“The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work…”—2 Corinthians 9: 6-9
He picked a plant from the dry, pale-brown earth, rocking it in hold gently at its base to draw it from the earth without breaking away roots. White nodulations held in the lattice of its roots where nitrogen fixed from air and converted into organic form for growing the plant in its deep green even as summer heat and stress held. Violet blooms showed bright up the column of its stem, and small pods already showed where blooms of waves before grew to setting seeds.
He thought, alone, of the reading then spoke to the open air and light of the world above.
“Then I’d rather give too much,” he spoke. “I’d rather put too much out and let it lay fallow in the world than spoil of silence within me. I want to share and express as I perceive and sense compelled, even if different than standards and expectations. We’re all made for our own mediums, to give our own message.”
He looked again at the plant: the richness of its leaves and blooms and roots covered in white nodules. It was a rich and healthy species, provided for and healthy, growing on little more than light and air.
“We are not all meant for the same communications, to speak the same repeated words. There are reasons we are different, why we’re made with our own gifts and abilities. Those are what we are meant to show.”
I’d rather give too much and be rejected than offer too little of something in me that might be good for, or desired by, another.
I know I don’t always read people and conditions right, but if acting from faith, well-meaning and sincere place in heart, what is there to fear?
I’d rather say too much; share too much and seek to grow the full bounty and potential for good that’s in me. If I fail, the world is no worse, and I am better for having tried.”
The world spoke softly in response, in soft change in wind blowing back into face and in whisper sound spoken through near treeline above which sun rose higher in the east.
