Lenten Reflections from the Garden: Ecosystem

My gardening ethic has changed pretty drastically since I first set out to grow something as an adult.

In those early days in Memphis, I knew nothing about the native soil, season-timing, or plants that thrive here. I had to make a study of what belongs in this place in order to figure out how to use my Iowa-garden-instincts to grow something in this Midsouth environment.

In addition to my garden know-how, my ideas about ‘taming the yard’ have changed, too. I think that’s a pretty common way to think about gardening or yard maintance: conquering something formidable and wild…taming something, domesticating it for our enjoyment. These days, though, I think less about conquering and more about partnership.

I’ve been influenced by so many people along this journey. First, Wendell Berry, then Mary Reynolds, and more recently the work and thinking of Robin Wall Kimmerer. There’s an important thread through all their work: We are not here to master the environment. We are, in fact, members of it.

Being a member of a community means I have a role to play. My role, while important, is not the end-all-be-all. The plants in the space of earth I call my garden have an intelligence I do not. (They make food from the sun!) The creatures that have called my garden home will make it such long after I’m gone (or their descendants will, at least).

There is something both humbling and empowering about being a member and not a master, about conquering giving way to partnering. I have work to do, but I am beholden to the other members of the community. I care-take, certainly, but I do so aware not just of what I would like from the garden, but of what it might need. There is an understanding in me that grows each year I participate with this garden: we are woven together in some way that I barely grasp with my human-ness. Perhaps I am unlearning my way into something.

So, too, we are branches of one vine. Jesus talked about it, as I’m sure you know, in John 15. When I’ve thought about that passage before, I suppose my focus has always been on the me, the single branch, connected to Jesus, the Vine Himself, and I think that’s the way we’re often taught to think about God-relationships in the West. I, thou, etc. One on one.

But a vine hardly ever has one branch! If it’s a healthy vine, like my native honeysuckle growing out on the arbor, it’s made up of many, many branches. Some wander up, curling their way across the top of the arch, others twirl around the main vine in a curly strand, while still others head back down to the base of the arch, circling the base of the old tree that the archway is built around. All these beautiful branches make up the vine itself. It’s all of them together that makes it a truly impressive plant and a food source for the pollinators.

So here we are, branches connected to the life-giving vine. We head different directions sometimes, finding our own way to travel as we flower in season, making food for the pollinators and delighting the hummingbirds. We are one, even in our differences.

May we learn to embrace this interconnected life-filled belonging of the Vine.

Lenten Reflections from the Garden: Growing Seasons

The official start of spring is just around the corner: March 20th marks the beginning.

With that, many people REALLY start to think about the garden or their pending yard work. This year in Memphis, we’ve gotten a big head start on springtime weather, with such a warm winter and some really warm early days, the plants have woken up extra early. Our own yard has been no different: The cherry tree and dogwood, usually in bloom at the very end of March, began blooming a few weeks ago. The azaleas, undeterred by the cold winter conditions we had, are blooming though they’ve lost most of their leaves!

When you’ve been gardening in one space for any amount of time, having lived through several years’ worth of seasons, you begin to mark time by the blooming and arrival of springtime plants. The flowering trees and shrubs in our yard have been constant markers for me since we’ve been on Rosehaven, but this year, the timing is throwing me off. It’s still quite early, and, as we had this last week, frost and a hard freeze is still a real possibility.

A few years ago, my mantra for the year from the Lord was to live in step with the season. Those words were something I clung to as I made some big life decisions: quitting my job at SCS, starting a new venture and getting my hands dirty at a much more hands-on, physical job than I’d had for quite some time. That year had other unexpected changes, too…the light finally dawned on Micah, and a month and a half later, we were married! The seasons were wildly-shifting and changing much faster than I knew they could or dreamed they would!

Just as our springtime (and let’s be real, a lot of our Memphis weather) has been a bit chaotic and unexpected, I think our life seasons can be equally topsy-turvy. Maybe all the things you were waiting for happen did, but much earlier or later. Maybe the order you thought life would take isn’t how it’s worked out, and you’re reconciling yourself to what is in place of what you thought would be.

I’ve had a bit of that myself this spring. I’d always pictured myself having two children, I suppose because I’m one of two and really love my family-of-origin. After learning a bit more about what happened during and after Danny’s birth, though, I think it’s likely that we’ll be an only-child family. That’s not at all bad, it’s just not what I ever pictured for our family life. A change in the season: A shorter length of the baby years for our family, one fewer place setting than I thought we’d have at our big table.

