by the Rev. Celeste Kennel-Shank
Gardening as a spiritual practice, caring for particular pieces of earth and all that grows on them, connects me with creation. It opens up the agricultural world of scripture to me in a way that would otherwise be impossible for a lifelong city dweller.
Though my gardens are at the edge of buildings and sidewalks and empty lots, still I am joining the myriad generations who have labored in this way since God put human beings in a garden to serve and preserve the soil. (I learned this alternate translation for Genesis 2:15, instead of till and keep, from Hebrew Bible scholars.) In gardens, I find spiritual insights both abstract and as concrete as the walkways on their borders.
Community gardening has taught me I cannot control outcomes. For 14 years, I’ve been a leader in a garden ministry on the West Side of Chicago. We grow produce that we share with our neighbors, but we also cultivate relationships: among the volunteers, who come from diverse backgrounds; with the elementary school across the street; and with the people who come into the garden. I share my time and energy to help the plants grow and facilitate connections among the people involved. Yet, I have no power over even so much as the germination rate of seeds in a packet, let alone the temperature, the sun, or the rain. And our efforts are sometimes stunted by the realities of poverty and injustice in the neighborhood surrounding the garden.
Composting grows my acceptance of the fullness of the life cycle. Seeing plants decompose to turn into earth, I remember that we come from dust and return to dust. Sometimes I turn my compost tumbler three times, repeating a prayer: Oh God of resurrection, you bring new life out of death.
Weeding is especially a source of spiritual lessons for me. While weeding for a few hours one day, I thought about my functional definition of a weed. Weeds are not necessarily bad or worthless plants. Some of them are beautiful or useful. Some plants that I pulled are ones that were planted in that garden bed last growing season but are now popping up where they aren’t wanted.
So why do I identify them as weeds and remove them if possible? Because they compete for water and nutrients with the plant we’re cultivating now in that space. Weeds take energy from the gardener’s focus on the main plant, lessening what the desired plant has to survive and, we hope, flourish.
As in our gardens, we all have weeds in our lives: unhealthy patterns and distractions that are taking time and energy from what helps us thrive. Through practices of prayer, meditation, and self-examination, we can distinguish these weeds from what we’re trying to cultivate.
At times, these weeds have established deep roots and branched out with many tendrils. One day, as I dug into garden beds I hadn’t tended for a while, I had to get out a shovel and dig down deep to pull weeds that had established tap roots far into the soil. I thought about my discipleship practice of striving to be anti-racist and to dismantle all human hierarchies in my thinking. These ideas that some people are superior over others have had many generations to grow and spread. If I do my part to uproot that kind of thinking, my ability to act in solidarity with all people can grow stronger.
The weeds in our life are competing for our energy, distracting us from core calling: to bear fruit for God’s kingdom. The more we clear away the weeds, the more we can thrive and help others around us to flourish as well.
There are times when we’re not sure whether we are doing what God desires for us. In her book Gifts of Grace, Mary R. Schramm pondered the debate of faithfulness versus effectiveness. She wanted to be effective, but ultimately, it’s not up to any of us to determine what the final outcome will be. Mary imagined that at the end of the day, God took all the things she had done and blew on them like heads of dried grain. When the chaff was gone, as often as not, there was not much wheat left there. Yet God can work with even our limited offerings.
Mary couldn’t have known what the results would be when she and her husband, John Schramm, founded an ecumenical community in Washington, D.C., initially affiliated with the American Lutheran Church and later with the ELCA. Mary and John had moved on to other ministries by the time my family joined the Community of Christ. Yet when I was writing a group biography of some of the primary lay leaders and how they engaged the life of faith, reading Mary’s writings resonated with how I was formed as a Christian in that community. Many of their initial ideas had continued to grow and bear fruit.
In gardening, as in life, hard work and effort do not guarantee a plentiful reward. Yet, if we cultivate what we’re given, removing what isn’t helping us flourish, we may yet find abundance.
Discussion Questions:
1. What is the core calling God has placed in your life in this season?
2. What is competing with that calling for your time and energy?
3. What spiritual practices can help you nourish your calling?
Closing prayer:
God of the garden, Help us to cultivate our gifts and to weed out all that hinders our flourishing, that we might better fulfill the callings you have for each of us, to love you and your people. Amen.
The Rev. Celeste Kennel-Shank is the author of What You Sow Is a Bare Seed: A Countercultural Christian Community during Five Decades of Change. A portion of this essay is adapted from that book.
Read, “Faith reflections: Genesis 1: 11-13, 29-30,” by the Rev. Celeste Kennel-Shank