I’ve noticed our dogs often have little seeds clinging to their fur this time of year. One or more of the plants they came in contact with used them as carriers to scatter their seed to other places and expand their prodigy.
We’re all seed scatterers and pollinators simply by exploring the world around us.
Plants use us as couriers to take their potential prodigy to new destinations. Hopefully, to places where nutrients and water are abundant. This is who they are and what God intended for them.
Like bees. butterflies and pets, “We, too, gather the pollen on our clothes and unsuspectingly carry the plant to spread its life beauty to new uncharted areas,” writes Leo Buscaglia in this week’s chapter from our companion book for this series.
Seed scatterers is just one of many roles creatures have. Each role comes out of our identity. A combination of how we see ourselves and how we’re seen by others. Mother, sister, aunt, father, brother, uncle are just a few common roles. Husband, partner, companion, friend and more. Some roles presume an intimacy with others. Some roles, not so much. But all require some level of connectedness.
Each role comes with expectations. Plants hope we’ll dust off our clothes in an area where their seeds or pollen can do what it was created to do. Friends want us to be the sort of friend they hope for. Employers want us to be good at our job.
But, Leo Buscaglia warns us, “We cannot always be what others want us to be, for what they want may not be what we are and that is all that we have. It is often easier for us to become what others desire, but in so doing, we relinquish our dreams, abandon our hopes, and ignore our needs. This leaves us feeling abandoned, weakened and impotent, without a genuine self.”
We’re each born with a basic human right to be whom God created us to be. While this right is sacred, it is too often not given its intended respect. Instead, we give into pressure to be who others want us to be, participating in roles that further shape us.
Life experiences leave a mark on us but need not mar our identity. Buscaglia reminds us we choose how we respond. “We cannot stop a hurricane, silence a storm, or keep a loved one from leaving us. But it is our response and reaction to these catastrophic experiences that will determine whether we will continue to survive and grow toward becoming a fully functioning person.”
Being a fully functioning person isn’t a burden we begrudgingly bear or a privilege we choose, among other important priorities. Instead, life is experienced. And while God blesses us with memories, they make poor substitutes for life as it happens. Right now is life’s greatest gift.
Luke tells a story about a time when Jesus was sleeping in a boat while His friends panicked. A sudden storm was tossing their boat and water was pouring in over the sides. Waking up the sleeping Jesus, they exclaimed, “We’re all going to die!”
Jesus got up and gave an order to the wind and to the stormy water; they quieted down, and there was a great calm… Who is this man who gives orders to the winds and waves, and they obey him!
Luke 8:24-25
In Mark’s telling of the story His friends add in their time of desperation, “Don’t you care?”
I’ve been there and I’m guessing you’ve been there too. A time when something bad is happening, a place where you felt vulnerable. But if you’re reading this, you’re still with us. Perhaps bruised and still limping from whatever catastrophe that nearly took you away.
Life can seem so uncertain, and it often is. But isn’t it the uncertainty that helps us to experience life as it comes? The past doesn’t reoccur, and the future is uncertain. Both are versions of stories that are never quite reality. But this moment is real.
Buscaglia reminds us, “Even the most insignificant act we perform will have some effect upon the world.” Of course, humanity has a profound impact on our planet and we experience this impact through almost unpredictable weather events. But these are changes created by the collective. As such, our individual acts aren’t really visible.
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A reminder that we publish this newsletter that we call the Circuit Rider each week. You can request this publication by email. Send a request to FlintAsburyUMC@gmail.com or let us know when you send a message through our website. We post an archive of past editions on our website under the tab, Connect – choose Newsletters.
Pastor Tommy
Parts of our series was inspired by Leo Buscaglia. Personhood: The Art of Being Fully Human. NY: Random House,1986.