Thursday, July 14, 2011

Today’s text

Matthew 13:24-30
He put another parable before them, 'The kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everybody was asleep his enemy came, sowed darnel all among the wheat, and made off. When the new wheat sprouted and ripened, then the darnel appeared as well. The owner's laborers went to him and said, "Sir, was it not good seed that you sowed in your field? If so, where does the darnel come from?" He said to them, "Some enemy has done this." And the laborers said, "Do you want us to go and weed it out?" But he said, "No, because when you weed out the darnel you might pull up the wheat with it. Let them both grow till the harvest; and at harvest time I shall say to the reapers: First collect the darnel and tie it in bundles to be burnt, then gather the wheat into my barn." '
Reflection
The day of the lilies has begun to fade. Their stems stretch five feet high, the ambitious a bit more. Many of the stems now are stumps, their orange and yellow blossoms having trumpeted their beauty, opening and closing with each cycle of the sun through summer skies.

Maroon and deep purple blossoms open now as dog days approach, and the mercury pushes 90. Their colors divert attention from crisp, faded remnants of the vivid orange that have had their day and now hang loosely from dozens of stems. They hang, poised for me or the next breeze to separate them from the veins through which their life blood flowed. They fall into the soil and become the hope of a tomorrow that I know will come.

It will come. I know this even as I savor the late colors and remember carefully pulling the weeds that, two months before, threatened to choke the young plants. Button weed, thistles, switch grass and a half dozen others I cannot name were stronger, more aggressive, and I pulled them, careful not to break off young lilies only beginning to throw their height.

Sometimes I was clumsy and broke one, which is heartbreaking. A unique created thing, God-fashioned to sing divine beauty, was denied its day in the sun--and I, such joy as it would have given.

My spring-time concern for the weeds appears overwrought now. What few weeds remain long since have been shouted down by the lilies insistence that they, not the weeds, are the rightful heritage of the flower beds. Their beauty is stronger than the early aggressiveness of their opponents in the soil.

Beauty wins again. So it is and will be next year … the next, forever. Let those with eyes … see.

Pr. David L. Miller