“It’s easy to plant a seed and sprinkle it with water, but once the sun scorches the ground, and the earth soaks up all the moisture, you’re left with nothing but a thirsty little flower trying desperately to make it out of the dirt.”

“Maybe Michael left a candle burning. Maybe be forgot to turn off his iron, or the oven. Maybe he left his dishwasher running and it was flooding the place, or a thirsty plant desperately needed water. Maybe I was way out of line.”

“You got to stand soaked to the bone in a rainstorm and fill up your buckets with all the water heaven has given up,' Jenniemae said. 'Then when the sun comes out, you will have your savings and never find yourself thirsty. That's how it is.”

“How plants grow: Quickly. Most plants grow fast and die young. People get seventy years, a bean plant gets four months, maybe five. Once the itty-bitty baby plant peeks out of the ground, it sprouts leaves, so it can absorb more sun. Then it sleeps, eats, and sunbathes until it’s ready to flower—a teenage plant. This is a bad time to be a rose or a zinnia or a marigold, because people attack with scissors and cut off what’s pretty. But plants are cool. If the rose is picked, the plant grows another one. It needs to bloom to produce more seeds.”

“Once in a golden hour I cast to earth a seed. Up there came a flower, The people said, a weed.”

“A farmer is helpless to grow grain; all he can do is provide the right conditions for the growing of grain. He cultivates the ground, he plants the seed, he waters the plants, and then the natural forces of the earth take over and up comes the grain...This is the way it is with the Spiritual Disciplines - they are a way of sowing to the Spirit... By themselves the Spiritual Disciplines can do nothing; they can only get us to the place where something can be done.”