In spring comes my nemesis.
They look innocent enough, to be sure, small golden wisps floating innocently to the warm spring earth. But, oh, how they float. By the thousands they come, a blizzard of debris that layers the ground with promises of yardwork, dirty fingernails and sore backs.
They are of course seeds, these falling helicopters from my wonderful maple tree, God’s clever plan to procreate acer saccharinum from generation to generation. And they are clever bits of biological engineering, wafting gently to the waiting ground, their slender fins atwirl, ensuring that they nose to the earth in such a way as to maximize their opportunity to find a fertile place waiting and stretch out their roots and make life.
One wonders about the farmer who sows his seeds so indiscriminately. For each that finds worthy ground, thousands end on roof and sidewalk. They fall millions by millions, but how many, really, might ever fulfill their purpose? One, or two? A handful at most. Small outcome for such great hope.
And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and it sprang up quickly, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched; and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. (Mark 4:4-7)
Too often we view life as such a mistake. It falls all around us and we treat it as so much litter. It is in our way. It is not pleasing by our standards. It does not fit into our landscape. We cannot perceive its higher purpose, so we disregard both its creative source and its creative aspiration. It is too easy to dehumanize the other, to devalue and dispose. It is as if we despise it.
But even more so, we fear it. It overwhelms us, this promise of Grace. For God is the sower in this parable, casting seeds far and wide in some unknown but insistent plan. This is the unseen value of life, that it comes so abundantly, so madly. Where it seems only one or two seeds might do, God sends millions. Where we might plant more cautiously, God sows everywhere. Each seed carries in it a divine purpose. Each has hope.
So when we take up violence so easily, when we casually label enemy and terrorist, when we justify torture and murder, we mock the creator, the untamed sower, the giver of life. When we are miserly with our regard for others, we are immoral and we reap unto such judgment. We neglect the divine nature, that each life is the same, that each is valuable as the next, that we all fall from the same place to the same earth and in the divine grace we are one.
That is his secret. The divine plan escapes us, but we cannot escape it. We are all part of it, wherever we land. That we would have such grace for others would be a fruitful work indeed.
Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.” Mark 4:8
They look innocent enough, to be sure, small golden wisps floating innocently to the warm spring earth. But, oh, how they float. By the thousands they come, a blizzard of debris that layers the ground with promises of yardwork, dirty fingernails and sore backs.
They are of course seeds, these falling helicopters from my wonderful maple tree, God’s clever plan to procreate acer saccharinum from generation to generation. And they are clever bits of biological engineering, wafting gently to the waiting ground, their slender fins atwirl, ensuring that they nose to the earth in such a way as to maximize their opportunity to find a fertile place waiting and stretch out their roots and make life.
One wonders about the farmer who sows his seeds so indiscriminately. For each that finds worthy ground, thousands end on roof and sidewalk. They fall millions by millions, but how many, really, might ever fulfill their purpose? One, or two? A handful at most. Small outcome for such great hope.
And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and it sprang up quickly, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched; and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. (Mark 4:4-7)
Too often we view life as such a mistake. It falls all around us and we treat it as so much litter. It is in our way. It is not pleasing by our standards. It does not fit into our landscape. We cannot perceive its higher purpose, so we disregard both its creative source and its creative aspiration. It is too easy to dehumanize the other, to devalue and dispose. It is as if we despise it.
But even more so, we fear it. It overwhelms us, this promise of Grace. For God is the sower in this parable, casting seeds far and wide in some unknown but insistent plan. This is the unseen value of life, that it comes so abundantly, so madly. Where it seems only one or two seeds might do, God sends millions. Where we might plant more cautiously, God sows everywhere. Each seed carries in it a divine purpose. Each has hope.
So when we take up violence so easily, when we casually label enemy and terrorist, when we justify torture and murder, we mock the creator, the untamed sower, the giver of life. When we are miserly with our regard for others, we are immoral and we reap unto such judgment. We neglect the divine nature, that each life is the same, that each is valuable as the next, that we all fall from the same place to the same earth and in the divine grace we are one.
That is his secret. The divine plan escapes us, but we cannot escape it. We are all part of it, wherever we land. That we would have such grace for others would be a fruitful work indeed.
Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.” Mark 4:8
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