The Work of My Hands

 The referenced prayer below is from the Northumbria Community's Mid-Day Prayer liturgy.

The work of my hands is 
the work of my life.
Not in halls of academia,
nor business, nor healing, 
nor ministry, but 
in the earthy dealings of
the everyday.
Hands that have long labored,
often when no one was watching, 
at the myriad, ordinary, sometimes-dirty,
consecrated tasks, 
to which I have
been called.

Holding my babies.
And theirs.
Guiding bewildered newborns'
tiny mouths to
their mother's milk.
Turning, feeding, washing, dressing
gentle souls who could 
no longer
care for themselves,
work demeaned by others,
caring for the least of these.

Milking sixty cows.
Or one.
Caring for goats and sheep,
and chickens and turkeys,
an unpredictable donkey, two pigs,
and a couple of geese.
Feeding, mucking stalls,
stacking hay, carrying water, 
collecting eggs,
stringing fences that contained the beef herd,
cradling a just-born calf as its life faded
away into the snow.

Decades of plants,
decades of gardens,
digging, planting, weeding, harvesting 
to sustain humans, 
body, soul and spirit.
Returning to the land its
glad abundance and inviting
the wild ones to dine,
one small, 
or sometimes large,
plot at a time. 

Hands on the latch,
opening the door
to God and to
those who come
seeking,
creating spaces of safety,
spaces of welcome,
spaces of
communion.

These hands are no longer young,
nor beautiful.
They are worn and sometimes rough,
slowly becoming misshapen,
often tired,
yet eager, still, 
to take up the work
yet before
them.

And so, gratefully,
I pray, 
"Let the beauty of the Lord be upon me.
Establish, Thou, the work of my hands.
Establish, Thou, the work of my hands."

 

The Building of a Garden

It is sacred work,
the building of a garden,
bowing in gratitude for the soil
and asking, "How may I
join you in the incubating
of new life?"

I hauled rocks from the tree line,
no less a holy task,
rocks to line my garden beds.
From the old piles, carefully
I lifted and then replaced those
that were the roof of
a chipmunk's home.
Many roofs sheltered many
tunnels but some were
as yet unused,
rocks enough to share.

Now the beds have rounded edges,
like the shape of a womb, holding
possibility for what is yet to come,
a different kind of pregnancy.
Now I wait,
trusting,
knowing,
that what grows in the darkness
will be revealed
in time.

Sacred work.
Sacred waiting.
One in the same.

Leftovers

I did not set out to make a bouquet with these flowers. They were supposed to be part of an arrangement that, as it turned out, not only didn't need them, but looked much better without them. These flowers became the leftovers.

I have been thinking about living in the present moment, lately...about appreciating the rain, even after several days of showers; about letting go of my frustration as I fight my way through snarly traffic to travel most anywhere north of here; about willingly accepting the aches and pains that are a given part of my chosen vocation. While it is easy to embrace the moment when all things are going well, how much more challenging when such is not the case. During those seasons, when life is not as I might wish, I am coming to realize that there is an invitation in accepting what is, and that surrender often offers riches that I have surely been slow to appreciate. 

If you keep a garden, you are likely intimately aware that its conditions change over time and, that at least sometimes, you actually have very little control of what occurs there. Some plants you try are just not happy where you put them. Some run vigorously where you would rather they not venture, the moment your back is turned. Some newcomers appear, seemingly out of nowhere, and other faithful members suddenly disappear altogether. Is this not one of the intriguing mysteries of gardening, if we but admit it? What we would miss if we were able to direct the players and keep a tight rein on the production...the unexpected mingling of colors and textures, the good health of plants that have positioned themselves into conditions best for them, the joy of a tiny, unexpected seedling of a favorite flower. 

I have found that life also has a way of offering deep rewards on the other side of what can seem like chaos. Seeds of trust, sometimes barely alive, germinate when I least expect them. Paths that I would never have chosen lead to places that begin to seem like home. Questions that seem to have no answer become less pressing. Sometimes, what seem like the leftovers of my life end up providing the greatest opportunities for growth and self-discovery. I am gradually learning that, through the meanderings and the twists and turns, beauty evolves, as surely as in a bouquet of leftover flowers.

Wedding Anniversary

No, not mine. Seven years ago I was tickled and honored when my son asked if we might hold his wedding in our backyard. It was, as it turned out, the last summer I would spend at that Pennsylvania house, though we did not know that at the time. What I did know, was that I wanted the setting to be as beautiful as possible, peaceful and welcoming, not just for the wedding party and guests, but for life of all kinds. In the years leading up to the wedding, I had been slowly transforming our relatively conventional, rural/suburban yard into a one that  hosted myriad creatures, large and small and I was eager for others to enjoy their presence, as well.  Below are some musings soon after that magical evening.

