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.
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