In her novel O Pioneers, Willa Cather reminds us of our need to believe in the good soil of our lives, to do what we can to wake it up and then to wait. Alexandria has taken charge of the farm after her father's death. Her brothers are not very enthusiastic about the wild land that they must tame, and, Carl, a neighbor and friend, gives up completely and moves to the city. Many years later he returns for a visit and is amazed at what Alexandria has done to the land. At one point in the story she says to him,

We hadn't any of us much to do with it. The land did it. It had its little joke. It pretended to be poor because nobody knew how to work it right; and then all at once it worked itself. It woke up out of its sleep and stretched itself and it was so big, so rich, that we suddenly found we were rich, just from sitting still.

Macrina Wiederkehr, The Song of the Seed by Marcina Wiederkehr