A Seed of Corn Falling

When I was in Mexico for the summer, back in 1999, I enjoyed the daily life there, and getting to learn and participate in some of the tasks.  I got to learn how to make masa (corn dough) and tortillas, how to desgranar (de-grain) the corn cobs, and finally how to plant the corn.  As I was working with a family in one of their small lots, sowing corn, the mother of the family laughed at my interest in the task and prodded me "Andas chillando." (You're miserable doing this.)  "No," I replied. "Estoy contenta."  Then, voicing my thoughts, I suppose, I added, "Es el maiz que llora.  Cae como lagrimas de oro.  Pero, son lagrimas de gozo, porque sabe que solo por caer, pueda alzarse."  (I'm sure my grammar was that bad, and worse.)  The woman looked at me (perhaps trying to figure out what I was trying to say), and puzzled a bit.  I don't think many rancheras come up with poetry off the top of their head as they are sowing.  At least, I never heard any.  It makes me laugh to think what she must have thought of me.

Today as I was reading the scriptures, in John, I discovered that Christ made a similar metaphor as he was pondering the atonement.  He said "except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit."  This weekend I have been pondering about my lot in life.  I read a book "Washington's Lady" (by a Christian author, and it was painfully poor writing) about Martha Washington, and thought about how much she had to do without her husband.  I wondered if I will often have to do without Sam. If that is what is required, I'm sure I can do it, but I'd like to know, so I'm prepared.  And if Sam will be off being a hero and making amazing things happen, what will my lot be at home?  I have dreams yet, and hopes and goals, and sitting at home and dutifully waiting for him to appear, whenever he will, does not settle with me.  What does it mean "whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life, for my sake, shall find it."

I once thought that meant losing myself in motherhood--in being more concerned with the care of my family than myself as an individual.  I created a dialectic of individuality and community and felt community was "right" and should win.  Now I don't feel that way.  I understand better that individuality does not oppose community, or vice versa, and both are essential for the well-being of the other.  As I read and pondered in John, and then in Mosiah 6, I thought about how losing one's life means seeking the will of the Lord rather than one's own will--taking his name upon us and such.  I thought about the story in the April 2011 conference, about the bush that got trimmed down to size by the farmer, and how much it resented having its  tall growth removed.  But it was the farmer's goal magnify the bush's being--to make it what it really was.  I felt cut down upon being a mother.  My beautiful tall growth of scholar, contributer, productive, intelligent person were all trimmed away, and it hurt my pride!  But my heart was still there, the essence of what I was, and after a time, I started growing again, and taking the essential me-ness that had grown into those things and putting that energy and those qualities into other things.  I flowered (with children and knowledge and experience) as an overgrown bush doesn't.  My energy went into things closer to home.  I filled out instead of shooting upwards.

A seed doesn't really "die" when it is dropped into the earth, if planted in good ground.  But it does have to give up being what it is--a self-contained packet of possibility, "abid[ing] alone"--in order to "bring forth much fruit."   God doesn't want us to give up who we truly are--our innate being and potential--he just wants us to magnify it.  He doesn't ask the corn seed to grow into a rose bush, just from a corn kernel to a corn stalk.  He will lead us in that change, because he knows how to make the change, if we will follow him.

So, I am willing to follow Him.  I don't know fully what I am yet, I realize, or what he wants me to become.  And he does give me choices about which way I'd like to grow, and he leads me, too.  It has been hard, this last year, to feel buried.  I would like to grow.  I would like to weep tears of joy and be fruitful.