Here is how my friend Lori from Cloquet plants her garden: She thinks about it, for a long time. Waits for the snow to melt (a long time this year!). Watches for seeds display to hit the stores. Reads through varieties. And waits longingly for that particular day when the warmth of sun and length of daylight hours tell her, “No need to wait any longer! Go! Garden!”
Out come the supplies for starting seeds. Trays and bigger pots, smaller pots. Dirt, soil to place in pots. Popsicle sticks for making note of the type of seed and date planted to end the worry: when to water? When to transfer to a bigger pot.
Down the road a bit, but sure to come is the real end to waiting. Lori will laughingly be on hands and knees in the garden, trowel and small planting spade at the ready, and then begin to work the soil.
“Ahhhh”…she says when describing that moment. “You can smell the goodness of the earth, even before you put a hand in it, you can see if the soil is fine or coarse.”
And then, the hour to really begin arrives, and small seeds from small packets are placed in soil.
Joy breaks out!
God’s good earth! Ready to nourish the seeds, then the plants, and then us. God’s good earth, created to be the soil which receives nourishment, then sends it on so that plants, bugs, animals, humans prosper.
God’s good earth: as it is nourished, nourishes. As it is touched by hand, touches the heart of the one working the soil. God’s good earth: as what is placed in it mingles with what soil is, allows roots to break up what is beneath the surface, working new pathways for nutrients and water. God’s good earth, when the snow melts and the sun can reach it, warms, letting changes occur above, in it, below it.
“In the beginning…God created” (Genesis 1:1) is followed by God saying, “It is good.” And, as my friend Lori each year recalls: “God said: ‘let the waters be gathered, and let dry land, soil! Appear …and then ‘let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants, trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it…various kinds.’ And it was so. And God saw that it was good.” Genesis, Chapter 1.
God’s good earth. Come by God’s creating and then through multiple hundreds of thousands of years; from rocks breaking into finer and finer pieces, then seeds landing, roots sprouting then making channels for water and nutrients to reach deeper to form new soil.
And now, my friend Lori along with many in Cook County, WAIT expectantly to put a hand in the soil itself. Seeds placed in soil, then roots appear, then …. New Pathways begin. Then one day a barely visible bit of green becomes apparent, just above that great gift of soil. Beauty forming, nourishment for stomach and soul forming.
We can rejoice, saying, “I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land …” (Psalm 27). In the land, in the soil itself, there is life, which God has made…. and through that soil, God has given multitudes of species life. For now, we can “take heart and wait.” For just as spring is waiting to burst forth, so is our praise of God for the goodness of soil, the beauty of plants, and the nourishment for life that comes our way. Thanks be to God.
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month our contributor is Pastor Kris Garey, Trinity Lutheran Church, Hovland.
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