Unitarian Universalist Church at Washington Crossing

This is a marvelous season for walking in the woods, which I often do with Lucy, our dog. (Of course not as often nor as long as she would like.) We walk among the leaves that fell from the trees and bushes. In among the leaves are seeds and nuts in abundance. Squirrels, deer and other animals are finding nutritional value in these seeds. Birds are busy finding many seeds on the ground but many seeds still hold onto grasses, trees and bushes.

Of course, the forest birds and animals do not eat many seeds. Now, some of these seeds lay quietly under leaves and later they will be under snow, spending winter in the dark. Some of them will surely never sprout. Some seeds not covered may dry out from the wind and the sun. Other seeds fall into a lake, river or the ocean. It seems quite a miracle of nature that so many seeds do survive the winter months and then sprout into seedlings as soon as the earth warms in the spring.

I love to watch and tend seedlings in my own garden. Although, no matter how hard I try, I cannot get some of them to grow. Some seeds just will not spout and grow, perhaps because of the weather or maybe it is how I planted them. Bugs, worms, slugs or the family of fat ground hogs that live under my nearby shed eats some of the little plants right away.

On the other hand, there are other seeds that no one loves watching spout and grow because they are in places where we do not want them. When they are in my garden, I call them weeds. In addition, there are the seeds that lodge in the tiny cracks of my brick patio that also sprout and grow where they are unwanted. At the end of the summer, I even have found little trees growing in my rain gutters.

Henry David Thoreau wrote, “Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.”

“Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.”

Seeds of possibility do exist within each of us. In our first principle, we Unitarian Universalists affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. We affirm and promote the many seeds of possibility inherent within us. These inherent possibilities may not have sprouted yet, nor grown seedlings in the light of day.

Have you not looked at someone and thought, “Wow, she or he sure is not living up to their true potential; what a shame? How about you and the potential seeds that lie within you, just waiting for the light of day to inspire them to sprout and grow? How carefully are you looking deep within? e.e. cummings (who just happened to be a son of a Unitarian minister who is buried in Concord, NH where I served prior to moving here) challenges us with his statement, “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are…”

It does take courage to stop, look and listen long enough to see a glimpse of whom we really are and whom we are meant to be. It takes courage to see our own potential. It takes courage to listen quietly enough to hear within our inner selves a whisper of who we are meant to be; what potential is waiting ever so patiently, waiting to be awakened and nurtured here (the heart) within.

I love stories in general, but especially personal and heroic stories about true flesh and blood people. Helen Keller became blind and deaf as a toddler. Yet with the help of Anne Sullivan, she discovered a potential waiting within her to become someone who has moved and inspired millions. Helen Keller wrote, “I recall many incidents of the 1887 summer that followed my soul’s sudden awakening. I did nothing but explore with my hands and learn the name of every object that I touched; and the more I handled things and learned their names and uses, the more joyous and confident grew my sense of kinship with the rest of the world.

When the time of daisies and buttercups came, Miss Sullivan took me by the hand across the fields, where men were preparing the earth for the seed, to the banks of the Tennessee River, and there sitting on the warm grass, I had my first lesson in the beneficence of nature. I learned how the sun and the rain make to grow out of the ground every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. How birds build their nests and live and thrive from land to land, how the squirrel, the deer, the lion and every other creature finds good and shelter. As my knowledge of things grew I felt more and more the delight of the world I was in.”

To be sure, our stories may not be as dramatic as that of Helen Keller. Never the less, we too often live our lives without even discovering the seeds of potential that lie within us. Seeds that could grow into: a new creative outlet, a more compassionate father, mother, child, partner or parent, an activist for peace and justice or a new and unexpected career or pastime. Instead, we tend to excuse ourselves from inner exploration because we feel that it would be too difficult if not impossible to change. We dismiss our thoughts as dreams or unreal fantasies. We might say, it is too late for me to do or be like that. We fear that people in our life would not understand or accept us if we tried this or that. Too, after all the effort, what if we failed?

Vaclav Havel, playwright, protestor and political prisoner as well as past president of the Czech Republic wrote, “It is I who must begin. Once I begin, once I try – here and now, right where I am, not excusing myself by saying things would be easier elsewhere, without grand speeches and ostentatious gestures, but all the more persistently – to live in harmony with the “voice of Being,” as I understand it within myself – … live in harmony with the “voice of Being,” as I understand it within myself – as soon as I begin that, I suddenly discover, to my surprise, that I am neither the only one nor the first, nor the most important one to have set out upon that road. Whether all is really lost or not depends entirely on whether or not I am lost.”

Of course it is you and I who must begin. We must begin to look within to see and recognize the seeds of possibility here within hearts, minds and souls. Because once you try, once you begin, not tomorrow, not when you arrive at a new place, but right here and right now right where you are – you give those seeds of potential a bit of light and warmth and they will begin to sprout and grow.

Things might indeed be easier elsewhere, but you are here and you may never come to that easier place. What courage do you need to become who you really are or are meant to be? Where are those places in your life where you glimpse moments or periods of courage where you feel empowered to grow up to become who you really are? How might you prepare the ground for your seeds of potential? What might you do to begin tending these seeds for their growth and your future? So that you might “… live in harmony with the ‘voice of Being,’ as I (you) understand it within (your)myself –“

Once you set out on this path, you will suddenly discover to your surprise and delight that others are on and have been on this path before. And you realize. “Whether all is really lost or not depends entirely on whether or not (you) I (are) am lost. Of course we often feel like we are lost, or that we have lost track of who or to what we are being called?

Thomas Merton a Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky was a well known poet. He wrote, “The way to find the real ‘world’ is not merely to measure and observe what is outside us, but to discover our own inner ground. For that is where the ‘world’ is, first of all; in my deepest self. This ‘ground,’ this ‘world’ where I am mysteriously present at once to my own self and to the freedoms of all other men and women, is not a visible, objective and determined structure with fixed laws and demands.
It is a living and self-creating mystery of which I am myself a part, to which I am myself my own unique door.” (In Contemplation in a World of Action, p.154-55)

Our challenge is to discover and tend our own inner ground. We know that seeds are programmed internally to grow. They need to grow so inherently that they grow in the cracks of pavement and in rain gutters, where we try to eradicate them. Still, if we tend to our inner ground, if we let in the light of honest and courageous self-reflection the seeds of possibility within each and everyone of us here will grow, will thrive and will mature. See, it is your gift now. Sun and earth in you creating tiny seeds in slender shelters to hibernate through winter and yawn to life again.

Believe in all that is within you that has never been spoken. Free the seeds of potential within that wait because you have not dared to tend the ground within.