When cell phones or iPads did not exist to keep us bombarded constantly with texts, messages and notifications, we had more opportunities to connect with nature: to observe the trees, the earth, the sky. Universal wisdom is full of these observations.
Jesus constantly compares the Good News of the Kingdom with seeds, trees, earth. Nature is not just a poetic resource, it’s a metaphor of our interior processes, of that which is born and develops from within toward the exterior.
Water is another element full of multiple meanings. To the Samaritan, Jesus is presented as the source of living water that satiates that thirst for the infinite and transcendence that we all carry within us.
Seeds carry an extraordinary potential for growth. It depends on multiple factors: the earth and the conditions of light, air and water that surround them. Each seed has its own rhythm. It passes through distinct phases, and its growth does not depend on our anxiety, nor our expectations.
We are also seeds. We come from an ancient tree: humanity. We carry the potential to become the “image and likeness” of the first Sower. We fall on distinct grounds — countries, cultures, families — and we receive distinct care, on which will depend, in good measure, our process of growth: to flourish, bear fruit and continue the cycle of life, or, on the contrary, to dry up, wither and interrupt the process of life we’re called to live.
Today, I ask myself in all honesty: How am I caring for the seed of what I am and what I carry within me?
I share what I have come to discover and practice. There are two moments particularly important to care for this seed: morning and night.
In the morning, the seed is nurtured by gratitude for the gift of a new day. It orients toward God, like a sunflower seeking the light. I make explicit the day’s intention: that my thoughts, feelings and actions be expressions of gratitude toward God; that I can be an instrument of peace, reconciliation and hope; that I can make the ordinary an extraordinary offering.
And all of this before picking up the cellular phone to see how many messages I have.
Five or 10 minutes of this before we get up can help to center us; to choose, so to speak, the background music that we want to accompany us throughout the day. It’s a way for us to turn our life into a prayer, to discover the greatness of God in each tiny detail of the day.
The repetition of this practice builds and strengthens new connections in our brain until it becomes a habit: a kind of daily watering of our seed. It’s our way of caring for the ground and doing what we are called to do to prepare ourselves for the action of grace, that gift that is offered to us so the seed can grow, bloom and bear fruit.
At night, we need to prepare the seed for rest and repose. It’s another simple movement of five to 10 minutes before going to sleep. It’s a space to again contemplate the day — to again feel gratitude — perhaps one of the most important nutrients of our interior life — and to recognize our faults, wounds and limitations with compassion. We can release them and put them before God, who never tires of loving and forgiving us.
From the experience of feeling loved and forgiven springs the urge to change and respond to the love that is received. Transformation is cultivated from love, not from fear.
Our brain starts to register these practices that, little by little, enrich the ground where the seed grows. And the seed continues advancing toward its destiny: to grow and produce fruits that nourish, that don’t keep to themselves, rather are offered and shared.
The final experiences of the day — the readings, reflections, gratitude and the moments of intimacy with the Lord — reverberate during the night’s sleep and prepare us to receive the new dawn.
In that way, night and day become small everyday sanctuaries: one to orient our life and the other to review it and place it before God. Between both of these times, our daily existence occurs; there, where our seed grows silently and where God continues to do his work.
Take care of your seed! The decision is in your hands.
