INSPIRATION: Oh My God / I Am a Seed

My sister is five years older than me, and so as I was going through the end of middle and high school, Mary was already off in college. As like most 13 - 18 year old boys, my body was constantly changing and growing. I would sprout at such a pace and my transformations in between her visits from college were so drastic that she would actually call me a "weed". Unfortunately and even though I'm still holding out for a late spurt, my green thumb didn't last much past 6'. I may not be much of a weed anymore, but I am a seed.

The above video comes from a group called The Digital Age. They are the resurrection of The David Crowder Band, forming after the aforementioned band decided to break up. The song, which appeared on DCB's last album, "Give Us Rest (A Requiem Mass in C [The Happiest of All Keys])", and the fact that this reborn version of the song is being sung by a reborn version of the band are great illustrations of the mystery of the Resurrection. Our lives, in many different ways, follow this Pascal pattern. We suffer. We die. We rise. As the song says, "Death will lose and we will win / I am a seed / I've been pushed down into the ground, but I will rise up a tree / I am a seed / I won't stay long here in this earth when you rain your love on me / Lord, rain your love on me."

We are seeds. So are our students. Nothing illustrates this better than the beginning of a new school year. Last year is in the earth. Buried. The promise of new life breaks forth from the ground and hopefully by the end of the year our students will rise up as trees. We have new soil with which to work. If we, as educators, have appropriately rejuvenated over the summer, we may also have some new fertilizer, nutrients and/or nurturing techniques to use this year. A new day is dawning. The rains will come, but will only serve to strengthen our young buds. Sprinkle in a little love, from both ourselves and from God, and we should be able to reap an abundant harvest.


St. John Baptist de la Salle says this about teachers, "Be satisfied with what you can do, since God is satisfied with it, but do not spare yourself in what you can do with grace; and believe that, provided you want it, you can do more with the grace of God than you think."


This year, let us do more than we've ever done with students. Let us do more than we can even think possible. Let us not put limits on ourselves or our students. Let us ask for God to rain His love down on us and let us allow Him to amaze us with His creation.


He is the Gardener; we are merely the workers. We are merely seeds...but we (and our students) will rise up into trees.


It is time for us to get to work. Let us begin.