Dear Friends,
Today most of the reflections are on the’ beauty of creation’ theme – gardens, flowers etc. Our garden is very colourful at the moment and God’s wonderful creation is so evident. I hope you have this kind of beauty near you too. Romero’s prayer is a bit different yet he uses the image of seeds & the nurture of seeds, ‘We plant the seeds that one day will grow’, to take us deeper into our human experience.
Rutter’s ‘Go Forth’ is the blessing this week. We hope you will enjoy it.
With love
Gardening
This summer I tried my hand at planting vegetables. I’ve wanted a garden for a long time, but living in an apartment put that wish on hold. Instead, I started a garden on my back porch, planting tomatoes, zucchini, cilantro, and basil in pots. The pride and excitement I felt when my little seedlings began to sprout had me thinking about what it must have been like long ago to live off the land entirely, and how precious mother nature is to us as human beings. In our modern, technological society we often forget this. But nature can do things to our souls that nothing else can. It can revive us, remind us that we are grounded to it, that we are one with the earth.
Peonies, heavy and pink as ’80s bridesmaid dresses
and scented just the same. Sweet pea,
because I like clashing smells and the car
I drove in college was named that: a pea-green
Datsun with a tendency to backfire.
Sugar snap peas, which I might as well
call memory bites for how they taste like
being fourteen and still mourning the horse farm
I had been uprooted from at ten.
Also: sage, mint, and thyme—the clocks
of summer—and watermelon and blue lobelia.
Lavender for the bees and because I hate
all fake lavender smells. Tomatoes to cut
and place on toasted bread for BLTs, with or without
the b and the l. I’d like, too, to plant
the sweet alyssum that smells like honey and peace,
and for it to bloom even when it’s hot,
and also lilies, so I have something left
to look at when the rabbits come.
They always come. They are
always hungry. And I think I am done
protecting one sweet thing from another.
Small Seed, Big Harvest
Joyce Rupp
Each day you & I hold within us seeds of all sorts of virtues. Whether or not those seeds germinate & grow depends mostly on us. Do we believe in the potential in us? Can we trust that no matter how insignificant our intentions and actions, they can make a positive difference in the life of another? Are the roots of our love ready to receive the divine energy that will assist with this growing process?
The next time you hesitate before lending a hand, writing a letter, risking a thoughtful comment, recycling an item, offering an affirmation, or giving an unsolicited donation, remember the small seed & the big harvest. Think about a tall beautiful tree that was once a seed, or a kernel of wheat growing into hundreds more seeds, grown given for nourishment.
The Romero Prayer
It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts; it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water the seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something and to do it well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.