The Kin-dom That Works from Within Until Everything Is Transformed
Netzach of Malkuth Day 46 of 50 · Endurance within Presence
The Leaven in the Dough
The forty-sixth saying of the living Christ as spoken by Mary Magdalene:
The kin-dom of Heaven is like yeast that a woman took and hid in forty to sixty pounds of flour until it was all leavened1. If too much leavening is added, the loaf rises too fast. Its structure weakens, and the dough is liable to collapse. The bread can no longer be bread. The kin-dom, when rushed, consumes the field instead of feeding the hungry. It devours what it was meant to bless. It cannot sustain itself. Its flavor sours and it smells and tastes of alcohol. The texture becomes coarse and uneven as the work becomes an impatient conquest pretending to be a holy change.
If not enough yeast is added to the dough, it rises slowly and will never reach its full height. The kin-dom’s endurance gives up before the whole loaf is leavened. Work stops as the people wait for the kin-dom to come, but it never does. The texture is tight, and the bread is hard and lifeless. Its flavor is bland because it never develops its complexity. It is possible that when they check the dough, and see that it is apparently unchanged, they believe the leaven was not good. The power of the kin-dom to transform the world is abandoned because the work is abandoned while it is unseen and struggling.
This hidden transformation is the kin-dom working patiently through the whole of creation. It does not need recognition. No one checks the dough constantly to ensure it is rising. The leaven is trusted to do the work.
This transformation is not driven by the baker. The yeast does not work harder because it is worried over. The kin-dom grows by the innate rhythm of life. Force cannot maintain the endurance of the kin-dom. It is by its nature hidden, since it changes our hearts. The leaven does not require encouragement, it works as life flows through the world.
I saw the risen Christ and the other women saw the angels. Our witness kneaded the leaven into the dough. As more people encountered the living Christ, the leaven grew and the kin-dom rose. The kin-dom is among us, growing through the world as we live God faithfully in our lives.
Patient trust in the hidden work of the kin-dom restores everything. In the work of the kin-dom, we are repaired when we embody our calling, pondering the mysteries of life in our hearts, and release the need to see the change before it is finished.
Our souls are restored as we live in relationship with the unseen process, learning to trust the kin-dom is working even when the evidence is not yet seen. The world is restored because the leavening power of life does not demand, but hides the leaven in the dough of the earth.
Walk, trusting that life knows what to do with what it has been given.
Matthew 13:33
You were not born broken. Fifteen billion years of the universe’s grace says otherwise, and this book shows you how to live from that. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer, foreword by Matthew Fox.
