Photo by Corkeythehornetfan.
When I was a kid, I attended a Methodist child care center where I learned to read, count and hear about God’s plan for my life. (My local parochial school did not have a pre-school/kindergarten option at the time.) My teacher was the pastor’s wife who used a lot of music to impart some of these spiritual life lessons and one of my favorites was “I Am A Promise” by the Bill Gaither Trio.
“I Am A Promise” was recorded for an album of the same name and featured a plethora of young back-up singers known as the “Sunday school Picnic.” It is a song with a simple message, but it is one that makes a big impression, especially when you are a little kid trying to figure out how you fit into the world around you. It begins with a little voice warbling “I am a promise. I am a possibility. I am a promise with a capital P. I’m a great big bundle of potentiality...” and ends with a whole chorus of kids emphatically announcing the same in a rousing crescendo.
Although I was not at all sure what “potentiality” was, I sort of understood that “potential” was something deep inside of me that wasn’t fully formed yet. It was something that would grow and change throughout my life but it was something that I would ultimately use to follow my vocation. The song made such an impact on my life, that I was thrilled to meet Gloria Gaither at an author’s event a few years ago and tell her how much that composition meant to me. She seemed genuinely touched that I had hung on to the message in the music all these years later.
While I don’t like to think about how my life will end or overly contemplate what happens after this plane of existence, I think it is important to appreciate that where we start is not where we end up. Although we reap what we sow…what we sow doesn’t ever look like what we reap. Think about it: We enter the world as a naked, crying baby and – with any luck – we leave it as a fully clothed adult at peace with ourselves and ready to greet the face of God. In between, there is a whole life cycle of twists and turns that are dependent on the choices we make. Our growing season may be longer or shorter than others, but ultimately God has a plan for us and we cannot become part of His harvest unless we are willing to leave the rest of the garden behind.
God makes us a lot of promises through His word, but He never promises that it will be easy. If you’ve ever tried to grow anything, you know it’s not as simple as planting a seed in the ground and watering it from time to time. That foundation is certainly a good start, but you still have to worry about weeds, pests, droughts, floods, fertilizer, etc. But as a kid I learned that I was full of all the raw material I needed to bloom and grow. After all, I was “a promise to be anything God wants me to be.”
Today’s readings for Mass: 1 COR 15:35-37, 42-49; PS 56: 10C-12, 13-14; LK 8:4-15
