eight::seventeen

The sweetest fruit is the provision of God,
that taste for which we are so thankful,
that vegetable fleshed in mystery.

At best, we can participate in God's fruition,
humbling ourselves to the seasons
and the soil and seedlings,
to the Creator of life's cycles,
denying not the Earth her abundance,
nor her apparent hesitation.

Respond well to the Word,
whether to bear flesh of your flesh
or to listen to the subtle whispers of the Spirit,
a birth for all and not many,
though the few do not hold their heads high.

And it all comes together in the mercy of God,
in the now and not yet,
the inward look beyond the horizon.

(Joshua 24:1-13, Psalm 136, Matthew 19:3-12)