As another Labor Day fades into the annuals of history, a lesson is taught about this time of year. Unofficially, the holiday marks the end of summer, and outdoor activities have become less frequent than in the months before. You can’t help but notice the sun overhead during June and July now shines at a different angle in the sky. Days are becoming shorter, and the nights are a bit cooler. These are all reminders that the growing season is ending. Autumn is right around the corner, but the harvest ritual begins before we are enamored by the colorful trees preparing for their winter rest.
There is something unique about harvesting because it is an experience that has united humanity since the beginning of time when God gave his people the gift of his creation. “See, I give you every seed-bearing plant on all the earth and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your food.” The fruits of the earth need to be cultivated and brought to fruition through human labor.
From the farms that produce acres of yield to the smallest backyard gardens, the ancient practice of working with God’s gift of nature and human labor produces a bounty lasting well into the winter months when the earth is still asleep. “The LORD God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it.”
It all begins in Spring when the seeds from the previous year’s abundance are planted in the ground. A week or two passes, and suddenly, a sprout emerges from the apparent lifeless soil. The rebirth begins again, and the caretaker of these fragile plants begins a journey with them.
Throughout the growing season, the plant dresser addresses weeds and bugs and waters them religiously, and in return, the plants grow taller and bushier than just a month before. Patience is needed as the plants, under God’s care, do whatever is necessary to reach their full potential—nothing a person can do but wait and observe God’s creating hand in action.
We don’t know precisely how this creative action happens; we are only the laborers, not the Creator. “Of its own accord, the land yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.” Then, the moment comes when the fruit is ripe, and God’s gift is harvested and shared with others.
Before that, the plants we painstakingly cared for begin to whither, for they had sacrificed themselves for the fruit. During the growing months, the plants had grown tall and robust only to surrender to something greater than themselves, a harvest meant to feed many.
Being part of the cycle of something so seemingly insignificant as a plant makes the order of God’s universe known to us in the most basic human experience. In the backdrop of the enormity yet simplicity of the creative action of God, it is a wonder why the climate zealots don’t observe the yearly cycle of life right under their noses. Even within the Vatican, with the lush grounds surrounding their buildings, they are blind to God’s providence being vastly superior to any human agency.
For the past twenty years, the climate freaks have warned the world that we are in an existential crisis that will manifest very soon. When exactly that will happen, they tell us sometime in the future, a future that never seems to come. Yet during those years and even now, a yearly harvest happens in all the corners of the world. The carbon crisis advocates failed to tell the plants on farms and gardens they should not produce their fruit. And even if they did, the plants seem to ignore them, as any reasonable person should. For they know God is in charge.
It takes something as simple as the yearly harvest to realize that death and rebirth are all part of God’s plan—a plan made known by the annual harvest and for each of us through the Paschal Mystery of death, rising, and living eternally.