Becoming Seed
Lynne Elwinger, O.C.D.
Harvest time is here, and plants everywhere are maturing their seeds. This brings to my mind a stained glass window I saw in a parish church. The Beatitudes were inscribed on a beautiful background of blue stained glass, with some words here and there emphasized with red and gold. Scanning the familiar words, I was suddenly brought up short by a phrase I had not ever seen stated as it was there. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit and become seed,” it read. After re-reading it several times, as if to be sure I was seeing it straight, I scribbled it down on a scrap of paper. It seems that paper wasn’t needed, as it has been engraved on my heart from that moment onward.
As a gardener, I have always respected and been fascinated with the seeds of such diverse sizes, shapes, and colors that produce our food and flowers. But I never really considered that I might be one myself. Now I have heard that if we are meek (meaning patient, humble, and without undue personal agendas and attachments), we inherit and become seed. This seems quite awesome!
Living Out That Discovery
For centuries, the staple foods of all Earth’s peoples were primarily seeds – the grains (maize/corn, wheat, barley, millet, amaranth, quinoa) and nuts of all kinds. When our ancestors discovered that seeds, saved and replanted, brought forth a new crop of food plants, it changed the entire lifestyle of the people. To this day we are living out the ramifications of that discovery.
What then, I wondered, would be required of one in order to be classified as “seed”? A seed is a vehicle in which is carried a blueprint of that which created it. The supply of food stored within enables the first root, sent down into the soil, to be nourished. Then the seed has the capability of sending up a shoot whose leaves will connect with the sun and begin the process of photosynthesis. Light then also becomes nourishment and the underground roots provide the rest. The whole process encoded in each seed, when allowed to unfold, will produce (if it is not a hybrid) a plant very much like the one from which it came. In addition to the blueprint of its specific species, the seed carries some unique qualities relating to the particular climate and soil within which the parent plant has grown.
At once the endpoint of one generation and the birthplace of the next, seeds are a type of living history. They carry memories of the past and become a hope for the future. Seeds are surprisingly sturdy, capable of enduring significant adversity with the patient wisdom to await the favorable conditions needed to bring forth new life. No matter where they are transported, seeds retain their inner essence, the design of the plant they are destined to become. In sprouting and growing, they have to let go of their identity as seed to become plants. At maturity, they become seedmakers in their own right, and once again have to let go – to send their seeds into the world.
Deep Within Each Of Us
Perhaps considering ourselves as God’s seeds in the world is not such a bad analogy. Deep within each of us is the divine blueprint carrying the essence of our creation “in the image of God”. As we grow and develop in the Christian walk, we learn that within us we have some stored spiritual understanding that can be used to root and ground ourselves in the soil of divine presence. Next we are able to lift our new green shoots up to the sun of inspiration from without, whether from Scripture, the lives of saints, sharing with others, or the wonders of Creation. By undergoing willingly the many small deaths required for our unfolding, we ourselves begin to mature into seedmakers and /or food for future generations. We carry God’s living history within our human race one step further on the journey that one day will end with the Reign of God fully present on earth.
This journey of becoming seed is one of patient, humble openness to God’s Spirit within and among us. There are no guarantees that it will be easy. But the blueprint is secure within each of us. I think seeds have an easier time knowing and following their inner designs. We tend to complicate the process by trying to direct what is meant to unfold naturally, by our fears of the unknown, and by trying to imitate others. In the end, all life requires a leap of faith, indeed many leaps, and a willingness to be our own unique, unrepeatable selves. Whether as food for others or as seedmakers, we can play our part in our Creator’s great unfolding blueprint for humanity. Finding God within, we give evidence in the outer world of God-with-us, carrying the memories of all that went before and acting as signs of hope for the future. There is much we can learn from a seed.
* * *
What cannot be done all at once
can be done little by little.Interior Castle VII 4:7
Sr. Lynne Thérèse Elwinger of the Resurrection O.C.D.