"Jesus referred to the earth as being automatic - it brings forth itself. In any case, when a seed is planted in the soil, if the seed is healthy and the conditions of soil and climate generally satisfactory, then it sprouts. Life becomes manifest. There seems to be available to the seed, at a point in time, all the energy and vitality it can accommodate in its unfolding. It should follow, then, that if the conditions are not met the energy is not available.
...Energy is available for the seed or organism - but under certain given conditions. It does not matter how simple or complex they are, or how self conscious or lacking in any kind of consciousness; the process itself has to be followed. In the following, in the obedience to the process, the discipline is apparent. It does not matter what variation there may be in the way the means of life are channeled into the organism or living cell, but they must be channeled if life is to continue, and within very definite lines, according to observable conditions.
...A particular form of life is committed to a way of survival, a way of keeping alive. When this no longer operates, when the line of communication is broken and the organism is cut adrift, death is automatic."
~Howard Thurman, Disciplines of the Spirit
Fallow Ground
In life we often tack unconscious requirements upon the heart of another with the expectation that they have the ability to read invisible memos. It isn't until we notice the inadvertent yet subtle cruelty of tacking unacknowledged hopes upon the innermost being of another - puncturing over and over again because we've neglected to give due attention to our own insecurities and deeply repressed pain. When we are unaware of ourselves we are unaware of others. Underneath it all lurks the great lie, a garter snake among weeds speaking with a fork-tongued drawl, "You are not able. You are not worthy of Love."
Today is Sunday. A myriad of feelings are present with me - relief, regret, acceptance, hope, fear, doubt, loss, empathy, failure, humility, repentance, courage, and reverence but the greatest among them all is Love.
Choosing to say yes to The Most High often means disrupting the norm...removing us from a place where we have become firmly packed in generational patterns, comfortable illusions, and the settled ground of inner defenses - states of being that have ill served our adult life. Our lives become hard, arid...a dry land lacking in the give that allows for the absorption of minerals, truth and love. The neglected and abandoned mind, heart, and spirit will not bear fruit...render a sweet return.
Breaking Up
Fertile soil is created. It is created by The Most High, the power that works in us all by plowing, rooting up, aerating, tossing away stumbling stones and cutting away the thistle - clearing and Preparing The Way by bringing us utterly to our knees. We are a barren land until we are able to be thankful for reproof and cease resisting, frustrating the process of divine cultivation.
I am learning. I am growing in the knowledge of Christ - to lose my life, as I once knew it, is to gain life more abundantly.
Breaking up the fallow ground hurts. Oh, it hurts. It hurts. It hurts. But I must allow myself to feel. The only way out is to go through and press on even as my heart aches. I must press...we must press because we are but one part of a bountiful end. The enlargement of Grace is bigger than us. A harvest is never simply for the solitary redeemer - one moment in time or one woman and one man. The germination of change and its harvest nourishes the begotten of the first dispensation and the generations.
Today the sun is shining. It is a good day to plant.
I do not fully know what is before me. My my, I am afraid. Yet with trembling hands I ask, "Most High, please meet me at the place of my need" as I surrender a mustard seed into the earth.
Let it be so...
Parable of the Sower
"Plant the good seeds of righteousness, and you will harvest a crop of
love. Plow up the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to
seek the LORD, that he may come and shower righteousness upon you."
~Hosea 10:12
