The Magic Mustard Seed

There is a woman named Kate whose child just passed.?She visits her local pastor and asks them how she can cure her sorrow. How she can bring her son back to life. How she can fix what was broken.

The pastor tells Kate to go to walk down her street & knock on each neighbors door. If they open the door, Kate must ask them if they have ever suffered grief & loss. Each person who has not will give her a small flower or strand of grass from their lawn.

As you can imagine, Kate feels relief. There’s a cure…even if it is ridiculous! Maybe it will help.

But as Kate knocks on each door, she becomes sad. There are no flowers in her bag. No blades of grass in her hand.

There Is No Cure

Kate does learn how universal her grief is. Kate gains community, shares her grief, & feels free, somehow. But there is still confusion.

Kate buries her son later that week and returns to visit the pastor. She confesses that she was unable to get a single flower or blade of grass from her neighbor.

Grinning, the pastor explains that she no longer needs them. She never did.

The Parable of The Mustard Seed

This story is an adaptation of a Buddhist teaching about compassion and suffering -the Parable of the Mustard Seed. And the point is: there’s no such thing as magic seeds!

We all know it right? In your heart, I’m sure you know it, too.

The point is this: our cure is not a mustard seed, a flower, or a blade of grass. The cure is not knowing that the medicine is not the mustard seeds.

The cure is the process. The process of building relationship. Of confronting our money trauma. Of learning to making wise financial decision. Of building our life.