Hearing the story of the sower spreading seed all across the countryside, I think of the cottonwoods here in Colorado. In late spring, early summer, they produce huge quantities of seed-bearing cotton. The cotton is everywhere — all across the lawns, in the gutters, on rooftops, under the windshield wipers of my car, between the panes of windows opened for the morning breezes — everywhere.
The same was true of pine tree pollen when I lived in a land of evergreens. It was a fine yellow dust that covered the ground in June. It got into fan motors and lawn care machinery and was tracked into homes on the bottoms of oblivious feet.
This over-the-top seed dispersing — getting the little germs of new life into absolutely every nook and crevice — is how God works. God’s creative, explosive grains of new life are in absolutely everything, without exception. All you have to do is touch the ground or breathe the air.
All you have to do is look at the surfaces of your soul. The rocky ground, the bramble-bound ground, the good, rich soil — all of it is absolutely covered with God. Breathe deeply, little human, and drink the essence in. Let it take root in you and change you. Don’t worry about getting it right. There is so much seed. Something is bound to take root. Something is bound to find water and sunlight and good soil. Look at what is already growing. Help it along.
We have time. There is time to learn God’s hopes and dreams and to be the hands and hearts that carry them out. There is time to nurture tender seeds, not knowing what they will become but loving them for their strange, brightly colored stems and their ability to carry your heart into wonder. There is time to make a greenhouse for God’s new life.
Till the soil within you with study, with good questions, with wonder. Turn the earth with holy conversation, with prayer, with meditation. And then look at what the rain of seed produces. God loves you and desires you. There will always be that abundance of seed.