So a friend and I were e-chatting the
other day about spiritual dryness and renewal of the Quaker movement in the US
and Canada. That’s not unusual. I talk with my friends about that a lot. In that conversation, I said, “I'm hoping we
can till spiritual soil in ways that encourage deep sharing and drop seeds of
new life in new places and in fields that have lain fallow perhaps.”
Fallow is concept that didn’t use to mean much to me. Especially when I lived in the city. But now that I’m on the farm and trying to
get a tall grass prairie going, fallow is concept I can relate to. All winter I’ve been looking out my office
window at the prairie covered in deep snow.
Now, after our recent warm-up, the snow is gone. I walked through it the other day. It looks dead – grasses dry bent low, mud all
around. Then one of my cats caught a
mouse there. Hmmm, not exactly what I
was hoping for, but still a sign of life.
So I’ve begun to understand the concept of fallow. The prairie went unseeded last year. Uncultivated.
It is land at rest. It is
waiting. The seeds planted two year ago
have been at work putting down roots.
Prairie grass is like that. It
goes deep. Then it spreads. The results are rarely seen above ground for
two or three years. The coming summer
will be the third year since planting and cultivation. It should be the year that the grasses really
take off. Life should abound.
As I also told my friend, it seems to me that many Quaker
meetings are like a fallow prairie at rest.
Their spiritual soil is not dead.
It has just been quiescent, like a field out of production. Now it is
ready to be tilled, planted, tended, and will spring forth with spiritual
fruit.
Then my friend asked (she’s really good at questions), “So…
·
tilling = ?
·
planting = ?
·
seeds of life = ?
·
soil = ?
·
deep soil = ?
·
shallow soil = ?
·
plants = ?
·
fruit = ?
·
Indeed! What do those things equal for Friends today -- for the Quaker way which we love and want to share?
Stay tuned…
