Green Shoots

I listened to Rachel Maddow television show (and watched) last night and she was talking about veterans coming home and waiting so long for their pay checks to come home and waiting and waiting until the disillusionments set in.   And she mentioned that this was a practice that they now were calling  "green shoots" and required

 watching and waiting.

I actually looked it up and it has a definition associated with economy and economic hard times which affect Veterans as well as other groups that are not so well defined.   I remember going out to our garden and checking out the "green shoots".   It meant that spring was in the air with new life coming and that there would be food to can down the road for the winter.  We had chickens, a cow, and a roast every Sunday at noon with home-made vegetable beef soup that night out of the leftovers, no matter how scarce they might be.  People planned ahead for their next meals.   I learned that at home and it has carried over with me all of these years.  

There are lessons to be learned in the art of green-shooting.  Not everything comes when you want it to or when it is fair.    I applaud Rachel for staying after the system and bringing the plight of the Veterans to the forefront.   They have a vehicle for getting their story told.   But for the person, standing alone, out there, embittered, desolate, feeling the world has passed them by, there is hope.  It's called God, or god, or green shooting.