Main Street Cafe: Weed out Hate, Instead Sow the Seeds of Greatness

What started out as a simple root feeder back in the 1940's has since turned into a worldwide movement to encourage tolerance, respect and love for one another.

Today we celebrate 'Weed Out Hate: Sow the Seeds of Greatness Day' - a day to set aside our petty differences and encourage tolerance and respect for one another.

In fact, there's an entire website devoted to the movement - weedouthate.org. I love their mission statement: Doing the Social Good - Grandpa's Way.

It all started back in 1946 when a man by the name of Ross Daniels invented the Ross Root Feeder. It was a way to water the deep roots of trees and shrubs in the yard.

The company has since been sold, but Daniels' grandson, Marc, still continues on with his grandfather's dream - "eliminating not only weeds but hate."

"Weed Out Hate removes the obstacles that prevent us from feeling and drawing upon the strong roots that we already have. It empowers even the smallest child to condition his future self as well as the future garden by learning to remove acculturated prejudice in a similar manner that one extracts weeds in the garden-roots and all."

'Weed Out Hate Day' was first observed in 2010 in the cities of Springfield, Illinois and Des Moines, Iowa. Students were encouraged to go outside and pull out a single weed.

Since then the movement has spread all around the world. Noted German Journalist Ulrich Sahm recently wrote this about 'Weed Out Hate Day.'

"While Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King and Oskar Schindler set a very high bar that few, if any of us, will ever reach, our goal is modest by comparison: Empower the kinder-gardeners of today, the social architects of tomorrow, to take out their rakes and shovels and help us weed out hate for all generations."

So your assignment for today - young and old alike - is to go out and encourage tolerance and respect for one another - something this country really needs right now.

We ALL need to listen more and not be so quick to lash out at other people and their ideas. I put the blame on social media - it's way too easy to write a disparaging word.

My grandpa used to always tells us, "The good Lord gave you two ears and one mouth - meaning you should listen twice as often as you speak."

It's like the campfire song says, "It only takes a spark to get a fire going." Or in this case, all it took was a root feeder to get an entire worldwide movement started.

Source: weedouthate.org

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