Tabor College

About Tabor

Centennial Poem

Seed for the World

The field lies before us like a gift,
open for spade and seed. What we offer
to the dark may sprout, like wheat.
Humility, the incarnation’s stable light
is where we start. Blessed are the meek.
In wonder that our God is here
among us, and not contained in walls
or books, we bow and plant our love
in fertile soil to grow and know.

We grow and know as mercy’s rain
comes down. Its language flows through
scripture, science, history, art, and pours
through teachers into students’ lives.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst
after righteousness. The seed drinks
and swells, lifts into stem and bud
under the sky’s great canopy where
first leaves, like pages, open and turn.

The pages turn in Spirit-wind, a field
of tender green that ripples in waves,
that roots and breathes through change.
Wind of drought and plenty, of war
and peace. The call of Christ prevails:
Blessed are the peacemakers who grow
to live and tell the Story, the ones who
teach and learn, who dare to dream,
and then awaken under the rising sun.

The risen Son, source of all,
Son in the field who burns over us
and within for our own ripeness.
Harvest-gold. Son of cleansing.
Blessed are the pure in heart
whose flames become seed for the world.
Open minds and loving hearts fertile
with God’s desire for all creation
and all people, all glory to God!

- Jean Janzen

Tabor College Centennial Poem
October 3, 2008