Day Sixteen

Day Sixteen // March 14 // Growing Gentleness & Patience

“The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.” – Nelson Henderson –

It’s not unfamiliar. We’ve all heard Henderson’s words before and, more, we’ve all been the benefactors of them. With great humility, I think back upon all the saints who invested in me – who saw something in me that I didn’t even see in myself. I think of the Sunday School teacher who taught me the Lord’s Prayer. I think of the chaplain who introduced me to grace. I think of the great list of individuals who, fighting their own strident urges, took the time to notice and to care. I think of them and am aware that I will never be able to repay their kindness: their patient hours of gentleness that taught me, changed me and urged me on the path

toward God. And in that humbled place, I am pierced by the question: Who am I to grow impatient with another? It is a guiding spiritual principle, as well. For the great tendency is to see faith as a subject to be argued, debated and examined. But with Jesus, faith is different: it is not one more idea to discuss in a world that loves ideas. Faith, instead, is a life that has to be lived. It is a journey traveled imperfectly along an ever-changing and dangerous terrain. It was as true in Jesus’ day as it is in our own, and a person cannot make that journey unless they begin: planting the first seeds in faith – trusting that even the storm clouds and rain will make their seeds grow.

But as any farmer will tell you, awaiting the harvest takes time. It takes patience and gentleness. We can’t rush the tender shoot from the soil. We can only do what we can to make sure that the ground is nurtured – that it has all the food, warmth and care that it needs. Gently tilling it. Tenderly ridding it of the weeds.

We have all been given gifts. These are the seeds that are unique to us; they make up the stories of our lives. But seeds don’t do much good in the world if we just hold on to them. The purpose of the seed is to be planted so that it can grow and bear much fruit… and stridency does nothing to improve the chances of a harvest.

For a life of faith is a life of seed-planting. Admittedly, most of us will never see the seeds we plant bear fruit. Most Sunday School teachers never get to see the effect they had on their students. Mission workers often don’t get to see great change explode in their communities. Those who greet and help in the parking lot don’t always see the difference a smile and a welcome can make in the life of a visitor, who is unsure or uncomfortable. But all of these little acts, all of these seeds planted do bear fruit… in time. They do matter.

And, maybe that’s the key to the elusive and growingever-rarer fruits called patience and gentleness: to plant our seeds with the harvest in mind – seeing with our mind’s eye the orchard bursting forth with new life and sweet nectar that we’ve been entrusted to tend. Maybe that’s the trick: to plant remembering that we, too, were once tended by another. With that holy awareness, our labor in the field becomes an act of worship; it becomes an act of faith. With that holy awareness, patience and gentleness become the fruit that are born from seeds planted long ago – a single, sustaining link in the ongoing ingathering of Christ.

WEEK FOUR: Callousness – The Rot of Kindness –

“To whom shall I speak and give warning, that they may hear? See, their ears are closed, they cannot listen. The word of the Lord is to them an object of scorn; they take no pleasure in it.” – Jeremiah 6:10 –