A HARVEST OF LOVE

The fields harvested under a blazing blue sky captured my attention, slowly I pulled to the side of the road to soak in the pastoral setting. I am mesmerized by the vastness of farms waving with corn or land freshly mowed and hayed; surely years of childhood play between stalks of growing grain have shaped my soul and held my longing heart in open spaces and sustaining fields. Mounds of collected hay makes me wonder about what we gather through the years, not just in the season of growing, but how what we plant deeply within us comes to fruition and even defines us.

We build fences to hold in what is ours and that which we do not want others to touch or tread upon; secretly we sow into our emotional lives and later realize we do not always reap what brings life. We pile up resentment into bales of anger; our hurts fill our barns to overflowing with an unwillingness to extend mercy. Our whole interior world can hold so much pain that we are paralyzed by the gleanings we have gathered and these fuel our continued outrage and silent fury. If this is hard for you to believe, think for a moment about how you process the pain of the world right now: some of us go to fear, some are furious, some terrified, but few of us have learned to lean into the One who, "is before all things and holds all things together." Colossians 1:17 

We reap what we sow, examined or unexamined, intended or not. Peer carefully into the storehouses of your soul and ask yourself if you find faith, hope and love there. Only three things remain, Paul tells us at the end of 1 Corinthians 13, "And now these three things remain, faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." Jesus gives startling words to us in the Beatitudes, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Matthew 5:44 Let us continue to pray for those being persecuted, yes, but let us also pray for the persecutors. Are we, "rooted and established in love," as Paul prays in Ephesians 3:17? We cannot hold both fear and love in the ground of our being; as we cultivate love we find fear has less of a hold on us. We are loved and can gather grace and extend mercy from this place, even for the ones who persecute us.

The fields are ripe for harvest, what is being harvested in yours?

Medicine from Sacred Writings:

"For not by laboring and sweating, not by fatigue and suffering, but merely as being beloved of God we receive what we receive."

John Chrysostom   Fourth Century

OVERCOME EVIL WITH GOOD

I couldn't write yesterday, I could only pray. It seems the world can't bear the evil it must. Dark clouds on so many horizons gather while we sit watching, preparing, perhaps even expecting. In Romans 8:22 Paul says, "We know that the whole of creation has been groaning as in the pangs of childbirth right up until the present time." The world under our feet must shudder as the darkness of men's hearts spills onto its soil.

Stories filled our minds and hearts as we remembered: heroes who lived and heroes who died and so it will continue to be. "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." Romans 12:21 In our own neighborhood a local store is held up and the children cowered in fear as they experienced lock-down in the darkness of possible terror. We are overcome by evil when are emotions are locked down by fear.

We overcome evil with good by emptying our souls of the debilitating darkness that fear brings and live in the light. The paralyzing pain of loss and grief in the world does not need to cripple us; we can bring life. I will need to clear my own heart of hatred, of my little violence done to others, and extend forgiveness to all and be willing to consider God's mercy.

I have the smallest of candles, a mere flicker amidst the world's great darkness, but I can be a light and my light, along with yours, will begin to dispel the darkness. I can believe that God is greater than any evil known to man, I can choose to trust in His mercy for those who are suffering. I can hope."You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand and it gives light to the whole house.
 In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and praise your Father in heaven."  Matthew 5:14-16

What kind of light are you bringing to those around you?

Medicine from Sacred Writing:

The command to forgive others sets us free from all revengeful passion; while promising in return for this to pardon us also, God holds out good hopes, and instructs us to have high views of the  unspeakable mercy of God towards men."

John Chrysostom    Fourth Century