Every night I had a sense to consciously pitch the tent of my being in a definite place of "unknowing." Bang in the pegs saying, I do not know anything. Inside the tent it might be dark, or maybe there were spins of moonlight. But in there, somehow or other, you know there is love. Love is, and may proceed from wherever you are, without you knowing anything very much.
"Peacemakers who sow in peace
raise a harvest of righteousness" (James 3:18)
We lay down our seeds in the dark.
Spring has been exceptionally cold
this year. Reluctant daffodils
have done little to convince me.
But we do the work of the faithful
farmer, rising in the pre-dawn hours.
It is a chosen hiddenness, a subtle
stretching over time, ear bent to listen
to the ground, ready for instruction.
Slow rhythmic movements are best.
Sometimes we simply show up,
holding borrowed pain, applying tears
or not. With a gentle
but demanding attention
to detail, we prepare the soil.
We plant. We wait.
~ Nancy Thomas from "Secret Sowers" in CLOSE TO THE GROUND
