Scatter Love Like Wildflower Seeds

I've been listening to a lot of classic rock lately, and watched the Oscar nominated The Trial of the Chicago 7 on Netflix. It's really easy to idealize any past time period and see in it what we want in it, to latch on to only the aesthetics that appeal to us and classify the whole thing as that. The reality is that the past, just like the present, was complicated and multi-faceted. What I am loving, though, is a feeling of generosity and openness akin to the parable of the sower. I heard once, a beautiful explanation of this parable which I will do my best to relate. Essentially, Jesus was speaking to an agrarian crow. They were experienced with farming and proper sewing techniques, and they would have spotted right off the bat that this farmer was a little nuts. Who scatters seeds indiscriminately along the road and the hedgerows? The farmer in the parable is God, and they scatter the gospel in this way. There are no carefully laid out boundaries and rows. The seed is not hoarded or counted. There is no limit, so there is no reason to be stingy. This is the kingdom to which we are called. Gratitude for what we have received freely turns into generosity as we pass it on. 

I'm also finally reading Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall-Kimmerer. She talks about going into botany at college and describing her love of asters and goldenrod side by side and how beautiful they were. She was told this wasn't real science, and didn't matter. She had to learn a new language for the things in the natural world that she had such a natural relationship to, but she eventually learned that to bees, just as to humans, contrasting colors naturally capture the attention. These yellow orange and blue violet flowers bloomed together because it attracts the bees that allow them to flourish, as humans, we just get to share the benefit. Our natural world is generous with beauty. Just like the flowers, we come in so many different colors. We all create unique things, they are all needed, and the beauty is in the contrast. Our physical world and our creative spirits thrive in diversity and generosity.