Faith In A Seed

 

"Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders."

~ Henry David Thoreau

If you were to go back over the all the blog posts from the last 7 or 8 years that this blog has been around, you will see that I have written a blog post with this title, quote, and picture before. It has come to mind again this year, at this particular time, as I sit here at my desk watching yet another round of snow and wondering, as I do every February, if winter will ever release its hold on us and allow spring to come in. As if everything and everyone else in the world right now hasn't had enough of the sadness and sacrifice, winter this year seems particularly long and challenging ... or maybe we're so used to it all that it seems that way. While I'm a total believer in the whole issue of climate change and how it is manifesting on our planet, right now I'd give anything to be able to plant a seed and watch something new and promising spring up from it.

How do we continue to keep our sanity through all of this? How do we make it until spring finally does get here, not only the season of spring, but the season of hope realized in life without masks and being shut off from our loved ones? Faith. That thing that we hold on to when everything else collapses around us. Faith that despite all of the snow and the cold, spring will eventually get here. Faith that one by one, shot by shot, and day by day, the winter that has been our lives will finally start to move out and spring will once again return for us to plant new seeds, grow new lives, and encourage us to expect something wonderful.

Last week for Valentine's Day I received two little tins containing seed starters:

The "Pooh" written on the bottom is the nickname I've had for my now adult daughter since she was a child. Just as she has grown from the little seedling of childhood into a beautiful, life-giving branch on the family tree, so, too, these little tins of seeds and growing medium, watered and place under the warm, safe, grow light, will grow into herbs that will not only season my meals and drinks, but feed my soul.

I invite you to plant some seeds this week. Maybe you can plant a seed for good health, a new or better job, a new appreciation for life and loved ones, and faith. Yes, let's plant some seeds of faith and watch what we can grow!

And so it is.