An Army of Cattails

by Rollie J.

This past winter we’ve spent a lot of time walking up and down the Oakport Coulee. With minimal snow, the coulee has turned into a virtual sidewalk for man and beast alike. Shane, I, and Bruno our mutt have been out walking, both during the days but we have especially enjoyed some beautiful nighttime excursions. Sometimes under a bright moon, often under a gorgeous dome of stars, and sometimes in the inky darkness of a cloudy night. It’s all good.

Saturday morning found me up early to enjoy the dawn hiking with Bruno. The sun had just risen over the eastern horizon and it felt good to be gifted one more day and walking to welcome a new sunrise to our side of the planet.

As I meandered slowly along the coulee with no destination or purpose in mind, I realized that I was surrounded by an army of cattails. Maybe it was the sun glistening off the morning frost of each head, or maybe it was the sheer volume of troops amassed. They all stood so straight and stoic, at full attention, even though they had just pulled the evening watch. Their pencil-thin stalks and narrow leaves all wore the standard-issue tan uniform of winter. And all the brown heads were trimmed neatly with a tightly cropped crew-cut. Visions of corn dogs and pronto pups danced in my head!

These cattails are the heartbeat and bloodline of our coulee. They provide food and shelter for our local muskrats who eat their roots and build their huts from the stalks and leaves. A variety of geese and ducks overnight here on their long journey north and south and a few make themselves my temporary neighbors each summer. Red-winged blackbirds bobble and dance upon the stems chirping out their territories over the marsh. Within a few short weeks upon ice thaw, we will soon be blessed with the raucous and boisterous bantering of a thousand creeper and leopard frogs whose cacophonic orchestra will lull me to sleep in my hammock. Cattails are to the marsh like air is to our lungs.

Almost every time I travel the coulee, being ADHD, and very tactile, I will normally grab a stalk and shuck the fluffy down into the air. Its soft and downy texture is pleasing to my senses. On a windy day, it’s as if a smoke bomb exploded and the puff of fluffy clouds follow and float on the whims of the wind.

On this morning though, the wind was absent, a rare day indeed and so the parachute-like seeds just fell in clumps onto the floor of ice. The sunlight was highlighting these heads and upon careful close observation, I could see dozens of individual seeds, each awaiting their own unknown launch countdown. Where would they end up? How long would they float through the air? At the foot of the stalk? 10 feet away? 50 yards away? Or would they bob and bounce and ride the waves of a strong breeze to land a mile or more away? God only knows. So much is chance, arbitrary, and random in the world of cattails. And when those seeds land… will they blossom or bloom where they were planted?

Having been inspired and curious about these common, ordinary, yet abundant cattails, I spent some time online researching. It turns out that most cattail heads contain over 25,000 seeds! From a single stalk. That’s a whole lot of seeds. And that’s only one plant! Multiply that by the thousands upon thousands that line just our coulee alone…well, you could repopulate and change the whole world with all those seeds.

I came across this most excellent quote:

“Nothing in Nature lives for itself. Rivers don't drink their own water. Trees don't eat their own fruit. Sun doesn't give heat for itself. Flowers don't spread fragrance for themselves. Living For Others is the rule of Nature. And therein lies the secret of life."
~Amit Gupta

Why is it that we humans get it all backward? We’re the ones who live for self. We grab and we hoard, and we buy, and we buy and then build a bigger house with more garages and sheds to hold more and more of our stuff.

As I drive around our Fargo-Moorhead area, I’m simply amazed by the number of churches we have here! It’s really quite astounding. Every size, shape, denomination, and sub denomination, and sub-sub denomination. Pick your flavor. And then I hear all the time of new church plans, or mission start-ups going in here and going in there. And most likely, especially now coming out of the COVID crisis…most of these churches are only partially full or mostly empty. Do we really need one more church? Really!

I think it would be much more productive and far better for our world, if we could simply get the army of Christians, those of us who claim to know and love Jesus, who already exist here, to simply start spreading the abundant seeds that have been given to us. To share the many rich blessings that have been given with the rest of the world. To simply DO the work of being a Christ-follower. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10

Bear with me for a moment if you will. Let’s just say for argument's sake, that God gifted you with 25,000 blessings in your life. (Please note that I don’t believe in a finite or miserly God!) How are you doing at giving away or sharing those 25,000 blessings with our world? Have you sent your seeds off to land and grow elsewhere? Or are most of these blessings still hoarded and clinging to the stalk of your life? After all, the end goal of the cattail is to release all of its seeds to better our world. Not to hold onto what it was given.

What if we got busy loving our neighbors - all of them? What if we took seriously our calling to feed the hungry, take care of the orphan, protect the widow? What if we actually gave a tithe… and shared our financial blessing with the church and other charitable organizations who are doing God’s good work? What if we actually spoke the word “Jesus” to a friend or stranger outside of church? What if we quit judging others? What if we quit hiding in the status quo and let our God-given light shine and did good work for others? What if we loved and prayed for our enemies and the people we don’t like at church, in the office, in our neighborhood, or across the planet? What if you and I as followers of Jesus sought first the kingdom of God, above following our preferred political party? What if we forgave as we have been forgiven? What if we loved as God first loved us?

What if you planted just three seeds of a kind word, or gratitude, or appreciation or affirmation towards another each day? What if you started giving away all that is stored and stashed but never used on our shelves and in our closets? What if we gave of our time and resources without regard for a thank you, or return on investment, or acknowledgment of a good deed well done? What if we walked this planet like a Johnny Appleseed and just cast seeds of love and kindness in Jesus' name, everywhere we went?

You and I have been blessed to be a blessing for someone else. It is a beautiful thing. Your seeds shared, will make the difference.

-- Rollie J.

“Truly charity has no limit; for the love of God has been poured into our hearts by His Spirit dwelling in each one of us, calling us to a life of devotion and inviting us to bloom in the garden where He has planted and directing us to radiate the beauty and spread the fragrance of His Providence.”
Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)

Sadly, many people die while living selfishly. Their funerals are filled by individuals who stretch the truth in order to create a semblance of a meaningful life. Nobody would dare say an unkind word at the funeral; there is an unspoken obligation to come up with something nice to say about the person who died. But sometimes we secretly think the same thing: He really wasn’t that great of a person.
Francis Chan, Crazy Love

You are going to give your life for something. What will it be- a career, a sport, a hobby, fame, wealth? None of these will have lasting significance.  Service is the pathway to real significance. It is through ministry that we discover the meaning in our lives.
Rick Warren, Purpose Driven Life

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because he has anointed Me, To proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Luke 4:18 & 19

Success is about achievements: significance is about impact. Significance is having a meaningful positive and durable impact on the lives of others.
Peter Drucker

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds (good works)? Can such faith save them?  Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds (good works).
James 2: 14-18

Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.
1 Peter 4:10

< Retur Success is about achievements: significance is about impact. Significance is having a meaningful positive and durable impact on the lives of others.Peter DruckerWhat good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds (good works)? Can such faith save them?  Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds (good works).James 2: 14-18Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.1 Peter 4:10< Return to Sermons & Devotionsn to Sermons & Devotions