I promised Marg I would blog about beets.

One summer morning back in 2008, as I was sitting in my office sipping my second cup of coffee and skimming the day's headlines, I stumbled across an article about beets in the New York Times. It was a short article - a mere 397 words - but it spun me on a culinary adventure that, two years later, has proven to be one of my longest-lasting love affairs.

Once, at a high-end restaurant in San Francisco, I tried to order a beet salad but was dismayed to find that I had misread the menu and was served a big hunk of foie gras with a few beet slices on the side. Chicago's infamous ban on the infamous pâté had only recently been lifted, so it seemed ironic that I could accidentally order foie gras in the city that gave us the Haight-Ashbury district, but was legally prohibited from ordering it in the city that inspired Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. But I digress.

In addition to being delicious and nutritious, sliced beets are beautiful. Classic red beets are my favorite (both because of their taste and their color), but you can also find golden and white varieties, which makes them a fun vegetable to serve. I've made my friends eat them in salads with goat cheese, arugula, and homemade molasses vinaigrette; I've packed roasted beets on picnics; I've brought them to church potlucks mixed with hunks of brie. I've had entire conversations with grocery store clerks at Giant about how to sauté the greens with garlic and chili pepper.

I thought everyone loved them.

But one day, I was eating falafel sandwiches with MC at a kabob place out in Arlington, and she made a face and spit something into her napkin. "Ugh," she exclaimed, "I think there are beets in my sandwich. My mouth tastes like dirt!"

"Oh, you mean like sugar?" I asked. "Beets are really sweet."

"Um . . . no. Like dirt. Beets taste like earth," she clarified.

That's when I learned that a lot of people really - and I mean really - dislike beets. In fact, it's probably one of the few things upon which my dad and President Obama agree.

But whether you're predisposed to like beets or not, they're still good for you.

I was thinking about this phenomenon during tonight's sermon on the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:1-23). That parable has always seemed a bit scary to me. Is my heart full good soil, or is it possible that I'll wake up one day with a heart of stone and realize that grace has withered because it wasn't able to root? How about the people I love - will they be attacked by birds or choked by thorns? The ground in this story is not a free agent with a choice about how to respond to the seed that's being tossed upon it. If we are the ground, the Gospel is the seed, and the Holy Spirit is the sower, is it not terrifying to imagine that all you can do is wait and see whether or not grace will sprout and bear fruit in your life? In the same way that we're born with certain tastes (either you like beets or you don't), we might be predisposed to listen to the Gospel or reject it.

Pastor Aaron's take on the passage was a bit different. He reminded us that we are all predisposed to reject the gospel. We're all depraved. But we're also all gardeners of our own hearts. The parable is not encouraging us to quickly survey our internal landscape and make a quick judgment about whether we're full of rocks or good soil. It's encouraging us to put on our gloves, pick up a shovel, and get to work. Each new season, we'll need to till our hearts, weed our minds, and protect our metaphorical gardens from birds and pests. In his words, "Fruitfulness does not happen by accident."

So, at risk of being sacrilegious with my analogy, I'll conclude by saying to all of the beet haters out there: if you think that your particular combination of taste buds make you exempt from having to eat them, perhaps you just need a little more practice. If you want help coping with your beet phobia, check out this article from The Atlantic.

And finally, a poem:

HARROWING

The plow has savaged this sweet field

Misshapen clods of earth kicked up

Rocks and twisted roots exposed to view

Last year's growth demolished by the blade.

I have plowed my life this way

Turned over a whole history

Looking for the roots of what went wrong

Until my face is ravaged, furrowed, scarred.

Enough. The job is done.

Whatever's been uprooted, let it be

Seedbed for the growing that's to come.

I plowed to unearth last year's reasons-

The farmer plows to plant a greening season.

-Parker J. Palmer