The Realm of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, no-one knows how.
-Luke 4:26-27
Seeker,
Have you learned to trust in the re-creative power of Nature, when left alone, to astound you with possibilities unimagined?
Most of us, much of the time,
are so busy getting THERE
that we fail to realize we are already HERE.
Essential prayer is no more or less than this;
the desire and determination,
to be HERE and no place else.
For HERE is the stage
upon which the unfolding field of relationships—
God’s Realm— is set.
HERE is always beneath THERE… So often we imagine that THERE is more full of gold than HERE. It is the same with love and dreams and the work of our lives. We see the light everywhere but where we are, and chase after what we think we lack, only to find humbly, it was with us all along.
-Mark Nepo
For sure, we each have our part to play
(for good or ill)
in the drama of our days.
Yet we are not
the authors
of this eternally unraveling story.
HERE is neither the beginning,
nor the end
of the journey.
There is another Sovereign at work HERE,
a boundless mind, a wilder heart,
an infinite timeframe.
Like seed grain, packed with possibility,
the Domain of Mercy germinates by its own power,
in its own good time.
We do not make the garden grow,
we can but wake up to it, tend to the possibilities it offers,
enjoy the fruits of reality sprouting of its own accord.
Though we do not make it happen,
we can choose
to dwell HERE, or not.
With what can we compare the Realm of God..? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade. -Luke 4: 30-32
This weedy ground-of-being Realm of God
will not be constrained or contained.
It is mystery, too broad for small minds, too deep for shallow hearts.
Neither a territory, nor a State,
God’s domain is a state of being—
a new set of relationships to everything.
This encompassing horizon that recedes before us,
beckons and begs
the awakening of consciousness and connection.
With ways and means beyond us
our Mysterious Maker
works around us, sometimes through us, and often despite us.
And those people and places
we overlook and undervalue
are most laden with God-Realm potentiality.
For this is no trickle-down Reign from on high.
It is an eruption,
sprouting beneath the soles of our feet.
The lower we go,
the closer we are
to these humble seeds of possibility.
…Thoreau wrote, “I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.” By the power vested in everything living, let us keep to that faith. I’m a scientist who thinks it wise to enter the doors of creation not with a lion tamer’s whip and chair, but with the reverence humankind has traditionally summoned for entering places of worship: a temple, a mosque, or a cathedral. A sacred grove, as ancient as time. – Barbara Kingsolver
We do not farm weeds.
They thrive in the wilds,
in lands neglected.
Left alone,
they crack the hardened soil
and transform dereliction into diversity, a shelter for abundant life.
No life forms—from the rain-forests to the phytoplankton
who give us this day our daily breath—
lie outside the cosmic Realm of Mercy, the Great Field of God.
Perhaps we have no handle
on God’s Reign
because it has no door.
May you take the path
that lies wide open HERE,
and scatter wildly the weed-seeds of forgiveness far and near.
joe
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