Journey to Chaplaincy Parable of the ‘Lost Seed’ Once upon a time, a twelve-year old boy felt a calling from God. A ‘Daniels Week’ later he met God on a sidewalk; kneeling down next to a parking meter, which was a fitting expression of doubting faith, since he was a loner and well acquainted with the streets and back alleys of his hometown. As it was at the beginning of creation, when the “evening and morning were the first day” (Genesis 1:5) so it was that night, when the young man became a new creation. And the Holy Spirit of God sowed seeds of Faith, Hope and Love into a willing heart. Faith and Love were large seeds which attached themselves to the outer shell of the young man’s heart. However, his faith and love for fellow man grew shallow over a few years because of the ‘thorns of life’ where the “worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful.” (Matthew 13:22) The young man’s heart became calloused; with sin-skinned scars; as it lost its way over time through a wilderness excursion of confusion, bad life choices, fruitless searches for existence and finally personal rejection. But the Holy Spirit of God who “hovered over the waters” in creation (Genesis 1:2) made the seed of Hope purposely small so it could work its way down into the soft, fertile recesses of the hidden, inner heart of the young man. Despite the tempest tossed failings of life, that small seed slowly made roots, deep and strong which eventually made their way upward over decades of time. Embedded within the seed were two fledgling baby seeds of Faith and Love. Together they emerged and continued to grow as a late-in-life palm tree awaiting the ‘later-day rain’; whose witness branches boldly proclaim the coming of the King of Kings with a chorus of “Baruch haba b'Shem Adonai!” “It will come about after this, That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams. Your young men will see visions.” (Joel 2:28) “I delight to do Your will O my God. Your Law is written in my heart.” (Ps. 40:8) “Create in me a clean heart, O God and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence and do not take away Your Holy Spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners will be converted to you. (Ps. 51:10-13) “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God You will not despise.” (Ps. 51:17) My journey to Chaplaincy can be best represented by the slow growth of the Talipot Palm Tree. “The talipot palm is another gargantuan plant (compared to other palms), which grows up to 25 meters (82 ft) high and has a one-meter-thick trunk. Also, its branched inflorescence is a remarkable six to eight meters (19 to 26 ft) tall—the largest of any plant. It takes extreme patience to see this tree in bloom, as it only flowers once when it is 30 to 80 years old. However, seeing the bloom is somewhat bittersweet, as it means the palm’s life is coming to an end. It expends all of its built-up energy to produce golf ball-sized fruit, which rain down by the hundreds of thousands just before the palm dies." May the Lord in my sunset years produce through me a harvest like the Talipot Palm. Reference: Grant, S. "10 Of The Slowest Plants To Ever Bloom." ListVerse, 13 Aug. 2013, listverse.com/2013/08/11/10-ridiculously-slow-to-bloom-plants/.