Plant a Seed This Ash Wednesday
Today is Ash Wednesday!
Choose your own adventure:
Talk to a tree: Yes, this sounds crazy, but read the below scripture passages to a tree (or rose bush, or succulent, or patch of grass). How does it change how you engage with Scripture to share it with a tree? Now take some time in quiet and ponder the tree.
Plant something: find a seed (or transplant a weed from your front yard if you’d like) and plant it in a little cup or a corner of your yard. Make sure it gets 4 hours of sunlight and keep it moist. Then read these scriptures over your seed and when you see it over the next few weeks, ask God to speak to you through the growth of your plant.
Scripture Verses To Read:
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor... to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor. - Isaiah 61:1-3
... unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. - John 12:24
What would you like God to grow in your life this season? What dirt do you need to dig in, or what seeds must fall and die along the way?
For further reflection:
Mature spirituality points to life on the other side of death, the victory on the other side of failure, the joy on the other side of the pains of childbirth. It insists on going through—not under, over, or around. There is no nonstop flight to reorder. To arrive there, we must endure, learn from, and include the disorder stage, including the first naïve order—but also transcending it!
- Richard Rohr