From the Talmud: Every blade of grass has its angel bending over it, telling it "Grow! Grow!"
From a conversation between Lars Clausen, the cross-country unicycling Lutheran pastor, and a rabbi he met along the way: We have the choice to live in fear, and we have the choice to live in awe.
I read both of the above this evening, and for some reason they put me in mind of tomorrow's Gospel text. They remind me that it's God who calls us into being as the grain in God's field, who nurtures our growth and maturity. They remind me that the response to this gift is wonder, and gratitude, and trust; our "yes" to God's "yes" to us, in heeding the nudge and whisper to "Grow! Grow!"
I think that's what we need to know about being wheat.
"Threshing" by Carl Larsson
3 comments:
Beautiful painting.
Bls: I love Carl Larsson's work; my former employers, long ago in my student-slacker days, introduced me to him. If you enjoyed this painting, you will really enjoy Scandinavian Treasures , which has about the largest collection of Larsson prints I've ever seen.
His kitchen paintings...I have always wanted a Carl Larsson kitchen!...homey and folksy, with plants on the windowsill; a room you want to spend quality time in. Unfortunately my "Carl Larsson kitchen" dream seems to have gone the way of my high-school-era "Mary Tyler Moore-ish, makes-me-want-to-toss-my-beret-in-the-air fantasy lifestyle" dream, LOL (although I do wear a beret in the wintertime, and suppose I could toss it in the air whenever I wished)...but perhaps I'm giving up too easily.;-)
One of the parts of this painting that I like the most is that ray of light coming down from the tiny barn window...having spent significant time in hay mows as a kid, that is exactly how it looks; watching the play of light inside the barn and watching the dust motes float through the air used to fascinate me. (I was an easily amused child.)
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