A Time To Plant And A Time To Pluck Up What Is Planted

Sun., MAR. 7, 1982, 5:50 AM
FARM, FRONT OF FIRE

Hear, o son, in this early morning hour that I commend you for returning again last evening to this memory task that has eluded you. This time do not let the rote memorization of the various “a time to”s fade and be lost. I want you to know the entire passage “by heart”, and then I shall offer these teachings, over time, so that you have a better understanding of each.

This is one of the major Scriptures that undergirds the concept of rhythm that I am encouraging you to know and to teach. It is the yin and the yang passage of Holy Scripture. As the Scriptures were being assembled and selected there were some against the inclusion of Ecclesiastes, for it did not seem to agree with the “good and evil” concept that was coming to be dominant. But I counseled and I taught and I influenced, and so you have, as Holy Writ…a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted.

This, of course, is a natural, accepted statement of the rightness of rhythm. But within the total passage itself this one expresses a rhythm with “a time to kill and a time to heal” and “a time for war and a time for peace”. But, this morning, We shall concentrate on this agricultural time and, of course, its spiritual analogs.

Your inadequacies as a gardener are heavily based in your unwillingness to be aware of and to act on the knowledge of the proper time to plant. You have planted some things early this year, but will you follow up this month… a critical time if the early summer produce is to be abundant? I realize, certainly, that you have other responsibilities and uses for your time, but if you are to have a result, in food, of which you can be proud, you must plant when the time is right.

The other end of the cycle is also crucial… time to pick and harvest. To let food become overripe or rotten or otherwise not edible just because of sloth in harvesting is wasteful. If you have planted then you must harvest. You have been conscientious about your hay, and as you have thrown out these dry, wonderful helpings of food for your animals this winter you have not been appreciative enough of the fact that you did act and get the hay in before it could be rain damaged.

Another importance of this dictum is in its telling of the reality of seasons in the life in the earth, with the growing season for food being one of the most obvious and most necessary. Out of winter comes spring… and then the growing time of summer, followed by the harvest time of fall and the resting of winter. A human life has such a parade of seasons, and for some the analogy of successive seasons is appropriate, as you know.

In spiritual matters there also is a time to plant. I planted the seeds of this morning meditation in written form with you eighteen years ago and now the harvest is coming forth. In turn, with these teachings you can plant and you or someone else shall reap benefits as spiritual lives develop.