justice when there was a disagreement.

Oh back to the miracle.

It was time in the late morning for a science experiment.  Each little one was given a paper cup.  We were to go out into the play yard made up of dirt interspersed with hard metal rings and slides and instructed to fill our cup half full with dirt.  We were reminded that the quality of the soil would determine the outcome of the experiment.

Each child went out to find their dirt.  I went to the farthest corner under a large hedge row of Cyprus and dutifully dug a little hole and filled my cup half full with dirt.

Upon returning to the class room we poured out our diggings on individual paper plates and were given some dark soil to mix in.  I did not smell very good.

We refilled our cups with this mixture almost to the top.  George next to me spilled his and had to start over.

Each of us was given a little seed, about the size of a freckle we put on top and covered with the last of the ill smelling stuff.

We watered those little gardens every other day and left them in the window.

That’s no miracle you would say.  But my paper cup garden was different.  You see mine did not sprout out of the ground like the others.  Mine did not come up when everyone else’s did.

We planted them on Thursday. Friday we added water but no indication in any of them. On Monday three of the other kid’s cups had a little sprout of green. Tues the majority of the other kid’s had their sprout. Wednesday everyone had a sprout but me.

I was told that I must have had a bad seed. For a kindergartner that is not a very good answer for the sense of disappointment.

The teacher didn’t want me to start over because I would behind all the rest.  She suggested that I should look on with someone else.

But I would not give up.  I left my cup in the sun. I gave my cup water. Thursday and still no green sprout. Friday and no harvest.

Monday as I arrived at school, fully expecting to be disappointed again, I went to the window sill and there it was the miracle.

GREEN!

Not out of the middle of the cup where the seed had been planted, but close to the edge. In all its green glory my little plant had pushed its little sprout out of the dirt.  It was small but it was there.
The miracle was that in my hurry to plant the seed I had not been very careful with the dirt I had used.  I had placed my seed under a small stone.  The seed had in its effort to rise to the sun had come up against the stone and had taken four extra days to move something probably twenty thousand times as big as itself out of the way.

Never underestimate the power of a seed.