Day 12--The heart

"He told them many things in parables, saying: "Listen! A sower went out to sow..." -Matthew 13:3 

I've always liked parables. Who doesn't relish a good story?  As a child, so much of what I was taught at Catholic CCD was hard to grasp, but the parables, they made sense.  House built on sand.  Merchant found a pearl.  A man stopped to help a sick man. Great! Let's color a picture, and then we can all go home. 

As an adult, I have an even greater respect for them. Now I appreciate the genius of their design. Like burrs that stick to your socks--long after class is over, you'll find their simple images sleeping in the corners of your mind. They are winsome; they invite you in and then entreat you to find a comfortable place to rest, to stop and think a bit. Where would I build my house?  Would I sell my field? Would I be too busy to stop?

For me, a favorite among them has always been the Parable of the Sower.  Great imagery--A sower had a field, and he broadcast some seed. It fell on four different types of ground: path, stony, thorny, and good soil. Four scenarios, four results.  Even better, Jesus took care to elucidate this one it point-by point.  No need to guess what is meant.

But in my 40's, it's begun to puzzle me, even to sadden me.  Although it's straightforward and clean in many regards, in others, it's unfathomable. As a child, it was easy to conclude "Yes, I want to be the good soil!" and move on.  But as an adult, this story takes me to places that are more piercing, difficult.

I'm more frank in my estimate of myself, my capabilities.  I'm more aware that these odds are not great odds.  Four possibles, yet only one desirable outcome, hmmm.   Even the good soil bears various degrees of fruit.  Matthew tells us that some seed produced 30 times itself, another 60, and a third part 100.  In one sense, at least all three are productive, but what makes the difference between good, better, and best? What exactly makes the good soil good? 

Final few summer stragglers made it in the soil yesterday--a relief!--basil, a few baby zinnias, and some purple amaranths.

As a "doer" I want to quantify the characteristics of the good soil, figure out the application, and check them off.  Done! But, spiritual growth is not straightforward, clean. You often don't recognize it in the everyday.  Instead, it's like a friend's child you haven't seen in awhile; one day you happen into them and realize "Wow, he's grown up!"  Sometimes even the appearance is deceiving---we all know children in adult bodies.

I reluctantly admit that the most significant periods of growth seem to be fueled by my battles with the thorns and weeds---worry, trials, death, doubt, sickness, relational pain.  Ugh.  These can choke our hearts, if we let them, or they can make exceptional compost.  Compost happens over time and space though---before that you just have rot.  And the process of weeding is unrelenting and painful.

Another aspect of the Parable of the Sower which gives me pause is the urgency with which it is presented. Jesus begins with the imperative "Listen!" Then later on, his disciples are told: "The one who has ears had better listen!." Clearly this is a critical point--an all hands on deck plea. Do we listen ? Do we have it firmly in hand?

If I'm honest with myself, I don't know. I know I believe in Jesus as Christ, the Son of God, the Trinity, the veracity of the Bible, and other huge boulders of faith that I didn't once know. This I am firm on. But the soil of my heart? That's a much muddier matter. The fact of the matter is that my soil vacillates--my spirit vacillates. It's not static.

Perhaps this is the point? Perhaps like gardening, the process is always in flux. No two days are the same in a garden. Some seed lies dormant, while other is cheerfully sprouting, or blooming... Some plants are quietly going to seed, diminishing. Some are being slowly but steadily choked, and weeds grow up fast, especially after the rains. Again I hear the echo,"for he...sends rain on the just and on the unjust."

No two days are the same in the human heart either. This is why we find the disciples asleep. Why Jesus is pleading. Why I can start a day utterly confident only to have it end in despair.

It varies with the weather, the seasons, the weeding--the tending of one's garden and heart. 

"But as for the seed that landed on good soil, these are the ones who, after hearing the word, cling to it with an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with steadfast endurance." -Luke 8:15

May we cling.  May we be steadfast.  May we endure.

A drawing from my first Bible as a new Christian in my 20's--not artistically remarkable, but sweet to me.

“... the soil of any one place makes its own peculiar and inevitable sense. It is impossible to contemplate the life of the soil for very long without seeing it as analogous to the life of the spirit.” - Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America, 1977