Sowing Different Seeds; Speaking Wiser Words

When our minds are sick with frustration and division;

When fear eats away the foundations of our peace—

Be present, O, Our Father, to heal, to bless

and make whole. 

 

When our hearts are heavy with sorrow and misery;

When only heaviness is our daily portion—

Be present, O, Our Father, to heal to bless

and relieve. 

 

When our friends are difficult because of misunderstanding and loss;

When the beauty of comradeship has wasted like the noon day—

Be present, O, Our Father, to restore, to

bless and renew. 

 

When the thread of our years unwinds near the end of the spool;

When the failing powers of mind and body accent the passing day—

Be Present, O, Our Father, to reassure, to make

steady and confirm. 

 

When our well ordered plans fall apart in our hands;

When hopes give up, having run their course—

Be present, O, Our Father, to replenish, to

create and redeem. 

 

When faith in our fellows wallows in the mud;

When through disappointment, through failure, through flattery, all seems lost—

Be present, O, Our Father, to revise, to renew and

reassure.    (Howard Thurman, Deep is the Hunger) 

 

 

We had such high hopes for 2021. 

 

The months preceding it had been so full of illness and death, so full of acrimonious rancor, so full of violence and fear that we leaned forward, italicized versions of ourselves, in anticipation of a new beginning.  Vaccines were being distributed to blunt the pandemic.  The holidays nudged us into a cautiously genial mood.  We took a deep breath, toasted the downbeat of midnight, and woke to a new year.

 

And then this week happened. 

Political machinations.  

Presidential shame.  

Uncivilized violence.  

Broken windows, desecrated spaces, seditious flags, vandalized public places, recriminating shouts, and still more death.  

 

So much for a clean start.  It was nice while it lasted.  

 

Whatever else the events of this week have taught us, they have demonstrated that the necessary work of civic rehabilitation is still in front of us.  About the only thing we can agree upon is that wherever two people are gathered, a third will be needed to break the tie.  But even that equation is mathematical, and we can’t even agree upon the math.

 

Among the reanimated devotional practices in my New Year’s determinations I have been reading the New Testament book of James.  I lament that I have neglected James through the years, a tacit dim view perhaps influenced by Martin Luther’s famous dismissal of the book, but I am repenting that neglect.  While James may not be the soaring theologian that was Paul, his gritty practicality suddenly sounds more relevant than ever.  

 

In recent days, the potency of words has come more clearly into focus.  James knew that.  “How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell.”  The tongue is, James continues, “A restless evil, full of deadly poison” (3:6,8)

 

He goes on to reflect on wisdom, and challenges anyone who claims possession of it to demonstrate the evidence “in the gentleness born of wisdom.”  

 

“But,” he notes by way of contrast, “if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace” (3:13-18).

 

Like I said, it all sounds pretty current.  Globally, nationally, and politically relevant, but also personally.  My tongue has not been on its best behavior of late.  And peace has not consistently been among the seeds I have planted.  It is certainly true that, collectively, we have work to do.  A lot of it.  So many poisonous elements have been sown in our cultural soil that it will be some time before anything nourishing can sprout from it again.  But if, as the song from my childhood suggests, there is to be “peace on earth,” it will, as James presciently knew, have to “begin with me.”

 

Well, not with me alone.  As Thurman understood, it will take higher resources than that.

When our minds are sick with frustration and division;

When fear eats away the foundations of our peace—

Be present, O, Our Father, to heal, to bless

and make whole. 

 

Amen.