Week Five: Day 1 – Good Soil

In this phase, we’re going to explore our relationship with creation and one of the parables of Jesus that has really come alive for me is the parable of the sower. And we know that parable about how the sower went out to sow and some seed fell on good soil and some seed fell among the thorns and some seed fell among the rocky path, and in many ways Jesus is reminding us that our life, the life of the individual, is in a sense like that soil and how we are receptive to the word of God as it is sown into our hearts. Is our heart good soil? Is it abundant? Is it rocky? Is it full of thistles and thorns? And one of the things that I’ve learned here at Emery House in the garden is that the soil can in a sense be all of those things in a very enclosed area. And so as we explore our relationship with creation, we need really to pay attention to what soil both that we are growing in ourselves but also the soil that we are planting. The good soil that Jesus speaks of, the soil that is abundant and can produce 60- and 90- and 100-fold, is also soil which over time, if we constantly plant the same thing and don’t pay attention to renewing that soil, will end up being depleted and will be the very soil that will support the thistles and the weeds.

So as we explore our relationship with creation, we need to explore what it is in ourselves that can give abundance, can produce abundantly, and where is it in ourselves that is full of thorns, full of thistles, full of stones.

– Br. James Koester

Question to Journal
How would you describe the ‘soil’ of your heart and soul at this time in your life?

This Week’s Podcast Episode 

This Week’s Workbook Exercise 

What does your relationship with God’s creation look like? Think about your lifestyle, what you consume, what daily choices you make, your relationship with money, food, clothing, material goods, and possessions. Where do you notice imbalance? What is there too much of in your life? What is there not enough of?

Use the exercise and use the four spaces outside the circle write or draw some ways in which you contribute to this abuse of creation, both indirectly and directly? In the inner circle write one (or more) step you will include in your rule of life to contribute to the healing of creation.