Experiment Upon the Word
We came across this little grow kit tucked away in a forgotten corner recently. A couple days ago, Llama and I opened it up and followed the instructions, moistening the ancient soil pellets and burying a few tiny flower seeds in each pot. We have no idea how old they are or if they will grow, so we’re approaching it as an experiment to see what happens. That’s how most of my gardening experiences go—we experiment and observe, then adjust our applied variables to begin all over again to pursue greater success next time. The seed packets had more than enough seeds, so we taped them closed again to save them, and Llama found a sunny windowsill to become the little greenhouse’s home. I thought about posting a picture of Llama with this cute greenhouse that day, but life was busy and I didn’t get around to it. And now I’m glad I waited because its story has developed and become much more meaningful to me since then.
All was going well—plenty of sunshine coupled with periodic, gentle watering to prevent the soil from drying out—until yesterday morning. I went to open the window shade but ended up pulling the string the wrong direction so it collapsed down on top of the greenhouse, which then crashed to the floor right below the window. “Oh no, I messed up our experiment!”
Llama rushed over to help me pick it up and assess the situation. The plastic contained the dirt and seeds and little pots so they didn’t spill all over the floor, but inside was just a jumbled mess. No longer was the soil surface of each pot tidy and smooth—soil was all over, certainly the seeds were all mixed up, and the pots weren’t nestled safely in the greenhouse base anymore.
Sometimes life feels like that: like I’ve been trying my best to set and strive for goals so I’m progressing and learning and becoming a better, kinder, more loving human each day, but then something happens and my metaphorical experiment crashes to the floor—something big and scary and new that shakes everything up and reminds me of how little control I have over so many things. It feels like the experiment has failed. But it’s not that my goals weren’t good. It’s not that I was a failure. I did make a mistake in this case with the seeds, but remember that mistakes ≠ failure. If I think about our original experiment question—will these seeds grow?—I realize that the crash was not the result of the experiment. It was from outside—an uncontrollable interruption to the experiment. And that doesn’t mean we should abandon the experiment or that the conclusion we draw is, “No, these seeds are not good.” That would not be sound logic.
Instead, we pick up the pieces and try again. We adapt our experiment to prepare for or protect against or prevent future similar disasters. We learn from this experiment and try again, maybe find a new window sill or be more careful opening those shades next time. If the seeds fell out of the pots or got mixed up, there are always extra seeds—maybe it’s time to swap for fresher ones or even go find new varieties we haven’t tried growing before.
I heard someone in a video a little while ago talking about her scriptures and how she has several copies, but just one set that she has ‘proven’—having spent a lengthy amount of time myself studying the use of that particular word in scriptures, I love that idea. My ‘proven’ set of scriptures has so many notes scribbled in margins and sticky notes with quotes and diagrams and drawings that if anyone else tried to use them, they’d probably get so confused. But they’re filled with impressions I’ve had and thoughts I’ve gleaned over years of study, and reading and being reminded of what I’ve learned previously helps me build on those things and learn more. A page fell out a couple months ago, and it made me really sad to think that the time to find a replacement set may be soon.
I found this note in the margins of a chapter about faith this morning as I was eating breakfast and looking out the window past this little greenhouse: experiments require action on the part of the researcher. Having spent many semesters taking lab classes and working in labs, I know this is true. For many experiments, the researcher is actively involved throughout the entire process. I recall many tedious days spent isolating microbacteriophage DNA from a soil sample I’d collected at a random creek bank in Utah. Each step of the protocol detailed an action I needed to perform, often with several minutes or hours between that I had to keep track of to make sure the timing was right, or the isolation would be unsuccessful. As the researcher, I was very actively involved in the experiment.
Sometimes even when I followed the protocol exactly, something still went wrong. I didn’t get anything from my first sample and had to go back and collect another. One time my timing for a step was off, and I had to replate my Petri dishes and grow new bacteria cultures again. Fast-forward to when we finished the isolation and were working on DNA analysis, two weeks before we were set to present at a conference we discovered that the main idea for our project was flawed and suddenly had to find a new project. That was a stressful disaster. As a researcher, you constantly find problems. But also as a researcher, finding problems teaches you to ask the question “why?” and keep trying and adjusting the experiment in a quest for greater understanding.
