Water Your Field With Tears: A Reflection for Sexagesima Sunday

What do Sexagesima Sunday and Superbowl Sunday have in common besides falling on the same day? Nothing really, except that it reminds me of a lecture I heard on a bonus track of a Krishna-core CD when I was in high school that started my search for God and, eventually, led me to the Catholic faith. In this exchange, (which I still remember word for word to this day), Stambha Das is being interviewed on the way of life of devotees of Krishna Consciousness.  It was my first exposure to talk of something beyond the material world. God writes straight with crooked lines, I suppose. 

Interviewer: 

"Since you've mentioned the Pittsburgh Steelers' helmets, do you ever go to a football game? Go to a movie?" 

Stambha Das: 

"No. We don't engage in what we consider to be more or less diversionary type activities. There is a goal to human life. Human life is meant to be serious...that doesn't mean morose. But we experience our pleasure on a higher level...the pleasure for the soul is not in seeking some temporary gratification in the play or colors of some configuration of bodies running across lines on a pasture, but the pleasure of the self is pleasing God, just as my hand gives food the mouth. So, there is no question of being happy. We may divert ourselves termporarily, but there is no question of happiness apart from serving God.

There again, we utilize those things which can be engaged in Krishna's service. We're not impractical, in other words, a watch is not sinful as it sits there ticking away. The question is, how do we use it?"

Interviewer: 

"A football game is not sinful."

Stambha Das: 

"Not so much that it is sinful, but if in watching the football game, I forget what is my eternal nature--trying to find pleasure in a few moments of this or that on my way to old age, disease, and death, and another birth of an undetermined nature, then it is actually an...improvident engagement."

Interviewer: 

"A priest would, in many cases, feel the same sort of love of Christ that you feel of Krishna, but yet would not feel bad about going to something you that you might consider a diversionary pleasure." 

Stambha Das: 

"But in the Bible, Jesus says, 'if the love of the world is in you, the love of the Father is not.'  And the first commandment is love the Lord with all they heart, mind, and soul. It's kind of hard for me to imagine Jesus Christ and Saint Peter sitting up in the stands, like, calling for a blitz and screaming "Nail him! Nail him!""

Thankfully we were spared, by virtue of the rubrics of the TLM and a good pastor, of any mention of the Birds or subjected (as some of the guys in my men's group who attend the N.O.), to the Philadelphia Eagle's game chants at Mass). Nothing wrong with a football game. But I think Stambha Das raises some good points for Christ-followers. The way is narrow for a reason, and we are often forgetful of our purpose and lose sight of the markers in our worldly distraction. 

Anyway.

During the readings, we were forced to reflect as Lent draws near on St. Paul's words to the Corinthians: Paul, who relishes in his infirmities despite staking every claim to be a complete boss in the faith, realizes that God sends reminders of our weakness so that we may not forget to rely on him. When we think we are standing tall, we are often struck low. "And lest the greatness of the revelations should exalt me, there was given me a sting of my flesh, an angel of Satan, to buffet me. For which thing, thrice I besought the Lord that it might depart from me. And he said to me: My grace is sufficient for thee: for power is made perfect in infirmity. Gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me."

And then we have the Gospel reading, the parable of the sower, which on the surface seems like an obvious message and one we've heard a hundred times: your seed of faith needs to be planted in fertile ground. One thing that struck me about the examples Christ gives--of the seed falling on rock, in thorns, and by the wayside--is that in none of those cases does the seed fall on actual good soil. On the rock, it cannot lay root. In the thorns, it is choked out. By the wayside, the birds eat it up.

Rich soil doesn't just happen. It needs to be prepared, built up; otherwise sprouting seeds end up stunted. During this lead up to Lent, we are preparing the soil of our bodies, our minds, and our hearts. A field needs moisture, rain--what better way to water your field than with the tears of repentance. 

A field needs fertilizer as well--it is the excrement products of animals (manure) that is often spread on the fields in preparation for planting. What else would you possibly use horse sh*t for? God has a plan for even our waste products, though. 

When manure is "hot", however, it can burn tender young shoots; it needs time to age. God can use even the detritus of our past life, our past sins, our weaknesses and infirmities, for the glory of the Kingdom. It is not his will that we sin--but when we do (and He knows we will), if it leads us to compunction and tears of sorrow, suddenly we have a damp bed to germinate the seeds of faith and nourished by our aged and now composted bullsh*t.

The past week I have fallen into some pretty heavy sins of uncharity. Selfishness is sin, and sin is selfishness, and I am excelling at both...against my wife, my kids, my parents, my friends. I felt I was standing pretty tall prior to that--plowing the field with confidence, laying the manure of mortifications and letting it age. 

And yet out of nowhere, God sent me thorn after thorn to attack my confidence in my own strength and ability, to completely raze my pious exterior and reveal the brute animal I am beneath it apart from grace. He gave me opportunity after opportunity to practice charity, and I failed miserably every time. I was not only uncharitable, but unforgiving. Suddenly the seeds sown in my heart were starved of oxygen and moisture, and the shoots stunted. My bullsh*t was steaming and burning the stalks of the young plants. 

It was only with tears of repentance, in seeing my sin and selfishness for what it was and not making excuses for it, that the kernels reconstituted slowly. "Take heed, lest you fall," St. Paul writes in his first letter to this same group of believers (1 Cor 10:12). The readings today from his follow up letter (2 Cor. 11:19-33; 12:1-9), combined with the Gospel reading, helped open my eyes to how tenuous feats of spiritual strength are, when our fields are not furrowed with the plow of charity. The day is now far spent. Let's not waste any more time preparing our fields.