Mark 4:20

But the people meant by the seed sown on the good ground are those who hear the message, and welcome it, and yield a return, thirty, sixty, and even a hundred fold.”


there are rankings
even among the saints

most are little known
but each has their day

which Mary which James
is thirty percent better known

and if this is not enough
was it in their day or ours

what saint is still trusted
and which fell asleep at the wheel

Christopher has stumbled
Jude continues riding high

pride of place raises questions
about their modified seed

like any monocultured product
victorious saints weaken us


What an anti-climax! We have focused on the wrong kinds of soil we have been planted in and distracted by the wrong soil we are for a seed of new life to enter and take healthy root. When excuses end, all “comes ’round right” and hazelnuts are shown true, there is simply a harvest—an ordinary harvest; an abundance.

Note the active, intentional, reception of a seed of good news planted within that does change a heart and life into the cultivation needed to make good soil within which others might be nurtured.

This sounds like a way a movement might make it through the trials and tribulations of institutionalization. However, it does not take into account all manner of weed seeds planted in this new and nurturing soil. It also fails to recognize Jesus’ own failures with those who experienced him and heard him—including his own followers.

There is no automatic way to keep life going without embracing all of life—regular birth, ecstasies of belovedness, astonishment of healings and learnings, abandonment that comes with death, and the mystery of echoing effect. Partnering so with life is participating in a bountiful harvest from soil accumulated through the past, watering in present time, and the sun of a new day breaking through our excuses for not engaging today on behalf of tomorrow and those to come.