To Bet the Farm

“Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed, will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves.”  (Ps. 126:7)

I’ve been told, although I don’t know it to be true, that the every Palestinian spring is accompanied by an ancient ritual of planting the seed for that year’s crop. The seed saved from the previous year’s harvest is ceremoniously taken from where it has been stored for the winter to the weeping and wailing of the women of the family as the only thing standing between the family and starvation the next winter is gambled on the next harvest.  Then, months later, the ritual is reversed with the joyful ingathering of what the seeds have yielded placed in storage along with the seeds for the next year.  And then the cycle repeats.  It must have been so when the Psalm was first sung. 

Every harvest is preceded by risking of the seed left from the last one.  Only by going out weeping, carrying the seed, can there be a coming with joy, a shouldering of sheaves.  Every harvest, at least in the biblical economy, begins with risking everything.  It is where the expression “to bet the farm” comes from.  It is true with much of the world’s economy today.

It is not so true in what we call the developed world.  And I’m glad for that.  But I do think diversification that minimizes risk also makes something spiritual more difficult to experience.  For Americans, it is largely experienced elsewhere.  And isn’t that why world mission is such a priority?

Peace,

Shield the Joyous

There is a concluding prayer in Compline I have always loved.

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep.  Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love’s sake.  Amen.  (BCP, p. 134)

I love the thought that the church is praying for those who work or watch or weep through the need as well as for those who sleep.  The sick, the weary, the dying, the suffering, and the afflicted are never far from the church’s care or God’s.

The last petition, to shield the joyous, has always seemed a bit strange to me.  At first glance it does not seem like the others, which are all some situation of need, sometimes great need.  Shielding the joyous seems different to me.  It has been something I’m not sure I have understood.  Until now.  Now I get it.

My tutor for the need to shield the joyous is our new puppy, a black Labrador Retriever named Georgia (Annie is fine, by the way, although at 14, slowing down).  Georgia is almost nine months old.  We’ve had her since March.  And for many of the days during these seven months, we have thought Georgia was a huge mistake.

As puppies will do, Georgia has unbridled energy and is being cared for by two people without it.  If we don’t make sure she gets the exercise she needs, we pay a high price. We take her to the dog run in the park for self-preservation and a break.

Georgia’s enthusiasm is boundless.  She runs around our living room as if it were her playground, jumping from floor to sofa to chair to floor and then running around behind them all.  Nothing makes her happier than to destroy a newspaper or magazine.  Our apartment looks like a hamster cage.  She has a fondness for Ginger’s clothes (fortunately, not mine so much, except undershirts).  She landed in the doghouse so to speak for eating Ginger’s glasses.  She finds playing keep away to be hilarious fun, taking something she shouldn’t have, often a shoe, and racing around the room while we try to take it back.  We’ve learned to erect barricades so we can trap her.  I may not have her energy, but I’m smarter than she is.  I think.

In all of her exuberance she also a tendency to get into more serious trouble.  It is not uncommon for me to have to pry something potentially harmful out of her mouth.  Somehow in all her bouncing off the walls she injured her ACL.  (The vet prescribed strict rest.  I know you’re kidding, I said.)

There was the day she pulled herself out of her collar while we were on vacation in North Carolina.  It took her a minute to realize what had happened, but when she did, she took advantage of her new-found freedom and ran straight for the road.

Fortunately it is a small town.  I flagged down oncoming traffic so that I could catch her.  People waited patiently in their cars while I chased her from one side of the road to the other.  Finally, I asked one of the drivers to open his back door.  Only then was I able to grab her as she made a break to the getaway car.  Puppies are fast.

No harm done, thanks be to God, but it makes shielding the joyous make sense to me.  Exuberant puppies know nothing of danger.  Excitement knows nothing of being guarded.  Joy does not shield itself.  It’s up to those who love the joyous to do that. 

So now the prayer to shield the joyous makes sense to me.  And the one about giving rest to the weary has fresh meaning, too.  All for the sake of love.  Amen.

Peace,