You water the furrows abundantly,
You soften the land with showers,
You bless its growth.
Psalm 65:10

           On my day off, I escape to my uncle’s farm and climb into the cab of a tractor. I turn the key and bump the throttle a notch above idle. Beneath the driver’s platform, hydraulics and pistons rumble. The massive machine chugs across the rows and sprinkler tracks, its monstrous sound a hollow echo of the endless human need left behind at the parish office.
          The tires bounce across sharp ruts in the hardpan lane on the way to the field, sending a flurry of grit and dust across the windshield. My mind drifts with the blowing dirt, my spirit as dry as a Texas sand storm, a blizzard of futility.
          I slow the tractor and turn to face the field of sorghum to be harvested for seed, an ocean of burgundy beneath the hazy autumn sky. The plants sway silently. My jaw almost drops in astonishment as I ponder what lies before me. A sea of seeds, each head of grain containing within itself an entire field of other seeds yet to come, generations upon generations of life.
 

Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,
it remains but a grain of wheat…

           The auger of the combine swings slowly out towards the sun-lit sky, like a child pointing out a sight in its wonder. I downshift and pull the tractor beneath this arm of red metal. The grain splashes into the cart behind me. The gentle sound, a swirling, swishing lilt, harkens to the pitter-patter of gentle rain on the same field furrowed last spring.
 

…but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
John 12:24

           
           My uncle, a silhouette above the amber waves of grain that ebb beneath him, waves his arm, indicating that I am again full.
            I couldn’t agree more.
 

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