One of the reasons I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this blog is that doing so allows me to consider the whole of my life as a priest in recovery. There are times in meetings when my reflections are too “churchified” to be a suitable share. Likewise, sermons are not the appropriate arena for program talk. For me, then, these occasional musings occupy the intersection of these two worlds.

Over the past several weeks, we’ve been listening to Jesus describing the kingdom of heaven with agricultural images. Having just moved from the East Coast to the Midwest to take up a new call, the parable of the sower, and that of the wheat and the tares, have a new resonance.

I think back about my first couple of months in the rooms. There was wisdom being scattered everywhere: slogans on the walls, the literature, the old-timers. But I was so broken and fearful that I poo-pooed much of that wisdom. I knew that they just didn’t understand me, I thought the slogans were simplistic, and on and on and on. I was the hardened path and the rocky soil and the thorny thicket – all at the same time.

Still, my yet-to-be friends kept at it. “Keep coming,” they said. And then one day, without my noticing it, some of those seeds of wisdom found a little sliver of good soil. And something took root and began to grow.

My now-new-friends taught me how to care for that new shoot, and rejoiced with me at my growth, telling me that it was now my turn to help someone else. My new life was off to a good start, but it wasn’t as smooth a road as I would have liked. “Oh,” I thought, “that’s what they mean by people, places and things.” Well, there’s a parable for that, too.

We are told that the kingdom of heaven is like someone who has sowed good seed, yet an enemy comes and sows weeds among the wheat. This is not good news, right? I identify with the household servants, and squirm at the messiness. My fear-driven sense of control wants to fix it. I want the world to make sense to me. I want that to happen now.

But Jesus says, “no.” Actually, Jesus says “no” and “wait.” Hmm. Why insist on patience and restraint? Why are we told to accept his timing instead of ours?

And then I picture myself as a triumphant toddler, standing in a big pile of flowers, having “helped” in grandma’s garden. Then slogans like “easy does it” “live and let live” “clean up your own side of the street” and “let go and let God” echo in my mind, and the “why” becomes clearer.

I have to be reminded constantly that it's not my job to remove anyone from the power of God’s redemptive love by taking the work of judgment into my own hands. The good news is, if I can manage to leave the judgment bit up to God, I am freed to take up the responsibility for caring for my little corner of creation. It is God’s job to defeat evil and death. But I can do the work that God has given me to do. I can care for my neighbor, I can speak out against injustice, I can support those in need.

In other words, I can do exactly what I learned to do in my first months. I can surrender the fear that used to drive every aspect of my life. I can work to maintain my spiritual condition. I can offer to someone what was given to me without cost, a testimony that God wants to restore us to sanity.

Just think, it all started with a little seed. Come, ye thankful people, come!

Paul J.