seed planted

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It is hard to say goodbye to those we love

I remember too well the early deaths of my parents over 30 years ago

And the weird emptiness that was there

When they were gone

 

My soul was filled with empty warm happy sad feelings

that came like waves in my soul

at strange times

 

when I caught the smell of freshly baked cookies

or walked through the woods on a warm fall day

and smelled the pungent pines

 

My parents were good people

Good parents

Good servants

 

Ah yes, they served

Neither put themself forward

“Hey look at me!”

 

But both spend their lives serving

Their family, their church, their community

 

I’ve been thinking of death lately

As I have presided over too many funerals of people close to me

Aged saints who lived well and died well

 

I love the fact that Jesus (as Brian McLaren points out)

Talked about life and death using the metaphor of the harvest

 

We can see life as the continual toil of the farmer

Who each year plants good seeds and works the fields

So that there will be a harvest

 

Always there is a harvest

An end

Always an end

Where what has been planted, nurtured, cherished, and anticipated

Ends

 

Is cut down

 

Part of the story is about the nature of the harvest

Is it plentiful or not?

Is it sweet or bitter?

 

But an even more important part of the story

(or so it seems to me)

Is this

 

when the harvest happens

and the grain and fruit are gathered

there are seeds that are gathered

that drop to the ground

 

and become a new beginning

 

each ending is also simultaneously a beginning

there is always continuity

seeds become new plants

lives that cave in become (potentially) lives restored

hope crushed becomes a new hope born

 

newness is the key!

In the continuity, there is discontinuity too!

 

As Paul put it what is perishable, dishonorable, and weak

Becomes amazing, powerful, and eternal

 

In our lives

And in our death

We are unmade so that we might be remade

 

This is the hope!

That the old Stephen may die and a new improved Stephen be born

Each day, each hour, each moment

Even as I walk this earth

 

This is the hope

That Joan, Rhee, Dale, and all the saints

In a flash, in the twinkling of an eye

Became new

Taking on the imperishable

Sown in weakness

Raised in glory