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A treasured memory of
my boyhood is hatching chicks the old-fashioned way, with a brood
hen. Our henhouse was across the street in my paternal grandmother's
backyard, and she was my instructor. In the early spring when
one of the hens would show signs of nesting we would begin saving
up eggs until we had about fifteen or so. A nest box was prepared
in a closed off space of the henhouse and the sitting hen was
allowed to settle in. The date was marked on the calendar. For the next three weeks
the hen sat on the eggs with amazing faithfulness. She would
leave the nest for food and water only a few times during this
period. She instinctively knew to roll and rearrange the eggs
regularly. This insured that the embryos would develop uniformly. I was not to disturb
the hen unnecessarily, but I would sometimes watch her anyway
as unobtrusively as I could. As a young boy it was amazing to
me that she could sit still for so long with nothing to do. I
wondered what she was thinking. Did she know that the eggs would
eventually hatch or did she simply think eggs were good to sit
on? Was it a duty she felt the need to perform or something that
was a joy to do? Or could duty and joy somehow be joined? A few days before the
incubation period was up my grandmother would tell me to go and
look under the hen to see if any eggs had begun to hatch. Any
fluffy yellow chicks I found were removed from the nest and kept
warm in the house. We did not want the hen to leave the nest
prematurely. When we were satisfied that all the eggs had hatched
that were going to, we reunited the hen with her chicks. She
was transformed from the still, silent sitting hen into a clucking
mother parading about with her small flock under foot. Beyond a practical lesson
in animal husbandry, I think this experience taught me that some
of the most amazing things in life are not always the most immediately
obvious. Stillness and silence can often cloak powerful mysteries
in life and, if we are patient, they will show themselves to
us. Like the sitting hen with her imperfect comprehension of
her own action, it is sometimes fruitful to stay the course,
even a dry and empty one, and to be led forward by faith even
when it is indistinct. Turning to Scripture,
the words of our Lord as he lamented over Jerusalem may immediately
come to mind: "How often would I have gathered your children
together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings." On
a deeper level, however, I relate my experience to the parable
of the seed growing secretly: "The kingdom of God is as
if a man should scatter seed upon the ground, and should sleep
and rise night and day, and the seed should sprout and grow,
he knew not how." This hidden and mysterious germination
of the seed is coupled with the more familiar parable of the
mustard seed, in which something with a small, insignificant
beginning reaches a great end. When we pray, "Thy
Kingdom come" we usually think of it coming from above,
outside ourselves, and so it does and so it will at the end of
time. Yet there is also a coming of the Kingdom that arises from
within. The interior growth of the Kingdom within the hearts
of believers is also an important part of God's plan. Here a
repentance and a conversion can take place that will transform
not only one life but influence many others as well. Here a vocation
can be received and a resolution made that will ultimately transform
history. One can think of the
example of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. It was on September 10th,
1946, while riding on a train in India that she interiorly heard
the call to go and work with the poor in the slums. All that
she would become and all that she would accomplish, directly
and indirectly, in the world was first of all a simple movement
of grace within the heart of a then unknown nun. God's Kingdom
came among us powerfully that day, but only in time would its
effects be revealed. So it is within our own
inner spiritual lives, although inevitably so many of the seeds
of grace and inspiration do not come to their full potential
as the parable of the sower illustrates. In our preoccupa-tion
with external things that seem more real at the moment we fail
to attend to the interior hearing and obeying that could be so
powerful. Thomas Merton writes: "Every moment and every
event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul.
For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each
moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to
rest imperceptibly in the minds of wills of men. Most of these
unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, because men are not prepared
to receive them." Curiously the term "incubation"
is applied to the practice in ancient religions of sleeping in
a temple or shrine in the hope of receiving a vision or revelation.
That this may have also been practiced by Old Testament believers
is hinted at in the story of the young Samuel receiving his first
call while sleeping in the sanctuary at Shiloh. I am not ready
to promote the practice of sleeping in church (and certainly
not during) as a way to spiritual growth. It can, however, be
an image for quiet and unhurried prayer that is open to God and
free enough to follow and obey. Green is the liturgical
color of the long season after Pentecost and Trinity Sunday.
We associate the color of green with growing things and the growing
season that leads to the harvest. But even before any green is
seen something mysterious has already happened hidden in the
soil. Spiritual growth also often has such small beginnings in
a heart that welcomes it in patience and faith. Sincerely, |