It was one of the most exciting times of the year on the farm where I grew up. Easter Sunday and May Day had come and gone, the snow piles had melted away, and now it was time to roll back the big red doors on the old wooden shed to pull the machinery out of winter storage.
First came the field cultivator, then the corn planter and the grain drill used for planting wheat and oats. Hoppers on the planter and drill literally held the life within each seed, which would eventually be distributed and planted in the nutrient-rich soil of our farm fields. A precious germ of life, deep in the center of each seed, would germinate when planted in the warm, moist dirt.
Thus began a living process of multiplication that produced a harvest of 30, 60 or even 100 times what was sown, according to Matthew 13:23.
This springtime story still excites me when I recall how it happened in my childhood on our farm 75 years ago!
But even more special to me is recalling my father’s and grandfather’s answer to my youthful question: “How do you know when the right time is for planting?”
They never answered, “Check the Farmers Almanac, the calendar, or whether the neighbor farmers are in the fields yet.”
Their answer, in unison with generations of ancestor farmers in our family, “It’s time to plant when the leaf on the oak tree is as big as a squirrel’s ear.”
I’m not a scientist, a biologist or an agronomist. I’m just a pastor – and before that, a farmer’s son and grandson. But in my lifetime of experiences, I’ve observed that no human has ever discovered how to create the “life” that is in the germ of a seed – or, for that matter, the “life” that is in the sperm or the egg or an embryo.
It’s comforting to simply and humbly remember that God the Father Creator and Mother Nature are in charge at the beginning of life and forevermore, but especially when it’s time to plant!
Editor’s note: Eden Prairie Local News (EPLN) contributor Pastor Rod Anderson also serves on the EPLN Board of Directors. He was the senior pastor of St. Andrew Lutheran Church in Eden Prairie.
Interested in contributing a faith-based column to EPLN? Email editor@eplocalnews.org.
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