The Meaning of Pain
A sower went forth to sow,
His eyes were wild with woe;
He crushed the flowers beneath his feet,
Nor smelt the perfume warm and sweet,
That prayed for pity everywhere.
He came to a field that was harried
By iron, and to heaven laid bare:
He shook the seed that he carried
O’er that brown and bladeless place.
He shook it as God shakes hail
Over a doomed land.
When lightnings interlace
The sky and earth, and His wand
Of love is a thunder-flail.
Thus did that sower sow;
His seed was human blood,
And tears of women and men.
And I, who near him stood,
Said: When the crop comes, then
There will be sobbing and sighing,
Weeping and wailing and crying,
And a woe that is worse than woe.
It was an autumn day
When next I went that way.
And what, think you, did I see?
What was it that I heard?
The song of a sweet-voiced bird?
Nay—but the songs of many,
Thrilled through with praising prayer.
Of all those voices not any
Were sad of memory:
And a sea of sunlight flowed,
And a golden harvest glowed.
On my face I fell down there;
I hid my weeping eyes,
I said: O God, Thou art wise!
And I thank Thee, again and again,
For the sower whose name is Pain.
—Richard Watson Gilder.
Business with God
We and God have business with each other; and in opening ourselves to His influence our deepest destiny is fulfilled.
—William James.
Alternate Reading: Hebrews 4: 11-16.