What’s next? 

It’s a question I’ve been asking myself a lot lately. What’s next for Uvalde? What’s next for me and my priesthood? What’s next for St. Philip’s? What’s next for Cyndy and me in our marriage and life together? What’s next for me and my life as an individual, a human being? What’s next?

I suspect it’s a question you are familiar with. I think it’s a question that at some level we all live and perhaps struggle with. It’s a question dreamers ask. It’s probably a question most of us asked as we were growing up. It’s a question we ask as we age and our life changes. We ask it following the death of a loved one or in the midst of significant life changes. It’s a question we ask when we are heart broken, disappointed, overwhelmed, lost. And it’s a question we ask when we are excited, energized, and expectant. 

When have you asked that question? What was it about? What are you asking it about in your life these days?

I don’t really have answers to that question any more, at least not the way I used to. I used to plan what was next. I used to think that with enough information, hard work, faith, and a little luck I could determine or even control the outcome. I used to think I knew how it all worked. That’s very different from the man in today’s gospel (Mark 4:26-34) 

“He does not know how” it works. He does not try to determine or control the outcome. He doesn’t plan what’s next. He just scatters seed. 

It is, Jesus says, “as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.”

Maybe that’s all you and I can ever do whether in Uvalde, our relationships, or our individual lives. Maybe scattering seed is the most we can do. Maybe it’s enough to just scatter seed. 

When I look back on my life I can see how my marriage has grown and deepened but I can’t point to any one thing in particular that made that happen. My life of prayer today is very different from several years ago and I’m not really sure when or how it changed but I know it has. My commitment to justice, peace, nonviolence, and the well being of others has grown and strengthen in ways I didn’t imagine and can’t explain.

I don’t know how any of that happened I can only point to seed that was scattered on the ground of my life; sometimes by me, sometimes by others, and sometimes by circumstances and events. I’ll bet that’s true for you too. 

What seed has been scattered on the ground of your life? What difference has it made? How has it changed you? In what ways is that happening in your life today?

I know that scattering seed does not guarantee a harvest. But I also know this. If we don’t scatter seed we guarantee there will not be a harvest. 

Seeds are about life. They hold possibility and potential. They represent a beginning. They get things started. They carry our hope. They are our investment in and commitment to the future, come what may.

They remind us that there is a dynamism about life, an ongoing process that is larger than and beyond ourselves. We neither initiate nor control that process. But we participate in it every time we scatter seed. 

I think that’s what the man in today’s gospel knows and trusts. Perhaps that’s why he can sleep at night. It’s not all up to him. He simply makes an offering and lets go of the outcome.

Make an offering and let go of the outcome.

Make an offering and let go of the outcome. What if that was your and my daily practice? 

What would it be like to do that? What would you have to change or let go of in order to live like that? What would it take for you to simply make an offering and let go of the outcome?

Letting go of the outcome doesn’t mean we don’t care about the outcome or that it doesn’t matter. It changes where we give our time, energy, and efforts. It asks us to recognize and trust that we are part of something much larger than ourselves and we’re not in control. It frees us to do what we can do – to make the offering, to scatter seed on the ground. It lets us sleep at night knowing it’s not all up to us.

Look at your life, relationships, and Uvalde today. There is no single answer to the question, “What’s next?” There are a thousand different possibilities and every one is a seed. We each have seed to scatter. What’s the offering you can make today? 

Make an offering and let go of the outcome. Then do it again tomorrow, the next day, and the one after that. It will be enough.

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Image Credit: “contemplation” by hnt6581 is licensed under CC BY 2.0.