"The journey of remaking my yard into native habitat supporting an untold number of insects and a “bird list” of more than a hundred species has been a rich and rewarding endeavor, one appreciated not just by wildlife but by human visitors who are taken with its beauty. We recently hosted my son’s evening wedding in the back yard and the gardens were a patchwork of color: deep red cardinal flower, pink and white garden phlox, red and purple bee balm, white daisy fleabane, orange butterfly weed, rose-pink swamp milkweed, and bright yellow black and brown-eyed Susans. During the wedding, ruby-throated hummingbirds zipped about, grey catbirds murmured in the shrubs behind the pastor, mourning doves cooed in the background and robins, Carolina wrens, northern cardinals and cedar waxwings sang their evening song, to the enjoyment of everyone who paid attention. For many of the guests, this was the first time they had ever been surrounded by songbirds and pollinators and they were delighted to be a part of something even larger than they knew. They had come for a wedding but, in addition, witnessed the abundance of life that can only be had in a native landscape."

Thank you again, Jon and Tara, for asking me to host that most special of evenings, all those years ago.

To Plant a Garden is to Believe in Hope

A few days ago, I took this picture of a new garden I recently installed for a client. It has taken a lot of hours, a lot of energy and no small amount of mental (and physical) frustration at the various obstacles that were encountered and then overcome. It sits in the midst of a woodland, and will need continual maintenance to keep it from being reabsorbed into the ecosystem from which it was carved. With due attention, however, it will be a lovely space filled with color and provide habitat for bees and butterflies from spring into the fall. 

While working, I have plenty of time for thinking and, like so many reflective people, I have been wrestling with the violence of the last few days and my response to it. I have wondered about what possible contribution to others' well being I make in my day to day life. I wonder about my role in bringing peace, to whom, I'm not even sure. I spend most of my working hours gardening for people who have the money to pay for someone to take care of their gardens...people who are financially well off, people who are well-educated and work for the federal government or private businesses. They are good people, well-meaning and compassionate to those within their circle of acquaintances, neighbors who look out for and take care of one another. I know that I am fortunate to be working at something that I enjoy, that creates beauty and habitat  but, still, I have nagging questions about the real value of all the hard labor and hours I put into the work of being a private gardener. 

I recently shared these thoughts with a friend, a therapist who serves people who have experienced significant trauma and its aftermath. She is too well acquainted with the devastation the world can sometimes bring and how it  shapes the identity of those who have been severely wounded. As I haltingly broached my questions about the worth of what I do, she had thoughts that, were they from anyone else, I would have been likely to dismiss. She declared that the world needs beauty, especially in the face of so much ugliness, and that it needs to see what can be, rather than only what is. She acknowledged that though I might feel called to do more, I must never think of my gardening in terms of not being enough.

 I decided to believe her, and her perspective allowed me to think about lessons learned from gardening that might apply to the healing of our fractured society at large. Gardens, be they flowers or vegetables, are never stagnant. They are never the same, two years in a row. Challenges that were once conquered reappear without warning. Remedies that once worked, are effective no longer. Inattention to the needs of individual plants invites their ruin, and inattention to the whole of the garden invites chaos and disintegration. One cannot long turn his or her back on what they have nurtured and expect an abundant harvest from healthy plants. 

Gardeners are some of the most optimistic people on the planet. When one approach does not work, they try another and are ever watchful for the need to adapt to challenging conditions. They may grumble and complain at impediments, but they seldom give up on their goal of a harvest-their practice is for the long term. They learn from past mistakes, readily share what has worked well for them andask questions from those who know more than they do.

Gardens, just like society and the individuals from which it is composed, need beneficence, defined as "the doing of good, active goodness or kindness". Beauty in both comes from the commitment to hard work and long hours, days, weeks, months and years of care. In a garden setting, it is the caretakers who do most of the work. In society, each of us either contributes to or subtracts from the well being of the whole. What if each of us were to consciously choose to contribute to the well being of the area in which we lived? In our different settings and situations, what would that look like?

I have a t-shirt that, up until now, I have felt was just a little too cliche-ish...a little too cute and folksy, but I have changed my mind. Just like the shirt, I sometimes feel worn and ragged, even cracked and faded in my efforts to contribute to the society around me that needs my involvement and care. Whether that effort be working in client's gardens, involvement in my church and with its members, choosing to be intentionally kind to people in the grocery store or on the boardwalk at the river, I believe that each instance of caring surely must contribute to a healthier whole. Indeed, I am reminded that to plant a garden or to work for the good of all really is to believe in and be willing to hope for something that may not be readily visible at the outset. The work of gardening and of caring for those we know and those we don't know is built on a hope that we might not always recognize, but without which nothing would be accomplished, or even begun. The hope that, in some small way, our contribution will matter and will bear fruit.

