Pastor’s Letter
Again Jesus said, “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade.”
This text from last Sunday has continued to call me to center, providing universal spiritual context to the particular moral crisis of our day as "children" continue to find harm in the arms of a 'nation under God'.
When I think of seeds growing, I think of my own children who sometimes seem to go to sleep and night and awake the next morning having grown 3 inches!
What does it mean to grow tiny seeds into the fullness of their existence, and to offer shade under the branches of this abundance?
Mary Ellen Maunz reminds us of Maria Montessori's idea of the child absorbent mind saying, "From birth to (approximately) age six, a child’s brain works in a very different way than an adult’s does. At this age, her mind is like a sponge, soaking up huge amounts of information from her environment. She is absorbing everything around her, effortlessly, continuously, and indiscriminately. This is what Maria Montessori referred to as “the absorbent mind.”
The child has a different relation to his environment from ours… the child absorbs it. The things he sees are not just remembered; they form part of his soul. He incarnates in himself all in the world about him that his eyes see and his ears hear. ~Maria Montessori, “The Absorbent Mind”
If my 2 & 5 year-old's souls depend upon my hand watering and nurturing their roots to dig deep enough, and their tiny shoot to emerge out of the soil, and their branches to grow wide enough to produce leaves that bring forth shade under the sunlit sky, might I then understand what it is to nurture and bring about the "kindom" of God? And might I also understand that by withholding my hand, failing to prepare the soil, to water and prune her on her journey I have limited what may have been?
We know that Love is the seed of the soul, and if love then is poured out to overflowing upon the soil, and absorbed like a sponge by the tiny seed planted just below the surface we can participate in creating the coming kindom of God, watching and nurturing it's growth one night and day at a time. Like the sower who scattered seeds upon the ground, went to sleep and awoke to the plant fully birthed into life.
Spirit is leading the way, let us join wholeheartedly in the work!
Pastor Jenny Shultz-Thomas
Again Jesus said, “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade.”
This text from last Sunday has continued to call me to center, providing universal spiritual context to the particular moral crisis of our day as "children" continue to find harm in the arms of a 'nation under God'.
When I think of seeds growing, I think of my own children who sometimes seem to go to sleep and night and awake the next morning having grown 3 inches!
What does it mean to grow tiny seeds into the fullness of their existence, and to offer shade under the branches of this abundance?
Mary Ellen Maunz reminds us of Maria Montessori's idea of the child absorbent mind saying, "From birth to (approximately) age six, a child’s brain works in a very different way than an adult’s does. At this age, her mind is like a sponge, soaking up huge amounts of information from her environment. She is absorbing everything around her, effortlessly, continuously, and indiscriminately. This is what Maria Montessori referred to as “the absorbent mind.”
The child has a different relation to his environment from ours… the child absorbs it. The things he sees are not just remembered; they form part of his soul. He incarnates in himself all in the world about him that his eyes see and his ears hear. ~Maria Montessori, “The Absorbent Mind”
If my 2 & 5 year-old's souls depend upon my hand watering and nurturing their roots to dig deep enough, and their tiny shoot to emerge out of the soil, and their branches to grow wide enough to produce leaves that bring forth shade under the sunlit sky, might I then understand what it is to nurture and bring about the "kindom" of God? And might I also understand that by withholding my hand, failing to prepare the soil, to water and prune her on her journey I have limited what may have been?
We know that Love is the seed of the soul, and if love then is poured out to overflowing upon the soil, and absorbed like a sponge by the tiny seed planted just below the surface we can participate in creating the coming kindom of God, watching and nurturing it's growth one night and day at a time. Like the sower who scattered seeds upon the ground, went to sleep and awoke to the plant fully birthed into life.
Spirit is leading the way, let us join wholeheartedly in the work!
Pastor Jenny Shultz-Thomas