Today I planted some salad green seeds in the in soil of the four planters on the plant stand. Although it was below 0 outside, thanks to the AIR window inserts and the sun, the seeds were planted in a good environment. The seeds will need more sun and good temperatures to germinate. Also some seeds I helped to plant on the MU Peace campaign took hold with a new flurry of signatures on the MU Peace Petition. Some of the new signatures were from persons I knew in the 60’s when I was a Jesuit and attended Marquette University. At the time there was another unjust war being fought, in Vietnam. Seeds of violence that were planted in Milwaukee over years of discrimination and injustice also took root today, as reports came in of over eleven persons shot last night. Where is the Responsible Handgun Bill that the Mothers Against Gun Violence (MAGV) have been promoting for years? The bill, which would simply close the loop-hole in the present state law and require background-checks for all handgun transactions, has been wasting away as politicians argue about the bill, or worse yet, ignore it. The seeds we plant, good or evil, do come to be, to bless us or to hurt us. I remember a homily by our former Archbishop when he said we must be “broadcasters of seed.” Yes, we do, and since we cannot always be responsible for where the seed lands and how it grows, we need to be responsible for the type of seeds we plant.
In nature, seeds become plants or trees. The essence of the plant and tree is contained in the seed. The seed, just as much as the environmental factors like sun, rain or earth, determines what grows. In life the structures and environments we create are like seeds. More than words, they can affect other persons for better or worse. When I was a youth minister, teens would always tell me how different they were than their parents but often I could see seeds of the parents in the behavior of the youth. Also, in education, I was always taught the importance of content, which is true. However, I would find that young people always learned by structure and environment. When youth attended a religious education program, full of content but boring for six months they would learn, despite what was said and the content, that religious faith was only part time and not very interesting.
Now I wander away from the very lesson I am observing: The salad green seeds I planted today contain the essence of new life. They will be affected by how they are treated, but what they grow is already there in the seed. Marquette University can say all it wants about peace and justice and Christian values, but when it allows military structures on campus to support an unjust war and to teach values that contradict Christian values, this act speaks volumes, and, like the seed, contains the essence of what is and will be. Violence begets violence and peace begets peace.
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