Into the Garden

So, I thought that this new amount of free time was going to be about character development. But, I was wrong. Which is usually the case. It's about creating a garden. There is a storm absolutely raging outside with 60 mph gusts and flooding rain - and I'm inside going to write about gardening. I don't have a garden. My house is built on the side of a fairly steep slope in a drought-ridden landscape (with the exception of today we might get one year's worth of rain). If I were to try to grow a garden effectively, I would need to do quite a bit of terracing and put in a fairly complex drip system. My neighbor is a Master Gardener and even she says it is a difficult scenario, although she has a garden that is lush and abundant in the springtime.

What I have is a dog yard, a fenced area about 20x20 that is sloped into the back of the house - and believe me, it is true that shit rolls down hill. Since I'm not working, I took on the responsibility of cleaning out the dog yard. It hasn't been done in over a year. I tried to balance myself on the descending hill as I shoveled up a year's worth of poop, and whenever I went for a blob of it, it would just roll down hill. So, I decided to "go with the flow" and pushed all of it down the hill where it piled up next to the house. For fear of the next hot day breeding maggots, I had to shovel it all up into a garbage can. And "it" also included a year's accumulation of kitchen garbage that the dog dragged out to the yard from the recycle bins and dead leaves from the old oak tree that overhangs the yard. I heave hoed all the crap up into the garbage can. When it was full, I couldn't move it. All I had done was create a problem for my husband because the garbage can was now too heavy for me to drag back up the hill alone. (Sometimes I have a tendency to do that. To make my husband deal with my s#@!)

So, my current garden area is a dog yard, now void of obvious debris for the time being. Imagine my initial discouragement when I read in a book from my new reading list that the state of our soul can be compared to a garden. The book asked if I would describe my soul as a well-maintained garden that is producing abundant fruit trees and beautiful flowers or is it a garden that is less tended to. So I put down the book and sat on the couch in my living room and squeezed my eyes tightly shut and envisioned my soul as a garden in which I would invite God to meet me. A few tears were shed as I imagined his disappointment in the state of my garden. Although I had cleaned out most of the surface debris, there hadn't been any preparation done in which something could actually grow. The ground was barren. The best I could do at this point was to at least drag in an old bench where we would have a place to sit together ... in the surrounding dirt. I wanted to be in God's presence and knew enough about His love for me that He would not mind the current state of my soul. He would just take pleasure in the fact that I wanted to be with Him.

So, there we sat. Me in the presence of the LORD, the life-giver, the creator ... in my barren garden. Pretty humbling experience actually. But the time with the LORD that first day when I created space for us to be together inspired me to learn to garden. I was able to envision a more beautiful garden in which fruit trees would grow and beautiful flowers would pop up all around. I was so excited about the possibilities that I shared the idea of our souls being like a garden with a friend. What she added made all the difference in how I will go about this new gardening project. She said that someone once said to her that you can plant all the seeds you want, but you can't make them grow. I can't cause my own growth in my soul either! Only the creator can cause the growth. In the garden of my soul, I can remove the debris, turn the soil, add nutrients, dig holes, plant seeds, and water ... but I can't cause the growth!!! I will have to leave that up to the LORD. There will ONLY be fruit and flowers if He allows the growth as I stay connected to Him. If I want to feel a sense of purpose in my life, it will ONLY be in connection to Him.

But, of course ... John 15: 5 ... I am the vine; you are branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do NOTHING. It seems so obvious, but I had forgotten. I had tried to do life without inviting God to draw near to me and to nurture me in the garden of my soul. And now, that will be different.

Every Moment

One of the advantages of coming in out of the storm with my beach chair is that I have time to think because the wind isn't so noisy! Stress free for the time being, I have the mental and emotional space to bring back the balance in my life and give time to my personal reinvention.

Two ideas have emerged. One is to take the time provided for interpersonal connections. We weren't meant to do life alone or at a superficial level. We were created by God for intimacy, to know and be known by others. My heart has been at peace with the slower pace and the time allowed for meaningful interactions with friends and family members. I have had several deep conversations with people in the last couple of weeks, quite by accident, just because there is time. The quantity of time has provided for improved quality in my relationships. In the noise of the whipping wind, I had come to view this time with others as a luxury. I would say to a friend that maybe I could "sneak away" for coffee as if sharing our lives together is something in the category of eating chocolate or taking a bubble bath - frivolous and unnecessary. For Christmas my husband, who enjoys inspiring my heart, gave me a CD of Sarah Groves' new tunes. The gift reminded me of one of my favorite songs that she had written years back. In the lyrics of Every Moment, she speaks of the satisfaction she finds in authentic relationship, where the fine art of being is a precious use of time, where it doesn’t matter how long you stay because every moment given to self-discovery and knowing each other and loving each other well is a profound use of time.

The second idea that has emerged is to prioritize time for interpersonal character development. When I resigned from my job, I knew that I needed to take a closer look at my inner workings that manifested in my resignation. My husband shared his library of leadership resources with me and I read through the contents and chose those that resonated with my longing to understand my strengths and weaknesses of character more fully. Leading the pack was Ordering Your Private World by Gordon MacDonald, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, Integrity by Henry Cloud, Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard. In one night of reading I put down a book feeling completely confirmed that I had chosen the right course of action - at least for the time being - to focus on personal growth. The one line that seemed directly in keeping with God's early voice to me in the constancy of the waves through the noise and sting of the wind was this, "There must be a quiet place where all is in order, a place from which comes the energy that overcomes turbulence and is not intimidated by it."