Hello, my name is Sue, and I am a gardener.  I live for Spring.

Of course I play many more roles than just that of gardener, but that pretty much encapsulates my (literal and figurative) vocation in life.  As for Spring – I do try hard to appreciate the other seasons, I really do!  I have gotten better at that over the years … but it is still the season of Spring, especially the weeks after Easter, that really make my heart sing.

For every year I am astonished by how the earth reawakens following the winter months.  It would appear we will be grey and brown forever, and then, suddenly, the first hints of green begin to show up.  Life begins to stir again.  What seemed to be asleep and gone shows signs of life.  Even after decades of watching this happen, the process thrills me to the core.

And so I then rush barefoot into the gardens and fields to till and plant and fall on my knees and weep over the miracle that is soil.  The soil of the earth, that seemingly innocuous “dirt” that gives us life and sustains us through food and beauty.  How can something so seemingly mundane be also so incredibly important to each living thing?

What an unbelievable honor it is, to stir that earth, to dig into its depths and to co-create something of beauty with the divine one!  To watch the seeds I have planted sprout, grow, and thrive.  Who am I, what are these hands, that I am given the skills to assist in this process? 

A consideration of these things is truly humbling.

But even for those who are not gardeners and farmers, spring brings profound messages, I think.  For not only is this the time for us to till the ground, it is also an important season for us, like the earth, to open ourselves to the divine plow.   Our God is asking us too, humans born of the earth who will return to the earth, to allow ourselves to be tilled and planted.  The earth is not stagnant, nor are we.  Each cycle of the year brings new challenges and opportunities into our life.  We are, I believe, meant especially every spring to be fertile ground for fresh possibilities, to produce the fruits that the people and community around us need.  To become, like the fruit tree buds and first tender shoots, a new creation.

But, of course, unlike the earth we make the conscious choice to participate in that divine plan or not.  We can decide to turn away, to close ourselves off, to surround ourselves with stone walls and gates and to refuse entrance – to God OR anyone else!    We can attempt to break the plow, to divert the nourishing rains, to shrivel up and therefore die.  

For yes, I admit the planting and growing process is not always easy.  The sun does not always shine!  As we have experienced this spring in SW Ohio, there may be weeks of those grey skies and cold temperatures.  The wind may batter our resolve.  Late snows may encourage us to retreat from our resolution.

Yet, look at the daffodils!  Look at the bluebells and lilacs, or the baby peas.  If these small and fragile creations can survive such storms, surely I can also! If God cares enough for them so that they can share their life and purpose with the world for however short a period of time they might have, how can I not believe that I am meant to do the same?

The question remains – Are we willing to do this?  Are we willing, this spring season, to both plant and be planted? Can we can turn to our creator as a sunflower does to the sun, say “yes,” and be tilled and nurtured into the unique beauty only we can give the world?   To both grow beauty and to be beauty?  I hope so – for our world aches for this today, and for those willing to show us the way.