“The parables of…

the Mustard Seed, the Yeast, and the Growing Seed speak of the Kingdom in terms of something very small, **so small that it probably escapes our notice.** And yet it grows and changes into something very new and very great…Indeed, so great is this growth and transformation in living things that **we cannot grasp it during its process of unfolding**; it captures our attention when it is already complete in some sense.

And this inspires awe.”

The Good Shepherd and the Child: A Joyful Journey (50-51)

We had our first meeting of the CGS Book Club last Monday. It was a really encouraging discussion of the first 8 chapters of Joyful Journey.

The heaviness I felt at the start of our gathering had dissipated by the end of our time together. Not because we had reached conclusions to the many queries we collectively brought to the table, but because those burdens had been eased by sharing them with one another.

I felt compelled by the Spirit to do the meditation of the Mustard Seed as a group before we tackled the reading. I’ve never done a meditation for adults before—it’s intimidating!—but I knew I needed it, and I wondered if others did, too. No surprise, but it ended up being a very grounding place to begin.

I have been deeply contemplating the mystery of the seed lately. I feel like I have done a great deal of seed-sowing in the past year, and I’m not sure it will ever come to anything. Any interference on my part now will be destructive to the small secret mystery unfolding beneath the surface. But I feel anxious that I’ve either planted the wrong things or put them in the wrong places or done so at the wrong time (perhaps all three); And then what fruit will I have to show for the labor of my hands?

It’s hard not to feel that way in parenting and especially in guiding the spiritual formation of young people. We want to see results: assurances that they are “getting it".” We want them to possess the most important things in life. We want to be assured they are moored to Reality so that they can weather the storms we know they will face. But A Joyful Journey suggests that the urgency and intensity we can often use towards children in spiritual formation “tends to close the door rather than invite [the children] to the continued search…” As parents and as catechists, “We are merely trying to help them hear the text and to offer them tools for their ongoing meditation” (pg 46). Based on their long years of research, involving an incredible amount of practical application and observation, these authors became convinced of “the importance of giving children time and the means for their own responses, for this is when and how the Scripture…becomes a part of their life” (pg 47).

This feels so like the process of gardening. We adults can merely make resources available (water and soil we didn’t even create!), tend, watch, and wait to see how the power in the seed will bring new life to bear.

As we wait, we also grow. We are plants, too, experiencing time and again the cycle of life, death, and life again. I am increasingly convinced that one of the greatest resources we have to offer those in our care is the living out of our own growth. To show them what it means to tend seeds of the soul, to stay connected to the vine so that the sap of the Holy Spirit flows through us without hinderance, and to model such unpalatable but necessary things as humility and repentance.