“Jesus said, “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still, other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.”

I wear hearing aids, so can I ignore this parable!? But, let’s see what happens anyway. Am I seed number one? Or, is seed number two me? (I feel like Monty Hall!) Perhaps for my life, it’s the number three seed. Oh yes, there is always that notorious, envious fourth seed.

Oh my, which seed am I? The first seed is an Alfred Hitchcock movie, meaning for us the seed was easily misplaced or lost because we were stuck in a phone booth, talking only to ourselves. “Rocky ground” seed sounds very familiar to me. Seed number three has the “thorny” sound of making poor choices in friends. Seed three is safe because you always have someone else to blame for your wayward actions.

Ahhh. Seed number four. Fruitful, generative, valuable, rewarding, and how many other affirming and peace-filled words. Number four seed reminds me of funeral elegies. A tad over the top? I wonder to myself, “Is this the same guy that I knew?”

So. Those are the four doors, I mean seeds, of our lives. All beginning in goodness, promise, and hope. And the rest of our lives plants replants and replants again any or all of those seeds.

That’s what’s wrong with the statue and monument destruction these days. The same as our ancestors, we are all four seeds. On a good day, we’re the good seed, number four. Tuesday rolls around and the number two seed rears its shallowness. Wednesday night, seed three rings loudly in our heads that our life is always someone else’s fault, never owning it ourselves. Seed three is most days when we neglect to water seed four.

Confusing? I hope so because our lives contain all four of these tiny, little growing things that either scare us out of life or invite our life to be more deeply lived.

After the “Our Father,” the priests says to you, “In your mercy keeps us free from sin.” I don’t know what that means but it sounds important. Is God not providing us with enough mercy to grow seed number four? Wrong.

Yet, we are all four seeds, always seeking to grow that fourth seed. The one that yields. We all hit number four sometimes, but often behave within the other three; the ones with the Hitchcock birds, the rock holding us down and those nasty thorns.

God’s mercy is extended every day to the first three hoping and praying that number four yields the wondrous grace that God gave each of us at our Baptism and is not never returned to God until it achieves “the end for which [God] sent it.”

“I’m Monty Hall and that’s our show for today.”