The Garden of Your Life Part 2

 

Yesterday, I asked you to survey and scan the landscape that is growing within you ~ what we might call our soul-scape.  What is flourishing and what is wilting and what seeds might still be hidden in the earth that we are unsure whether a small shoot might burst and break forth.  Often, we cannot clearly see the roots that are hidden beneath the ground.  Roots that run in all directions may even be twisted and tangled with your children’s roots and your neighbors’ roots and what we are reading about in the news.  No matter how neat and tidy we try to make the rows of the garden of our life, plants have a life of their own.  I remember my parents would plant the seeds of the tomatoes side-by-side.  Two identical seeds, in the same soil, experienced the same weather conditions, tended, and cared for in the same way ~ but one tomato plant would yield an abundant harvest and the other barely eked out enough for a BLT sandwich.  This is a reminder that there is much in life that we don’t control and cannot comprehend or conclusively say why a “seed” of our life isn’t growing.  Yet, the cultural script contradicts what creation is telling/teaching us.  We are constantly taught and catch that if something fails, we must have done something wrong (blame) or we are something wrong (shame).  Or someone else is to blame and we can shame them!   Never mind that there are always forces at work in our life that we cannot capture or control ~ there are winds that whip and whirl around us that don’t ask my permission before swirling and stirring.  As you survey the garden of your life, are there places, people, plants/seeds that you are pouring energy that seem to be barely surviving, not thriving?  Before you blame or shame yourself or others, see if there are other conditions around you and within you.  What are the metaphorical weather conditions or winds or hungry bunnies are making it difficult for the seeds to grow in the garden of your life?  Can we realize and recognize that the garden where we are called to tend and till is also held in the hands of the original Gardening God?  That we didn’t create the seed or soil or send the rain?  That I am human size, which means, I don’t always get it right and won’t because my name isn’t “God”.  Continue to be in the garden of your life, connecting to the soil in your soul and stardust that there as well ~ surveying the sacred truth of interconnectedness/web of life.  Amen.