Word Church 4.3.22

A few autumns ago, I climbed my hill with some hand tools, a bucket of potting soil, and bags of bulbs I’d added to the cart at ALDI. In my mind’s eye and the naivete of a novice gardener, I was planting what I imagined was going to be a small-scale Holland–blooms of tulips and daffodils filling the blank canvas of my incline. I laugh at that vision now–two bunches of daffodils are all I have to show for those efforts.

And yet I feel grateful that I made the effort. I learned so much about myself and about what is involved in planting bulbs. In broader terms, I learned that there are so many variables intertwined in sowing seeds.

Nature has a charisma that enchants and endears me to the outdoors–season after season. It contains wonder and whispers to me words of comfort. I feel relief when I spend time outdoors. I have internalized this inner wisdom harvested from the hours on wind-swept days, racing to mow the grass before the clouds release raindrops, or a breeze cool the sweat on my skin.

When I looked out my window this past Wednesday, I yearned for more cash flow, but did not immediately leap to frustration. From my kitchen window, I saw a section of my retaining wall had collapsed–for a second time–days from the 13th anniversary of the wall’s first collapse. I have had so many things fall apart in recent years, I don’t feel frustration anymore. I heard myself say, well, I knew it would fall, I just didn’t think it would be so soon…