Mother Claire's Sermons

  If you drive east on Interstate 80, you will eventually pass my hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska. Whether you go through or around the town, day or night you will see the state capitol building. There’s a city ordinance keeping the heights of surrounding buildings from blocking the view of the 400 foot tall building, and at night you can see the blinking red light on top of the dome to make sure aircraft don’t hit it. Above the light is the 19 ½ foot tall, 9 ½ ton bronze sower. He is sowing grain in the traditional method of hand sowing. Standing on a 12 ½ foot tall pedestal of shocks of wheat and corn, the sower is meant as a symbol of the importance of agriculture to the development of civilization and its importance in Nebraska. From the ground, the sower doesn’t seem quite so massive. Every so often there’s a story in local news about the person who has to climb up the dome to change out the red light bulb, but most of the time the sower is just up there, looking down over the tow