When the seasons of life leaving us feeling a bit uncertain or when unfamiliar territory, wilderness, seems all around us, I hope we reach for the One who walks beside us. I hope we turn in dependence toward the love that is constant in the midst of bewilderment.

May we have the grace to mark the seasons, not as we wish they were, but as they actually are. When the trees bloom early and the late freezes come, may we have the sense to turn ourselves toward Jesus in the midst of wilderness ground, finding that it, too, is holy.

Lenten Reflections from the Garden: Compost

I grew up composting, but it wasn’t in the eco-friendly, environmentally conscious sort of way. It was practical, a means of waste disposal. And it worked! A simple compost pile out behind the wood shed was a place where raccoons foraged for scraps and good soil was made.

As an adult, I started composting when I started gardening in a more intense manner. I got into the proper mixture of brown and green materials, I bought a compost thermometer and experimented with worms in the compost heap (have you ever ordered worms in the mail?!).

Now, in this baby phase, composting is once again purely practical. I have no extra time to devote to soil production—-I barely have time to garden as it is! We’re starting soild foods, and this baby of ours loves to try things, but also loves to drop perfectly good food on the floor to hear it splat. Kiwi, avocado, corn on the cobb, berries, sweet potatoes…you name it, it’s gone on the ground with only a few bites taken out of it. These beginning stages of eating are all about trying and testing, so there’s nothing wrong with the process, but the waste can be a little disheartening.

And then I remember it’ll all get composted. That perfect kiwi, the avocado I watched ripen to peak avocado-ness for Danny to sample, the sweet potato I roasted in the oven and mashed, all of it can go into the compost heap.

It won’t get turned, the ration of brown to green material will definitely be a little skewed, but you know what? Despite my negligence, it’ll still decompose. It’ll still be out there in the backyard gradually becoming something nourishing.

So it goes with all our waste I think. The situations we don’t know how to handle, the things left undone because there isn’t time in this season of life, maybe the things we’ve let go during a pruning because they no longer serve Love. All in the heap. They break down, and as they do, they change from waste and leftovers to something life-giving. This is the resurrection story running all the way through. The place, people, and stories that society cast aside becoming the vehicles for blessing for all people. The eternity-altering story being woven into the ordinary leftover materials of life.

If there are things you’ve set aside, pruned, or lost, perhaps think about putting them into that spiritual compost heap. Let the Spirit do the decomposition work, wait, and eventually, life will come from it all. That’s the work of Love. May we have eyes to see it.

Lenten Reflections from the Garden: Pruning

This past weekend, I started the lengthy process of catching up on garden cleanup. Catch-up, because, as it turns out, having a baby meant my gardening ceased for awhile—-I’d planned on that, to some extent, but it still surprised me how wild things got over the long, hot summer when left unattended. A few months ago, I tackled the front garden over a long weekend, and now there’s just the backyard gardens and the gully garden left in a state of disarray. Haha—I’ve got a long way to go!

One task I’d be doing anyway this time of year is pruning, though, arguably there’s way more this year than most because of my summer & fall of neglectful gardening. Pruning is one of those jobs that, if left un-done, won’t necessarily always be harmful. Many plants will still continue to grow and flower and produce fruit without pruning. The thing is that they won’t be quite as full of fruit, as full of flower, or their fruits and flowers will be less than they would be if the plants were given a hard prune at the right time.

An experienced gardener knows her plants. She knows which ones respond well to pruning and which to leave alone. She knows what time of year is best for the pruning that does need to be done (For example, all those not-so-knowledgeable landscapers who go around pruning folks’ azaleas this time of year into little boxy hedges! They’re cutting off all the blossoms before they have a chance to bloom! The correct time for azalea pruning is right after they’ve bloomed—-this way you can shape them without losing future blooms!), and she knows how intensely to prune the plant: Is it just a trim? Does the plant respond best to a hard prune, cutting 1/3 of the plant down? etc.

Last summer, in my pregnant-get-everything-done state, I forgot a few crucial jobs. Pruning my rambling rose was one of those things. We inherited the rose with our house, and while I’m sure the area it was planted in originally had more sun, when I found it, it was struggling along in mostly shade. I moved it to a sunnier spot, gave it a trellis, and it took off! I was rewarded with a beautiful show of fluffy pink blooms the first few years. Then came last year: We had a very wet spring, and powdery mildew set it, stressing the plant and ruining most of the blooms. Had I pruned, opening up the plant for more airflow, I probably could have avoided the powdery mildew all together.

