On the Common 123
Abundance.
Hi friends,
Next week’s issue of On the Common will be the last one for a while. I’m taking the month of June off to retool some things and work on other projects. As always, thank you for opening this email each week, reading it, and encouraging me to keep writing. Your time is valuable to me!
The Part Where There’s an Essay: Abundance
The other day, I was reading in Deuteronomy and this verse jumped out at me:
It is a land the Lord your God cares for. He is always watching over it from the beginning to the end of the year. (11:12)
God says this in the midst of instructing the nation of Israel about their entrance into the Promised Land. He states that life in the Canaan will be different from life in Egypt, “where where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a vegetable garden.” In contrast, Canaan will “drink rain from heaven,” (v.11) because God watches over the land at all times. It is a contrast to teach the abundant character of God. He is able to give far above what Israel will need. He is not only able to do so; He desires to do so.
It is a tender picture: Gardener God, leaning over the warm earth, sending abundant gentle rain faithfully over the year. One season follows another, and God continues to watch, making sure the moisture is at just the right level. He does not sleep like earthly gardeners. He keeps vigil.
When we are tucked inside our houses; when it is dark; when it’s raining; when it’s cold—the earth is still giving. This is a witness to the abundance of God: we do nothing to achieve these gifts, and yet they are continually given. This concept unfolds beautifully in the pages of Wendell Berry’s The Memory of Old Jack:
He knew that his origin was in nothing that he or any man had done, and that he could do nothing sufficient to his own needs. And he looked finally beyond those limits and saw the world still there, potent and abounding, as it would be whether he lived or died, worthy of his life and work and faith. He saw that he would be distinguished not by what he was or anything that he might become but by what he served. Beyond him was the peace and rest and joy that he desired. Beyond the limits of a man's strength or intelligence or desire or hope or faith, there is more. The cup runs over. While a man lies asleep in exhaustion and despair, helpless as a child, the soft rain falls, the trees leaf, the seed sprouts in the planted field. And when he knows that he lives by a bounty not his own, though his ruin lies behind him and again ahead of him, he will be at peace, for he has seen what is worthy.
“The cup runs over.” This is reference to Psalm 23, written in despair of life or in a time of danger. The cup still runs over, even then. We live by a bounty not our own.
Perhaps it is because we run to a mindset of scarcity so often that we as humans have a hard time understanding God to be this generous. Inclined to give to people who again and again run over us and our intentions? No thank you, not me. That would simply be naive. We get what we deserve when that happens.
But one of the ways in which our humanness is profoundly un-God-ness is that He simply doesn’t run out. He doesn’t stop. He is abundant. We have limits both before and behind, and yet He stretches on. “The trees leaf, the seed sprouts in the planted field.”
While we run out again and again, He abounds.
For the Anglophiles
I think I feature the Chelsea Flower Show every year. This year there is a special focus on children, even hosting a garden that is “No Adults Allowed.” Spoiler: adults can gain entrance, but they must complete a challenge first.
Reads & Listens of the Week
This mom would like you to know she raised a kid without a smartphone. Encouragement for those of us battling with the ever-present screens.
I very much enjoyed this episode of The Rest is History with Tom Hanks. He is a big space nerd just like my husband.
Did you know that Kathy Keller, wife of the late pastor Tim Keller, was one of the last people to correspond with CS Lewis before he died? She’s in the collection entitled Letters to Children. An interview with her is right here.
Just winking at my childhood here: Chuck-E-Cheese is taking out their animatronic bands. I feel this is a positive step for them.
Telling a story is like reaching into a granary full of wheat and drawing out a handful. There is always more to tell than can be told. ― Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow
Three cheers for Deuteronomy!!!