May Day

As we approach May 1st, winter has finally loosened its grip on the upper Midwest. Two days ago, we grudgingly shoveled heavy, cement-like, late-April snow. Today, all is forgiven. Sunshine, 72 degrees, open windows, dandelions, cardinal song, motorcycles, and everywhere the hint of long-overdue green.

Though I live in the city, I am an Iowa farm girl at heart and this year the first of May carries with it a wave of nostalgia and grief. In an unspoken competition with the neighboring farmers, my father worked to be the first to get the corn planted each spring, usually before May 1st. What an exercise in faith - in a flurry of hope, the brown earth was carefully prepared and planted. Good years, bad years - spring came.

Last June, Dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. As his health rapidly declined, it didn't seem right, but the corn continued to grow. In those too-short weeks of summer, it troubled me that he would not (and did not) live to harvest the crops he had helped to plant.

A life of faith is like that. We plant seeds of corn, peas, sunflowers, hope, love, faith, joy. We might also scatter seeds of hatred and fear and divisiveness and doubt. Some grow, some die, some thrive, some shrivel - we don't always see the results of what we have planted. We might be called to tend the crops others have planted. Sometimes we must not hesitate to pull the weeds up by the roots. So often we enjoy the fruits of another's labor -- and if we're lucky, we get to share our abundance with others.

Last year was a bad year - yet spring still comes. Thank God.

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 
1 Corinthians 3:6