Four acres of Poppies and Bachelor’s Buttons are tucked in beside the cemetery, in Fennville, Michigan. Four acres of unadulterated goodness springing up from the earth, twisted roots clinging to the soil, drawing up nutrients through the stems. This field- so much aliveness beside the eternally resting.
I’m told Mateo Donaldson was a bee keeper on Pleasant Hill Farm before he served a tour of duty in Afghanistan. Like too many others who serve, he returned with PTSD and took his own life. This is the second year his parents stitched these seeds of love and grief into the soil in honor of their son. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this year the world seemed to suddenly take notice. This year, in the midst of people fighting for their life on ventilators and people gasping for breath in the streets, in the midst of partisan division so toxic it’s ripping apart families and tearing up relationships and pitting neighbor against neighbor, in the midst of national growing pains and cramping muscles as we learn to stretch into a better way of being… in the midst of all this… four acres of wonder pushes up from the ground.
Four acres sprouting, blossoming and bursting into unflinching beauty- a spiral of hope, a gift to this community borne out of a farmer’s mingling of soil, tears, sweat, love and thoughtful generosity. Everyone from everywhere comes to walk the path around this field- all labels set aside for these few moments as we are filled with the sacred simplicity of poppies and bachelor buttons.
The earth has a way of grounding us to what is holy, of reminding us who we are and who we can be in the process of becoming better together. It has a way of promising us that the seeds we plant will survive the storms and rupture through the hard crust of winter as the earth warms and stretches its arms to wakefulness. It has a way of reminding us that hope indeed springs eternal.
Sifting for the Sacred 