Cultivating the Garden of Our Souls
My new book releases TODAY!
What is summer to you? Does it taste like watermelon and smell like sunscreen?
For gardeners, summer smells like warm earth and tastes of home-grown tomatoes bursting with tangy sweetness. It also means a sweaty, daily battle with vicious villains: squash bugs and weeds.
When I first planted my backyard garden, I chose the “no dig” method of layering cardboard and compost right over our weeds. I hauled in wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow until our small patch of earth was no longer a snarled mess, but an unmistakable garden plot ready for planting. It was exhausting work, but each shovelful brimmed with the promise of homegrown vegetables, and that vision drove me on. I naively believed the no-dig promise that the cardboard and mulch would be enough to smother the weed seeds lurking below.
Confession and the Garden of the Soul
It was around this time that my daughter received her first Confession, which meant that I found myself coaxing and cajoling a fearful and anxious 8-year-old to our local parish for her second Confession, which held none of the excitement and glamour of the first to obscure the objectively nerve-wracking nature of bearing your weaknesses to a total stranger. I couldn’t really blame her for her reluctance; I am an adult convert, and 15 years later, I feel the same aversion when dragging myself to Confession.
Shame spills over into hot tears, and I berate myself for failing to avoid those same sins that land me in Confession week after week. When will I stop needing Confession? I ask myself in exasperation. It is at this moment that a tiny drop of wisdom finally bubbles over from my head, soaking into my heart.
The Weeding Is Never Done
I pushed open the gate to our back garden in July after about a month of neglect to find my once pristine vegetable beds entirely overrun by weeds. There was cheese weed with its deep taproots, nearly impossible to remove without the right tools. There were tall bright green grasses with shallow roots that nonetheless reappear every year, and – worst of all – nefarious bellbind with its deceptively lovely white blooms wound its way up my crops, choking the life out of them (Incidentally, this is the indefatigable weed that inspired the name of the demonic title character of my book, The Bellbind Letters, a creative take on C.S. Lewis’s spiritual classic for Catholic moms).
I spent the better part of a week on my hands and knees yanking every last one out by the roots. When I finally stepped back to survey my work, my triumph was short-lived: although my well-defined borders were once again visible, they were dotted with tiny specks of green from weeds that had either escaped my notice during the initial battle or had simply grown back in the time it had taken me to tackle the other beds.
Tempted as I was to hang my head in shame at my utter inability to dominate this space, a fleeting moment of grace whispered deep in my heart like the fluttering of a hummingbird’s wings: maybe what the Lord is trying to grow through this garden is my patience with myself.
Like our sin, weeds are impossible to eradicate entirely. Continuous weeding is the fate of every gardener, and if we want to make of our souls a delightful garden for our Lord, we find ourselves in need of constant cultivation. We will always need to be diligently weeding out vices. Frequent visits to the confessional will prevent the roots of more serious sins from penetrating too deeply and dissuade the deleterious effects of sin from choking out emerging seedlings of virtue.
What the Master Gardener Sees
Of course, tending the garden of our souls is not something we are meant to do on our own. We must consult the Master gardener, sower of good seeds. What is His vision for this space? What fragrant varieties would He like to see planted here?
As gardeners and disciples both, we cannot become overly distressed when we see the weeds creeping in. The Master gardener calls us to a life of joy and unceasing prayer. Of course, weeds cannot be permitted to flourish in the garden, but their appearance is not cause for despair. He expects to find weeds, and so should we. If we attend to them diligently, day by day, we will find that they can be managed. With His help, flowers will still blossom and trees bear good fruit.
If the Master still sees all the beauty in this garden, why shouldn’t we?
This reflection originally appeared at the Blessed Is She blog.
If you enjoyed this reflection, I invite you to discover the seeds of contemplation hidden in every season through my new book, Grow Where You’re Planted: Reclaiming Eden in Your Own Backyard.
This gorgeous hardcover with full-color interior tells the story of how growing our own food helped me heal from chronic illness, and how I learned to let go of my homestead dream and flourish right where God planted me.
A prayerful and practical guide to cultivating seasonal abunance and sustainable family life, this book provides so much value, including:
step-by-step instructions for cultivating a garden from scratch
a month-by month chore guide for cultivating the garden
annual seed inventory
seasonally-inspired garden-to-table recipes the whole family will love
tips for raising little gardeners (plus a downloadable year-long, hands-on, lit-based elementary science curriculum expansion rooted in nature, the garden, and the seasons)
“seeds for contemplation” reflections for growing in the garden of our souls
If you’ve ever felt God move in the garden or wondered if you could grow your own food in your own backyard, Grow Where You’re Planted is for you!
