Profundity where there is none? Maybe

Today I think I figured something out. I think I know what Spring is for.

Yes, new life. Yes, starting over - beginnings - new hope, new warmth, fresh life upspringing again for another year. But today I think there is another meaning in the lesson of the new cycle of growth and harvest. Maybe it's not so much what Spring is for as it is the connection between Spring and Fall.

Yesterday we met a man. We met him because our eldest child and only daughter brought him with her for the holiday. On purpose. To meet the family. And be the future what it may, this beginning is a good one. It's obvious. It's also unanimous.

So, today, of course, because I'm me and I'm also the Mom, I got to thinking.

You know that parable where the sower sows the seeds, and some fall on rocky soil, and some on the hard path, and some among the thorns, and some on good ground where they give back to the sower an hundred fold? That's meant to be a parable about the Word of God. Jesus. God's own message. And the word - the message - the words. Nothing to do but sow and rejoice in the harvest. The sower can't make it rain or be sunny, and the sower can't make the summer shorter or longer, and the sower can't know for sure that his work will be for anything at all if disaster strikes. The sower is realistic - and he's careful about his sowing patterns - he's wise to the ways of nature. Some of that seed just won't bring back anything, and that's the way it is. Okay, I understand that.

But it's true all over the place. Not just in a field and not just with the Message and not just in the Bible. It's true with kids.

We've sown seed like crazy people. For more than two decades now. We've tried to time our scatterings and choose the things most likely to take root and the things good for the soil. We've tried to factor in weather patterns and pH balance and rainfall. And we've known all along that in the end, we have nearly nothing to say about outcome. All any parent can do is sow and try to hit the field with most of the seeds.

But one of the days in an upcoming season, the harvest is revealed. Then we know what we have done. Spring was meant for sowing. In this autumn of this year, on Thanksgiving Day, we could kneel at the edge of our field and thank God for the harvest. Our girl knows how to choose.