MEDITATION: Open, Except For. . .
Texts: Isaiah 55:10-13 | Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
Find a comfortable position and let your body settle.
Take a slow breath in... and release.
Take another... and let your shoulders drop.
You don't have to arrive here as good soil. You only have to arrive.
· · ·
Before we enter the parable, hear Isaiah's word underneath it.
My word shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose.
Breathe that in for a moment. God's word is already at work. The harvest is not dependent on your perfection. The sower has not given up on the field.
You are already held within that abundance.
· · ·
Now, gently, let the parable become a mirror.
You are not one kind of soil. You are a field — diverse, mixed, shifting. Hardpan in some places. Rocky in others. Thorny in a corner or two. And somewhere, open.
Gently ask yourself:
Where is the hardpan in me right now? What assumption have I been carrying so long I've stopped questioning it — about God, about myself, about how things work?
Sit with that. Don't try to fix it. Just let yourself see it.
· · ·
Gently ask yourself:
Where is the rocky soil? What compulsive habit or busyness am I using to stay safely set in my ways — to avoid hearing something that might require me to change?
What do I want to hear — just not enough to do anything about it?
Breathe.
· · ·
Gently ask yourself:
Where are the thorns? What legitimate need — for security, for control, for belonging — has crowded the center of my life so completely that there's no room for anything else to grow?
These are not evil things. They are human things. But they are worth naming honestly.
· · ·
And now — where is the good soil?
Where in you is there openness? Where have you recently questioned something, released something, loosened something?
Acknowledge that too. It is real, even if it is small.
· · ·
Now hear the question God asked in the garden:
Where are you?
Not a judgment. A loving, searching invitation.
Gently ask yourself:
Where am I, really? Not where I think I should be. Not where I present myself as being. But where am I, actually, right now?
And then the honest completion:
I am open — except for...
Let yourself fill in that blank. Gently. Without shame. This is not condemnation. This is the beginning of growth.
· · ·
Thomas Keating says there is really only one sin — the refusal to grow.
Which means the invitation here is not to become better soil immediately. It is simply to be willing. Willing to loosen. Willing to question. Willing to let something crack open.
Gently ask yourself:
Is there one place — just one — where I am willing to grow, even a little? One assumption I could hold more loosely? One habit I could examine? One fear I could name rather than tend?
· · ·
And here is the grace.
Seeds germinate in cracks in concrete. God is at work even in your resistance — even in the most packed-down, rocky, thorny places. The word does not return empty.
Take a slow breath.
And let these words rest in you:
I am the field — all of it. God's word is already at work in me. I am open, except for... And I am willing to grow.
Rest for a moment in this truth.
The sower has not given up on the field.
When you are ready, carry that willingness gently into your day.