Overgrowth of Grace
(“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid again. In his joy, he goes away and sells all that he has and buys that field.” Matthew 13:44)There is
more underfoot than simply the understanding of
sand and soil. Someone sowed the gems into the ground and
another one found them. Hidden became probable and
discard became possible on a sluggish walk back home.
He did not
own much and owed more than he gained.
His accounts were in arrears even though he had watched
them like a hawk after a field mouse. He never imagined
the daylight would lead him to see what someone else had forgotten.
It had not
occurred to him that luck had a hand to play.
It always had been a day to day of just scraping by.
It was not a lack of effort that caused him to walk that day.
It was just another moment when the thoughts were imprisoned
in his head.
He was
never cloud-high, his feet always reached the ground.
His mind was one day dark and one day fire, and mostly full
of memories he wished would return. He endured the hoary
downturn that made up epithets that never rhymed.
But this
day he stubbed his toe. This day the overflow
made him stop short and look. The sun was refracted
through the late mist and just as he stopped walking he
bent over to see the treasure below. Who had hidden this
there?
He rooted
through his pockets; he examined all his
balance sheets and decided to buy the land that had
bruised his toe. The well-enclosed walls of his soul
opened like the first morning of the week.
No one had
predicted this and no plans were made,
but happenstance surrounded his sodden walk and, like
a jackrabbit from a coyote, shot him from the old
illusions to his present overgrowth of grace.
