The Death of a Seed

Imagine being a seed.

What kind of seed would you be? Would you sway above a sea of green? Would you grow on emerald boughs? Would you be held firm and secure or be trapped and demure? Or would the cottony chaos be what you call home?

One thing is for sure: You think that you are what you are. You are compact, content, tidy, dry, and alone in your pod. You’re formed and finished and released.

Then you are off. Thrown to the wind? Dropped on the grass? Carried off by furry creatures and buried? You learn what it means to hit the ground.

Then the dark. And the moldy wet. The soil pressing in, suffocating, soaking you.

Here you are. Where is here? Things have gone terribly wrong.

Then the cracking. This is quickly getting worse. Up the side of you, ripping you in half, searing (if you could feel), destroying you (if you are meant to be a seed).

You pop out of your shell at horrific speed. An arm of pale green shoots down into the black, your body torn to shreds, decomposing into what? More dirt?

Then a darker shoot grows up as it lets out lament. The stretching! The pain! The pressure! Where is the sun? Where is the dry tidy pod you were meant to live in?

Alone, in the musty dark. You’re…dying. You’re not…even a seed anymore.

Pushing, pulling, reaching. These things aren’t done. On they go down, around and up, becoming one yet growing through the heavy wet. Where did they come from? They are huge like arms of need seeking, asking, reaching.

Then, one day, you feel the sun. There it is. Through the shoot that went up. And there, that moisture - is that…pleasant? It is! You greedily drink it in from the black beneath. Ooh it’s good!

“What am I becoming?” You wonder. “What will I be when this is over?” This is so much better, cooler, so connected! Drawing from above and around, who knew you needed more than your pod? Who knew that all that cracking could make…joy?

On and on you pursue this lovely thing called life. Now the old seed itself seems like death. Not the trouble that cracked you open, no, that was birth. You’re not tidy anymore, you’re beautiful. You’re not dry, you’re abundant.

You’re…blooming.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24).