by J. R. Practix

Achne: (n.) small, dry, one-seeded fruit that does not open to release the seed.

Small. Dry. One seed. Won’t open. Doesn’t release.

You can imagine where my mind goes. Or maybe you can’t.

Having lived for a spell on this planet–blessed to be an American citizen and a person of faith, I do occasionally despair about how much we’ve allowed the fruitfulness of our beliefs to dry up and for the seed of newness to rot inside us instead of being released to grow.

I don’t think I’d be interested in seeing this particular fruit, would you? I suppose it has a function. I guess somebody can crack it open, rip the seed out, plant it in the ground and make more of the little dried-up boogers.

• I’m tired of things remaining small because they’ve dried up and died around the seed that could have made them grow.
• I’m tired of seeing, in my lifetime, freedom change into debate, which transformed into the tiny, dried-up kernel called political parties.
• I’m sickened by a spirituality of Jesus which became the church and now is closed up in the sarcophagus of religion.

Maybe things have to get small, dry up and die in order for something else to live. But it doesn’t change the sorrow in my soul–to see the death of great ideas because we’re afraid to release the seed.

I hope I’m never an achne. Of course, there’s little chance I’ll ever be small. I work very hard not to dry up. And I never keep my seed on the inside. I’m casting it all the time into the earth around me, even though much of the ground is stony–and it gets choked by the thistles and thorns.