Today, Isaiah compares us to grass.

A voice says, "Cry out!"

I answer, "What shall I cry out?"

"All flesh is grass,

and all their glory like the flower of the field.

The grass withers, the flower wilts,

when the breath of the LORD blows upon it.

So then, the people is the grass.

Though the grass withers and the flower wilts,

the word of our God stands forever."

It’s not the most flattering portrait, and it’s meant to focus us on our mortality. But this image of the breath of the LORD blowing on the grass-qua-people brought something else to mind for me: my favorite line in the whole Mass. “Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray, by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall, so that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ.”

I’ve always loved this idea of the Spirit coming to us like dew. Moisture is all around us, and in us, all the time. But when conditions are right, when we cool and still ourselves, it can condense and become material and visible to us. Dew is less dramatic than rain but, in the desert especially, no less a miracle. And to the ancient mind, its source is particularly mysterious. Dew seems to emerge from the ether or even from the grass itself. The Spirit bubbles up in our lives and settles on us overnight, in ways we can never fully understand or see.

You can see the metaphor I’m going for here.

The other thing about being grass is that our neighbor always looks greener to us. Someone else is always getting more. God is always out searching for the lost sheep while those who never strayed are tempted to feel resentful.

Today’s readings remind us to focus on the miracle of our own existence, the miracle of God’s mercy and love for us, the miracle of every drop of the Spirit that condenses on our lives, and, eventually, the miracle even of our own wilting and withering. It all emerges from the breath of the Lord. None of it is owed to us. It is all a product of God’s superabundant and mysterious generosity.

During this season of yearning, let us learn to yearn for the breath of the Lord in all its permutations. Let us learn to yearn for the Spirit the way the grass yearns for the dew.