The holy seed is the stump of the felled tree.
Isaiah 6:13
Growth requires change
The thin stalk holding the seed dried and died, and the acorn fell from the living tree, bounced once, rolled a foot and settled, to be covered with mulch. As autumn moved into winter, the seed swelled and split along with many others, all gathered under the shade of the ancient oak.
Soon a single shoot appeared and began the struggle for light.
Tiny roots quested out - radiating into the rotting leaves - anchoring the shoot, carrying dissolved minerals and the juices of composting leaves, bird droppings and Spring rains.
Over the next century the sapling grew into a stout and strong tree, and when strong winds uprooted its parent tree, the smaller tree was ready to take its place in the sunfed canopy.
Like the parent tree, the new tree flourished in its patch of light - but also like the parent, was blasted and scarred by lightning, lost branches to the winds, and fought the bracket fungus sending filaments from these wounds into its heart.
Through the days, seasons, decades and centuries the roots lengthened and thickened, growing out past the ever-widening circle where rain water dripped from leaf to leaf and out to the edge of the circle of its canopy.
The branches, and new branches, quested out for light, building an ever-larger sail, until the day of the gale when lightning and wind caught the sail and cracked that stout trunk to its buttress.
The branches all died, and burned that summer in yet another lightning strike, but the buttress of half a millennium remained, and the following Spring buds formed all around the stump, new shoots growing from living wood.
The tree began a new stage of life as a pollarded tree, the single trunk replaced by 13 strong branches, all grasping up to the new gap for light, all anchored by roots centuries old, all fed through a net of fine threads grown to sustain a much taller and wider tree.
Suggestions for meditation
The exact words of the prayer are not important but you do need a firm intention to open yourself to God's input.
Read the mediation over slowly a couple of times.
Listen for the personal message for you. There will always be one word or phrase that will reach into your heart. Think of it as the personal meaning God has for you alone!
If you would prefer a more authoritative reading to focus your meditation, try Isaiah 6:9-13
And God said to Isaiah, “Go and say to this people:
‘Keep listening, but do not comprehend;
keep looking, but do not understand.’Make the mind of this people dull,
and stop their ears,
and shut their eyes,
so that they may not look with their eyes,
and listen with their ears,
and comprehend with their minds,
and turn and be healed.”Then I said, “How long, O Lord?” And he said:
“Until cities lie waste
without inhabitant,
and houses without people,
and the land is utterly desolate;
until the Lord sends everyone far away,
and vast is the emptiness in the midst of the land.Even if a tenth part remain in it,
it will be burned again,
like a turpentine tree, or an oak
whose stump remains standing
when it is felled.”The holy seed is its stump.
Re-read the passage or the meditation - maybe read it slowly aloud.
Is there a word or phrase that jumps out to speak to you?
Why? Try to put yourself into those words. Maybe imagine Jesus speaking, and reply.
Is there a word or phrase that jumps out to speak to you?
Why? Try to put yourself into those words. Maybe imagine Jesus speaking, and reply.
Then spend 5, or 10, or 15 minutes with your word from Jesus, or the word STRUGGLE or GROW.
You need a clear intention to empty your mind of random thoughts (you won't be entirely successful but you need the intention).
You might want to begin the meditation using the breathing exercise I suggest in We have two minds.
After a minute or two focused on your breathing, move your focus to the word/s you have chosen.
Each time your attention moves away from the word/s, push the distraction gently aside and return to the word ("without the intervention of analytical thought" as The Cloud of Unknowing puts it).
You may need a countdown clock.
At the end thank God, and return to your day.
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