Grow Anyway

Behold, a sower went forth to sow…
Matt 13:3

The buttery scone I made was delightful dipped in fresh cinnamon-dusted whipped cream. I pondered for a minute about using whole wheat instead of white, but nothing was soaked, sprouted, or dried (or whatever else I’m supposed to do with grains these days)….and besides, it’s a scone. What’s the point of whole wheat in a scone? I did use coconut sugar instead of white, but only because white sugar sends my teeth (and probably my nerves) on edge. A Sunday scone with a crisp napkin and hot cup of tea at hand, a new magazine and afternoon peace. Blessed.

I pondered my kitchen garden (isn’t there some French fancy word for that?) while I sipped my raspberry black tea (sweetened with vanilla syrup and milk if you want to know). I could see in my mind’s eye foot-tall and bushy salad greens surrounded by sweet peas and tucked amongst them various herbs that only grew more robust every year. That was what the magazine pages in front of me were promising, anyway. Outside, everything still looked asleep from afar, but I knew there were tiny shoots peeping out from the dead sticks and stones, indeed thriving on their very decomposing heads and tented by floating row covers. Sheltered even.

I thought about my reading this morning from 2 Timothy 3, how Christians were to simply continue in the things we’ve learned and been assured of, knowing of whom we’ve learned them (see 2 Tim 3:14). In other words, to grow in spite of (or because of?) the surrounding muck of the last days: lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. (2 Tim 3:2-7). In other words, even if we’re just a sproutling in the faith, even if the soil looks heinous, grow anyway.

Hmm. Sip. Dip.

Some in the garden have popped their green wings but many have yet to show themselves. Why? Didn’t the sower sow them, too? Maybe they haven’t even germinated but will. Maybe they’ve rotted in the soil, become part of the rot. Maybe they got a brisk start but withered, because the shallow roots were, well, too shallow. Maybe they were too stubborn to turn to the light, preferring the familiarity of the dark. As if seeds could sprout themselves, I mean, without stealing air and water and nutrients from outside themselves.

I almost avoided scone number two as I headed to the garden with it in hand.

I peeked under the row covers. It was disappointing. Seems there are far too many obstacles in growing. Birds and stony places and thorns and sun and impossible sounding harvests of thirty or sixty or hundred fold. But methinks even the hundred folds must have begun as babes, surrounded by an environment of rot and decay, of unfruitful seeds that just turned back into the elements, ne’er to bloom. I wondered about reseeding. I wanted a crop, not a handful.

It became pretty clear though what the point was, to me anyway. Peering close with my camera, I saw in the littlest of beginnings: hands raised to the sun, the Son, God. I figured if I’m blessed enough to even sprout, the Sower deserves the glory. And I shall pray for an honoring harvest from my heart and hands even as death crumbles about my feet, and the Sower continues His Work.

Grow anyway.