This year, I wanted to make sure we didn’t miss out on the rambling rose. When I marched outside in my rose-pruning gear (leather gloves included!), I laughed at what I was dealing with:

The rose had completely eaten the trellis I thought would contain it, and, as you can see, was spilling out into the garden in every direction. There were even rose canes headed over the fence into the gully garden! I’ll admit, there’s a beauty to something that’s growing so intensely, but I also know the damp spring and powdery mildew is just around the corner…So I set out on my pruning adventure.

I’d read an article in a gardening magazine about a British gardener who weaves her rambling and climbing rose canes into fences, creating embankments of woven plant material that then makes a wall of bloom during the bloom season. I loved that idea, so I decided to give it a try. I knew it’d be a pretty serious prune, but then, also, I know this particular plant is nothing if not good at growing! There were some dead canes to get rid of, so I did that part first, and then there was the big chop. So I went for it. Several hours later, the rose had lost all of this:

And after I’d spent a bit of time figuring out how to weave the canes so that they’d stand up by themselves, the rose was looking like this:

I’m belaboring the point a bit, I know, but all of this description of my pruning of one plant I share to say: Pruning is a deliberate, careful act by a gardener. When done well, it’s something that’s the result of thought and care, always with the very best outcome for the plant’s long term health in mind.

I’m sure, by now, John 15 is ringing in our ears: “I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more.  You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you.  Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.

Something that I find interesting about this passage is the way Jesus says the disciples have already been pruned and purified by the message he’s given them. What is it about this message that clips away the deadened parts and prunes the living shoots so that they can reach their full growth potential? Love has a way of doing that, I think—-the old things, the ones that don’t really serve us, become less necessary, fall away, and the parts of us that are meant to take off are trained in the direction of love, pruned along the way to reach their full glory.

Pruning seems severe sometimes. Maybe you’ve just exited a season that felt like a hard prune. Is there new growth already developing in you a result, or does it still seem stark and bare? Maybe you feel a shift in this season of life: Is there a pruning coming? Areas that you know will grow if you submit them to Love’s skillful shears?

May we all have grace in the seasons of pruning, knowing the fruits of the Spirit are growing stronger in and through us. May we have eyes to see the blooms that will surely come. Amen.

Lenten Reflections from the Garden: Seeds

We start the Lenten season with the beginning of the end: darkness, a seed, a life that seems to be over before it’s had a chance to begin. Ash Wednesday is a reminder that we are the sort of creatures who begin from the earth and return to it someday. There is the tomb before there is the rising.

There’s a beauty to the life of the Spirit that I think is written everywhere in the natural world (of which we are members!), and it is this: “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives.” [John 12:24]

The thing that has always struck me about this verse is mostly that seeds, though they appear lifeless, are anything but. They are packages of life-potential, waiting for the right conditions to sprout! Every seed needs a few basic conditions before it begins the process of germination. Some seeds germinate after periods of cold stratification (cold cycles), others need intensive heat to sprout. It’s honestly kind of wild, the act of planting seeds: every year I do it, I’m a little suspicious. Will this actually work? More often than not, it does! I mean, look at this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDBX2gCXxYw

You can’t watch that process of germination and think of seeds the same way again. They’re definitely not dead…they’re just waiting for the right moment.

So the question on my mind this week, as we enter the Lenten season is this: What seeds that we’ve sown in our lives are sprouting right now? What has been down in the dark earth coming to life as we waited? What seeds are we still waiting to sprout? What are you planting in hope right this very minute?

May that Spirit of Life give us eyes to see the new shoots of growing things hoped for & faith to plant our longings into good soil.

Lenten Reflections from the Garden

We’re jumping into a little Lenten reflection series at Bread & Wine, and I thought I’d jot down a few thoughts here on the interwebs for church-folk following along at home or just for revisiting throughout the weeks of Lent.

I think Lent presents us with a time for some deep reflection and maybe even provides us with a season of discernment. In the space of 40 days of thoughtfulness there’s a chance to take a minute to get the lay of the land of our lives and hearts. That’s what my hope for these questions is, truly—-just a jumping off point for your personal discernment with that Holy Ghost and also a way for us to move through the Lenten season together, too, in whatever parts of this process you’d like to share as a group.

The stories and rhythms of the natural world feel like home to me, and so when I was thinking through a thematic grouping for our reflection, plants and their growth immediately came to mind. (No one is surprised.) So, all that to say, we’ll be using some very basic gardening information to guide our questions!

There is something here for us in this season, I think. The writing will most definitely not be eloquent (hello, mom brain), but I hope these weekly thoughts might stir some conversation internally and amongst us that leads to life more abundantly for all of us.