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Such great crowds gathered around [Jesus] that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: ‘Listen! A sower went out to sow.’ (Matthew 13:2-3)
A few words
fell from my lips as I was leaving the sanctuary today.
I did not plan
to speak them. They just appeared, whispered loud enough for a mother and child
to hear, as we dipped our hands in the font and made the sign of the cross on
our brows.
‘Such a
beautiful child,’ I breathed, murmured words likely lost in the rush to the
parking lot. But I wonder.
How many
words do I remember from decades past that live like daggers in my heart,
attacking me in the dark when sleep eludes?
And why do I
still hear Don Hutmacher’s voice, why do I remember his words from that long-ago
day in the narthex, lifting me from the ditch into which I’d fallen?
Planted in
the soil of my soul, these words live in me, some producing a harvest of life
and love, generosity and grace, others the bitterness of resentment, distrust
and self-hatred.
I certainly
wish some didn’t grow into the weeds that sometimes choke my heart and turn me
in on myself. But even then, sooner or later, the whispered call of love, long-ago
planted in my heart, breaks through the hard crust of anger and self-pity, freeing
me to love my oh-so-imperfect life and see the beauty of human souls who brush
by me every day.
And so it was,
today. ‘Such a beautiful child,’ I whispered, bending near the little girl, her
jet-black hair a cascade of curls, as her mother guided the tiny, brown hand in
the water then to the child’s head, making the sign of the cross.
‘Oh, say, thank
you,’ the mother coached her daughter, who mumbled something I couldn’t
understand.
It was an impulsive
act on my part, likely to be lost in the wash of time and a million more
important moments. But maybe not.
Maybe it’s
just one of myriad seeds to fall in that child’s life and into the heart of her
mother. Maybe it will grow along with others into a harvest of life and love, generosity
and grace.
Maybe it is
just one more way the Sower of goodness and grace casts seeds of life and
beauty into the world, awakening love in the likes of us and inviting us to
throw what beauty is ours into the winds of time. Who knows what might grow?
I’m sure Don Hutmacher didn’t imagine I’d be thinking about him 60 years after he left this earth, living now in union with the Love who was pleased to live in him—and in me … because souls like him planted seeds of life that grew.
David L. Miller
