sower

Turn my earth, O sower,
thistle-choked and thorned,
lying fallow, stone-filled:
Sift it more and more.
Harrowed, softened, broken,
deep the furrow's scored.
Ready me for sowing,
plowed with ruined sword.

There the seed will burrow
when you give the Word,
hidden under sorrow,
roots that reach the core.
After winter snowing,
springtime bursting sore,
summer's golden growing,
autumn will run o'er.

Tend me through the slow days;
nurture me, my Lord.
Slow, the work of growing;
great is the reward.
Grown to be scythed lower
(thus are harvests born),
I was yours at sowing:
Spent, I still am yours.

He summoned the crowd again and said to them,
“Hear me, all of you, and understand.
Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person;
but the things that come out from within are what defile.
“From within people, from their hearts,
come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder,
adultery, greed, malice, deceit,
licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.
All these evils come from within and they defile.”
Mark 7: 21-23

The dust of all the earth,
the centuries of grime
could never to such things give birth
as come from my own mind.

From there, as in good ground,
the seeds of evil grow,
and in my heart the roots are found
of every sin I know.

They ripen and come forth,
the fruits of my own hands,
and other seedlings, in their course, 
in other hearts they plant.

Come, sower of good seed,
and make this field your own.
Come, plant a different seed in me
from any I have known.

And let it bear your fruit:
Send sunlight and send rain.
Come, Christ the savior, Christ the root,
and grow in me your grain.

So what comes forth from me
shall be the fruit of love,
of Love himself, who sows the seeds
and reaps the grain thereof.

Tag: sower

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