What follows is a reworked piece that I originally wrote a few Decembers ago. On such a sunny, balmy February day, I thought it bore a revisit.
I have just
come back from what I like to call the vegetable garden area. Many years ago, I
created some raised bed in a back corner of our yard and they started out as a
butterfly habitat area, when there wasn't yet any other habitat in the yard to
speak of. Over the years, as the yard plantings have expanded, the beds have
served as an herb garden and a vegetable garden, though last year, I am sorry
to say, my dachshunds managed to eat more of the produce than the humans did.
Fencing the area will be a priority this spring.
Most years I
have taken better care in putting the garden to bed, and I was feeling
considerable remorse for ignoring the soil that should have been protected
during the winter. Since the weather wasn't too cold or too wet, this became
the morning to take care of the long-neglected chore of gathering my neighbor’s
piled up leaves and grass clippings and mulching the garden beds. The wheelbarrow
and I made trip after trip, gathering and dumping, and, though I took a break
for a while, I knew better than to hope that I would finish it another day if I
tarried for very long. Finally, after a couple of hours in the wind, I was
satisfied with my work and called it a morning. Now when I venture out to the
winter garden, I’ll picture the soil microorganisms feeding on the plant
material I put down and the beds being enriched by their efforts.
Somewhere
along the line, while pushing the wheelbarrow filled with yet another load of
dried grass and leaves, I thought about how life with God is similar to the
garden task I had undertaken. I wasn't caring for the garden on this winter day
because it was in crisis or because there was some extraordinary need. It was
just a task that should have been done, a rather routine task, really,
particularly if it had been done at the proper time, rather than waiting until
just after Christmas. I was just doing what was necessary to ensure the health
and fertility of the soil, so that the garden will be as productive as possible
during the upcoming growing season.
I think of
cultivating my spiritual life in the same manner. It is in my sometimes
unremarkable, daily interactions with God that we build the relationship that
sustains me and from which I draw when I find myself in need. Lately I have
been praying that the Spirit will conform me more to the image of God, that I
may represent Him well in the world in which I live. I imagine the process is
going to take even longer than than the time needed to build and enrich the
soil in my garden. But, just as in soil building, I do not see myself as the
one who does the work. In soil building, I bring in the organic matter, but it
is the microbes who do the work of enrichment. Similarly, as I bring myself to
God, it is He who can do the work of transformation in my heart and spirit.
That work isn't something I can ever hope to accomplish myself.
Within the
natural world, there are signposts pointing to God almost everywhere I look.
The trick is remembering to stop and pay attention, to notice and to ponder, even
to wrestle, with their meaning. Embracing what He reveals is the challenge but, even more, the blessing, of learning to know Him and His ways more fully.
