I Gave This Day to God

I gave this day to God when I got up, and look, look what it birthed! There up the hill was

the apple tree, bronze leaves, its fallen apples spilling richly down the slope, the way God spilled

his seed into Mary, into us. In her the holy promise came to rest in generous soil after a long

fall. How often it ends in gravel, or dry dust. Blackberry patches thorny with distraction. Oh,

I pray my soul will welcome always that small seed. That I will hail it when it enters me.

I don’t mind being grit, soil, dirt, mud-brown, laced with the rot of old leaves, if only the seed

can find me, find a home and bear a fruit sweet, flushed, full-fleshed—a glory apple.

Copyright © 2000 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture Magazine. Click here for reprint information on Books & Culture.

Also in this issue

Books & Culture was a bimonthly review that engaged the contemporary world from a Christian perspective. Every issue of Books & Culture contained in-depth reviews of books that merit critical attention, as well as shorter notices of significant new titles. It was published six times a year by Christianity Today from 1995 to 2016.

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