Gardening as Teacher

Gardening is my ongoing teacher.  Putting my hands in the soil, smelling the depth and beauty of earth makes my heart sing.  I have enjoyed raised bed gardening as well.  This year this garden is teaching me about tenacity and willingness.  You see I have two nasty weeds that have tried to ‘wheedle’ their way in beside the beets, the mustard greens, the cabbages, the artichokes.  One weed has a broad pervasive root system.  It likes to spread.  The other goes deep deep down and I have yet to find its end!  These weeds teach me about how hard it is to change and to let go.  Really I can be quite stubborn about changing my habits, my ways of perceiving a situation or an event.  These weeds are inviting me to look at the earth all around them and not to be solely belligerent about their growth. 

I am excited because this week I am returning to the Mound for our annual Community Days.  It will be so wonderful to be with my sisters!  We will pray together.  We will listen carefully to one another. And we will be invited to go deep deep down and wonder at the ‘weeds’ in our own  garden /lives, in our congregation’s garden/ life, in the church’s garden, in the world’s garden.  Then we get to lift up our earth covered hands and by leaning on one another make pledges, make promises, make a commitment anew to how we will garden in this one wonderful world and life our Creator, the Master Gardener has tilled for us.  I wonder what new insights my weeds will have for me.  I wonder if I might see them in new ways.  I wonder if I might even dare to let go of some of them.  So what is in the garden of your life?

KC Young, OP

Kirkland, Washington