but, as soon as the crop is ready, immediately he puts in the sickle because harvest has come.”
a farmer is slave to the crop
a slip in planning for planting
puts everything at risk
there is no just-in-time farmingthe same dynamic is present
each step of the way
even harvest is not the end
for there is life after saving-uphealth in body and mind
is critical to success
in a field filled with uncertainty
it is important to keep your edgebecause timing is everything
we know farming is comedic
successful farmers love a good joke
for so many have been played on themfarmers turn out to be artists
an ounce of weather here
a cup of soil and an old head of grain
all mixed creatively ready for tomorrow
Hooray, Harvest!
Literally, harvest is “when the fruit allows”. Mystery moves to harvest without reference to a calendar. Harvesting is as artful as waiting through night and day.
There have been hints in Mark, all along, that move toward a resurrection moment. This major Christian motif too often dismisses very real losses along the way and loses contact with other traditions that are reincarnational or agnostic toward anything after death.
In the 1st century St. Clement wrote To the Corinthians and used this parable to illustrate a doctrine of Resurrection “which is always taking place”:
The sower went forth to sow, and cast upon the earth each of the seeds, which fell into the earth dry and naked and are dissolved; then out of their dissolution the majesty of the Lord’s providence raises them up, and from the one many more grow up and bear fruit. ~ 1 Clement 24
It is Clement’s line about “always taking place” that is most helpful. To be “dissolved” before being “raised” points toward living in wilderness where a false sense of control cannot sustain. This is similar to Buddhist training in “don’t know mind”. This practice brings a realization that a happy/blessed and effective life is enhanced when recognition dawns that every moment is unknowable and thus full of possibility. This is an urgent and unhurried fruitfulness.