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We Have Planted Seeds

Seeds that were planted just a week ago have sprouted throughout the Sharing Bread course at Sorrento. Photo: Suzanne Rumsey

July 7, 2014

By Suzanne Rumsey

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This is what we are about. We plant seeds that one
day will grow. We water seeds already planted
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects
far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of
liberation in realizing this.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning,
a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s
grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the
difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not
messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.

Excerpt from “A Future Not Our Own” by U.S. Catholic bishop Kenneth Untener in memory of Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador

And so on Monday we planted seeds with the children among us.  On Tuesday we visited the Sorrento Farm and learned about farming and food security in Cuba.  On Wednesday we heard about important local efforts taking place in Calgary to “green” cities and to grow food in urban and rural spaces across Canada in sustainable ways. On Thursday we wrestled hard with “big picture” issues like global food systems, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and our own and our government’s role in those issues. And on Friday morning we learned about how people can and are responding to food security concerns through advocacy here in Canada and elsewhere in the world. (Please see previous blogs for everything else we did as well!)

And so our week of “Sharing Bread” at Sorrento Centre has come to an end.  Twenty-two participants, two facilitators and a dozen children came together with the other members of this week’s community at the Centre on Friday afternoon for a concluding eucharist.  At the end of the service we collected our pots of seeds planted on Monday, discovering that some of those seeds were just beginning to sprout. 

Participants at Sharing Bread during the commissioning of their seeds.  Photo: Cameron Gutjar
Participants at Sharing Bread during the commissioning of their seeds. Photo: Cameron Gutjar

Maylanne Maybee, PWRDF Diocesan Representative for the Diocese of Rupert’s Land led us in a commissioning of our seeds and ourselves. She asked us:

This week you have tasted God’s goodness fresh from the fields.  You have walked with Fred our Primate, with Griselda and Ernesto and our partners in Cuba, with Farmer Dave and Farmer Devon, and with one another in learning about food security.  Will you commit to sow the seeds of what you have learned among those with whom you live and work and worship?

To which we replied:

We will with God’s help.

Maylanne then sent us out with these words:

And now, go forth into the world, renewed by the Spirit;
Go forth firmly planted with strength to seek justice,
Go forth gently tended with wisdom to care for our earth,
Go forth showered with love to bring forth new life.
Go in peace and be witnesses to hope.

And so on Saturday morning we began our journeys home to Cuba and many places across Canada committed to “sowing seeds that one day will grow” and firm in the knowledge that while we may be only “workers, not master builders” we are part of efforts large and small that are not only about feeding ourselves and others but about tending the earth and caring for God’s creation.

The seeds planted here in Sorrento will bear fruit of many kinds in the weeks, months and years to come.  One of them will be a PWRDF resource, shaped out of this week of learning and sharing bread.  Look for it among PWRDF’s fall resource offering.  The PWRDF “Fred Says” Food Security Campaign will continue for another two years and further resources and learning opportunities will be developed and offered.

And so to all of this we say, Amen.

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