I shared in a former post that I’ve been doing a lot of yard work and how uprooting weeds became an apt metaphor for the uprooting of racism that white people need to do. In this post, I want to share some thoughts on gardening and the evolution of our faith. Who would have thought amateur gardening and yard work can give you so much blog content.
Now, I have absolutely no experience gardening. I’m not the type who really likes to have dirt under his fingernails. So, that makes a small conflict of interest for me.
All I have done is put little seeds into a seed pod, which is basically a mesh of dehydrated dirt that expands as water is added. Once it’s fully expanded, you drop in a couple of seeds and wait until they grow.
We’ve had the best luck with green beans. Those things sprout within hours and after a couple of days, they are quite tall.
Yet one thing I noticed is that some seeds, barely growing above the surface, had roots extending out of the meshed dirt. A couple of inches long, these roots were searching for water and nutrients. The thing is, the roots weren’t in the soil anymore. They were in our little plastic tray, searching for sustenance, but unable to find anything but plastic.
As I was staring at these little seedlings, I realized our faith and church experience can be similar to this.
There will be times in our faith journey when our roots will push through the mesh. They are out searching for water and nutrients, but only found an empty plastic tray. There is little to sustain and supplement our faith and experience with the Divine. As if our soul is longing and desiring something greater of the faith tradition but unable to find it in our spot in the seed pod.
We get to the point where we have outgrown our soil.
Just like these plants, we need to be replanted, in a new pot, with more soil, so our roots can deepen, expand, and grow so that we will have the strength to grow towards the light.
I think this is true for many of us. Perhaps you’ve found yourself in a religious meshed pod and your roots are expanding. Perhaps you find this pod to be incredibly constrictive rather than giving you the space to ask questions, doubt, expand, or grow.
Maybe you have been breaking through the mesh in search of a deeper and richer experience of God. Maybe you’ve been searching for a place where your roots can thrive. It might feel as if no one is tending to your roots, or the nutrients your faith craves are nowhere to be found, or that you are being outcasted or deemed heretical for your expanding faith, or maybe you are being viewed as a weed or a plant that doesn’t belong in the garden in the first place.
Be encouraged. You simply need to be replanted in deeper soil within a bigger and diverse garden.
It means you may need to try a new church, experience new spiritual rhythms, question particular theological interpretations, listen to new voices and teachers, and trust that through it all the Divine is as close to you as your very breath.
In my own faith journey, I have discovered the depth and richness of the Christian Tradition, not simply my one tradition (or pod). It’s one of the reasons I’ve begun to identify as a Contemplative Ecumenical instead of an Evangelical. It’s why I spent over two years part of a cohort program exploring ancient and contemplative spiritual practices. And, it’s why my faith is fuller and richer than it ever has been.
I have found that it can be a garden that allows all people to flourish, growing, and evolving at our own pace, as we all continue to grow closer to the Light.