So if you feel there’s a disaster that’s been dropped in your lap, don’t give up on the experiment entirely. Experiments are meant to be active. That’s how we learn more and become more—by being agents to act, not just be acted upon. Pick up the pieces and keep going—chances are the problem isn’t that the entire experiment is bad, so just adjust the parameters and apply different variables and try, try, try.
All was going well—plenty of sunshine coupled with periodic, gentle watering to prevent the soil from drying out—until yesterday morning. I went to open the window shade but ended up pulling the string the wrong direction so it collapsed down on top of the greenhouse, which then crashed to the floor right below the window. “Oh no, I messed up our experiment!”
Llama rushed over to help me pick it up and assess the situation. The plastic contained the dirt and seeds and little pots so they didn’t spill all over the floor, but inside was just a jumbled mess. No longer was the soil surface of each pot tidy and smooth—soil was all over, certainly the seeds were all mixed up, and the pots weren’t nestled safely in the greenhouse base anymore.
Sometimes life feels like that: like I’ve been trying my best to set and strive for goals so I’m progressing and learning and becoming a better, kinder, more loving human each day, but then something happens and my metaphorical experiment crashes to the floor—something big and scary and new that shakes everything up and reminds me of how little control I have over so many things. It feels like the experiment has failed. But it’s not that my goals weren’t good. It’s not that I was a failure. I did make a mistake in this case with the seeds, but remember that mistakes ≠ failure. If I think about our original experiment question—will these seeds grow?—I realize that the crash was not the result of the experiment. It was from outside—an uncontrollable interruption to the experiment. And that doesn’t mean we should abandon the experiment or that the conclusion we draw is, “No, these seeds are not good.” That would not be sound logic.
Instead, we pick up the pieces and try again. We adapt our experiment to prepare for or protect against or prevent future similar disasters. We learn from this experiment and try again, maybe find a new window sill or be more careful opening those shades next time. If the seeds fell out of the pots or got mixed up, there are always extra seeds—maybe it’s time to swap for fresher ones or even go find new varieties we haven’t tried growing before.
I heard someone in a video a little while ago talking about her scriptures and how she has several copies, but just one set that she has ‘proven’—having spent a lengthy amount of time myself studying the use of that particular word in scriptures, I love that idea. My ‘proven’ set of scriptures has so many notes scribbled in margins and sticky notes with quotes and diagrams and drawings that if anyone else tried to use them, they’d probably get so confused. But they’re filled with impressions I’ve had and thoughts I’ve gleaned over years of study, and reading and being reminded of what I’ve learned previously helps me build on those things and learn more. A page fell out a couple months ago, and it made me really sad to think that the time to find a replacement set may be soon.
I found this note in the margins of a chapter about faith this morning as I was eating breakfast and looking out the window past this little greenhouse: experiments require action on the part of the researcher. Having spent many semesters taking lab classes and working in labs, I know this is true. For many experiments, the researcher is actively involved throughout the entire process. I recall many tedious days spent isolating microbacteriophage DNA from a soil sample I’d collected at a random creek bank in Utah. Each step of the protocol detailed an action I needed to perform, often with several minutes or hours between that I had to keep track of to make sure the timing was right, or the isolation would be unsuccessful. As the researcher, I was very actively involved in the experiment.
Sometimes even when I followed the protocol exactly, something still went wrong. I didn’t get anything from my first sample and had to go back and collect another. One time my timing for a step was off, and I had to replate my Petri dishes and grow new bacteria cultures again. Fast-forward to when we finished the isolation and were working on DNA analysis, two weeks before we were set to present at a conference we discovered that the main idea for our project was flawed and suddenly had to find a new project. That was a stressful disaster. As a researcher, you constantly find problems. But also as a researcher, finding problems teaches you to ask the question “why?” and keep trying and adjusting the experiment in a quest for greater understanding.
So if you feel there’s a disaster that’s been dropped in your lap, don’t give up on the experiment entirely. Experiments are meant to be active. That’s how we learn more and become more—by being agents to act, not just be acted upon. Pick up the pieces and keep going—chances are the problem isn’t that the entire experiment is bad, so just adjust the parameters and apply different variables and try, try, try.
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