Who but the Good Lord knew that my Saturday path and my Sunday path would intersect, and how easily He could give me the help I asked for with the dream I mentioned yesterday? He knew that Rogation Sunday was coming up at our church today, and that I would be singing the hymn with this verse:

Christ is risen, Christ, the first fruits
of the holy harvest field,
Which will all its full abundance
at His second coming yield:
Then the golden ears of harvest
will their heads before Him wave,
Ripened by His glorious sunshine
from the furrows of the grave.

It practically jumped off the page to me! Yes! Yes! That's it! I showed the alto who had been in the same workshop, and she agreed. I had tried to formulate that same idea in my own clumsy language and there it was in beautiful poetic form. "Exactly!" I love those Aha! moments.

It also led me to see the part of me that is represented by my grandfather. The part of me that enjoyed gardening, seeing new life come from buried seed, that was from Papaw. The part of me that appreciates the balance of the seasons (for every thing there is a season), that was from Papaw. The part of me that appreciates the ordinary, the common, the "down to earth," "salt of the earth," the simple life, I got that from Papaw.

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Okay, so I didn't pay much attention to the homily, but I got what I was supposed to get, don't you think? I think I did.

Let us present yield high praise to our Creator

that he may crown the year with his goodness.

For from God comes every good and perfect gift:

the rich soil, the smell of fresh-turned earth,

the keenness of the winters frost,

the rumble of the machine,

the gleam of a cutting blade;

the blistered hand, the sweat of the brow,

the skill of those who plow;

the beauty of a clean-cut furrow,

the sweep of a well-plowed field;

all reveal the mind of the Creator.

Blessed be God in all his gifts,

and holy in all his works. Amen.

~copied~