Soul-Planting

Many of my friends have expressed their desire to maintain a slower pace of life. In the midst of this frightening, world-wide crisis, we are already worrying about our future -  how things will be in two weeks, two months, two years.

In many ways, we have better learned how to care for each other. My husband jokingly (or maybe not) says every night now is date night. A walk around the garden. A candle lit for supper on the porch. We are softer around our prickly edges. The margins some of us work to protect have been enlarged for us and have shown us how to slow down. We are liking it, but will we hold onto the good we are discovering?

Little by little, as the pandemic numbers recede and things begin to open up, I, too, wonder if I can maintain this sense of calm. Admittedly, I can't help but feel a little cringe when I'm notified my Pilates classes are resuming, or I'm invited to play golf or lead a Zoom meeting, knowing those are hours and minutes that have been savored in my little margin of calm.

How do I keep the good.....and resume the good?

Well, Jesus tells us not to be anxious about tomorrow but to concentrate on what we must do today. The God who clothes the lilies and cares for my precious birds will  care for me. Jesus said, "Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today."

Jerry Sittser, in his book Discovering God's Will, says, " Jesus wants us to devote our time and energy to all the little tasks we must do every day, not just to the big decisions we occasionally have to make. The little responsibilities we do prepare us for big responsibilities later on, little actions set the stage for big ones, and faithfulness in thing that appear to have only modest importance enables us to respond wisely to duties that seem -and perhaps are - very important.

"Whoever is faithful in very little is faithful also in much." Luke 16:10

Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk and author of many books on spirituality, believed that the present moment is pregnant with incredible possibilities. "Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carried thousands of winged seeds, so each  moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptible in the minds and wills of men. We must be sensitive and mindful to God as he works in our lives. Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, because men are not prepared to receive them: for such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the good soil of freedom, spontaneity and love. And how do we become good soil? By seeking God in the present moment - the only moment we have."

Freedom, spontaneity, and love - the ingredients for good soil.

We have this moment.....