Gardening!

 

First, this disclaimer: Gardening is not an area of excellence for me. It hasn’t mattered if it’s been the rocky soil of Hovland or the rich farm soil in northwestern Minnesota, gardening success evades me.

For many, many, many, of you, gardening is a resounding deep pleasure, looked forward to as heavy work but work worth it for produce, beauty and fun. For folks like me, it seems to come in an every other year spurt: “Oh, I suppose I should garden.”

Then helpful advice from friends (raised beds, better soil, started plants, add some manure, find some netting, fence out the critters…), some work, and a varied crop of results: a few bug-bites, a few disasters (slugs, cutworms, chipmunks, woodchucks, deer, etc.), time in the sun and the bonus of a few meals. Success or failure or somewhere in between, every few years I jump on the bandwagon and put something in the ground and watch to see what happens.

Gardening. It is a reminder of summer, sun, rain and earth nurturing plants. Plants nurturing people and animals; then the earth being nurtured from compost and manure. It is a circular process, a circular project, a circular pattern that repeats, repeats, repeats. Creation by God’s creativity includes, whether from tilled garden or haphazard seed blown from one landscape to another, earth to food to earth. Even folks like me, who aren’t successful at results, find insight into life and understanding of God’s work by scratching the earth, sticking in seeds and watching. God’s work through biology provides for the ongoing life of creation. Wow!

This week, a little more gardening brought an additional result. Having actually handled seeds in the weeks before, and having put seeds of varying sizes into the ground, and having been sneaking out several times a day to see if results were showing (Yes! Radishes are peeking up! Yes! Peas are showing!) my mind had new space for new insight. A prayer this week in church, “Send us forth to scatter seeds of mercy,” caught me and began to take root in me.

God who creates, in Jesus plants us as seeds of mercy, and by the Holy Spirit scatters us, that we may be in the circular pattern of receiving mercy when needed, then being seeds of mercy for others, until, once again, we ourselves need to receive— then nourished by mercy, we can again provide.

We humans often ask questions, deep questions. “Who are we? Why are we? What is our purpose? What is our legacy to be?” To me, “seeds of mercy” answers each. God calls creation, the world, the earth, the sun, the moon, the universes and people, good. And God intends good to and from that creation and invites us to participate in God’s intention. We are to be seeds of mercy, even to ourselves. We are to be about the business of being scattered to be merciful and tender. We are given the chance to use works and words that better the “experience of living” for people we know and people we don’t know.

God who creates, invites. Be seeds of mercy, planted, scattered, nourished by God. Be nourished and scattered. Be mercy given, mercy received; mercy received, mercy given. Be seeds of mercy, be scattered freely.

Each week a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This week our contributor is Pastor Kris Garey, Trinity Lutheran of Hovland.