Harvest

Bowed heads yield to the burden of time. Earth, her bowels depleted, heaves in surrender to death.

The naked landscape probes the recesses of my soul. I lie on the ground, furled in the solitude of a barren womb and am stilled by the mystery.

The mystery, the amazement, the miracle. 
The miracle.
And isn't that always the miracle? That sterility swells with vitality? That I can lie in wonder on a cold ground, looking up at crumpled ashen flowers and know that they promise life?

Each one of these Sunflower seeds will grow into  a vibrant yellow flower next Summer. Every head is bulging with seeds, crammed with life.

And that is the greatest mystery. If God can take a seed from a plant and work this miracle, how much more can He do with an eternal soul? How can we behold such grandeur and not know that we are destined for greatness?

How can we go about our days, taking for granted that day after day, month after month, year after year, the earth will replenish, renew, bear fruit, put forth seed... sustain our very being...yet  forget that God is doing the same for us? Our lives are the seeds in a destitute existence...and God is  anticipating the harvest.

 And the people who will plant seeds, knowing and expecting the harvest to come, refuse to believe that God can work the same miracle in our souls. All creation proclaims who God is and what He does. All creation is the supreme manifesto.

Why thus longing, forever sighing for the far off, unattained and dim, while the beautiful, all around thee lying, offers up its low perpetual hymn?
Wouldst thou listen to its gentle teaching, all thy restless yearnings it would still; Leaf and flower and laden bee are preaching thine own sphere, though humble first to fill.

~Harriet Winslow Sewall