Winter Gardening and Life with God

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. 

Sowing Hope

Anne Lamott wrote, "I heard a preacher say recently that hope is a revolutionary patience; let me add that so is being a writer." I thought of this line today, as I was preparing a garden bed for a very late planting of winter salad mix, and will add, "so is being a gardener." Even in southern MD, November 5th is too late for planting anything but garlic... but, why not? What do I have to lose but a few seeds? And, perhaps I will gain fresh greens at least through early winter, if the row cover provides enough protection through the coming freezes.

The author of the book of Hebrews wrote, "Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Faith is that revolutionary patience that believes that God is at work, even when we can't fathom what he is up to and what he is working to accomplish in us. Determining to trust is not all that removed from planting. Both require determination and work, both must wait for evidence that we have not hoped in vain, both need us to weed away hindrances to growth and both, when we are patient, bring about a bountiful harvest. 

I spend much of my gardening days now winding down the season, removing frost-killed plants, adding compost and mulching the empty beds.  At this time of year, it requires a good measure of faith to picture the garden in spring, filled with tender seedlings holding the promise of another year. The garden and I both are tired, ready for a slower pace and some well earned rest, but we are not finished yet. Next year's bounty depends on my labor now and the soil organisms making use of what I feed them. Soon enough the ground will freeze and rest will come and there will be energy again to look towards spring.

An old friend wrote me yesterday that the Pennsylvania land conservancy for which I still do occasional landscape consulting is looking for someone local to take over the service. And I completely fell apart at reading her words…emotions of grief and fear of loss of meaning suddenly gripping my heart.  Even though I knew that this prospect is what is best for the conservancy, I felt like it wasn't best for me at all.  I feared losing the connection and what has seemed like a thin lifeline to central PA.

But maybe that is exactly God’s intent…what do I know?  After thinking more clearly last night, I have some different feelings…maybe even feelings of relief and of adventure.  I’ve been thinking, now and then, of adventure lately…that maybe all my adventures of this life are not yet over and that more await.  Holding on to what is safe is not the way to find them, but letting go and seeing where life and God take me seems the more positive approach.  Holding on to the conservancy and my involvement, hoping that nothing changes until I get back again someday, picking up where I left off, now feels like a narrow and restricting kind of mindset.

 Yes, there is fear in letting go, isn’t there? I like knowing what I can count on and where I can be of use and how.  But what if something wonderful awaits, instead? I am slowly, slowly being dragged towards the possibility that  more is waiting for me than I realize and to letting go of my hold on what use to be. Still, I want to have a plan for the future, a goal to work towards, and right now I don’t. It hasn't shown itself, as of yet, just as the seeds I planted yesterday are not yet visible.

So, if God and life are moving me away from my old familiar role, then that is the fork I will follow and believe that for the conservancy and for me, it is the right path. I’ll continue walking down the one set in front of me, whether I know where it is taking me or not…In the words of the Wailin' Jennys, “It’s a long and rugged road, and we don’t know where it’s headed, but we know it’s going to get us where we’re going. And when we find what we’re looking for we’ll drop these bags and search no more, cuz its going to feel like heaven when we’re home.”

All Good Gifts

I am the gardener for a large garden, created for the benefit of school students who come on class trips to the farm where I work and live. The farm is a patchwork of woodlands, wetlands and open fields and sits along the banks of the Potomac River. As a result, I am richly blessed with the daily sightings bald eagles, ospreys, red shouldered hawks and the many non-raptors who make this place their home. And I am filled with gratitude for the land's bounty as I labor in the garden beds, harvesting for my husband and myself, and for others, while at the same time planting to support the many pollinators who live in and bless the garden with their presence. 

In the days to come I will be writing about my journeying towards a mindful life, marked by love for God and for a simplicity that allows me to hear His voice.  For this opening post, however, I'll just set down this song from the old movie Godspell that has been circling through my mind as I worked and walked today.  The words seem a fitting beginning for a series of writings about a life of many earthy blessings.

All Good Gifts

We plow the fields and scatter the good seed on the land.

But it is fed and watered by God's almighty hand.

He sends us snow in winter, the warmth to swell the grain.

The breezes and the sunshine, and soft refreshing rains.

We thank Thee, then, O Father, for all things bright and good.

The seed time and the harvest, our life, our health, our food.

No gifts have we to offer for all Thy love imparts,

But that which Thou desirest, our humble, thankful hearts.

All good gifts around us,

Are sent from Heaven above.

Then, thank the Lord, thank the Lord,

For all His love.