The Rhythm of Life: An Experience of Engaging in Daily Practice | Cultivate

Part three of my Daily Practices paper

From Design Sponge, another favorite blog.

{Cultivate}

            It was a rare sunny day in February this year that I planted seeds. Seattle isn’t supposed to be sunny in February, so I interpreted the sun’s appearance as a personal commission: it was time to cultivate. The previous year was my first time experimenting with my potentially green thumb. I planted both basil and parsley, and I came in everyday after working at the daycare and stared in gratitude and awe at how much each had grown. I could tell by my roommate’s reaction that my amazement wasn’t a typical adult response. I was spending ten hours a day with over twenty three-year-olds after all, and their curiosity and celebratory spirit was permeating my way of being.

            I eagerly planted my seeds this year, remembering the pure elation that observing the progress of the sprouts brought me the year prior. I planted both basil and parsley again, hoping for more success with the parsley this time, and placed them in the sunniest window. I watered them each morning before I left and marveled at their growth when I returned. I found joy with each new sprout—so much that I still find it difficult to pick leaves off of the basil plant to use in pasta sauce, even though I suppose the intention is to use the herb and its gift of flavor in the end.

The practice of cultivation isn’t foreign to Christianity. In fact, it’s foundational to our humanity seeing as God cultivates us as his beloved creation (I wouldn’t be surprised if God looks at us with pure elation when He observes our progress, just as I do my plants). In the forward to Craig Goodwin’s book, Year of Plenty, Eugene Peterson writes: “Care of creation…is fundamentally about this incarnation, the core doctrine of the Christian faith, God with us in the Jesus of history.” Is it not marvelous that the growth of one seed can produce 40 seeds in addition from the one from which it sprouted? Whether it a beautiful flower or the most delicious fruit, with a bit of water and a proper environment, we can bear witness as God breathes growth and life into His created world.

This can be seen in the way care and cultivation of creation translates into nourishment as well. In her book Mudhouse Sabbath: An Invitation to a life of Spiritual Discipline, Lauren Winner, a devout Jew-turned-Christian professor, highlights the relevance of food to spirituality: “Food is part of God’s creation. A right relationship with food points us toward Him.” Winner makes a case for eating seasonally, naming the practice as a form of liturgy.

God created humanity to rely on the land, and He created the land to nourish humanity. However, in this modern world of instant gratification and indulgent consumption, the food we eat seems to appear at the snap of two fingers, rather than received as a gift from God. It isn’t a coincidence that watermelon grows in the summer to give hydration against the summer’s heat and potatoes in the winter to give energy in winter’s bitter cold. When we choose to eat seasonally, not only do we decide to recognize God’s provision with gratitude—we can also feast in the abundance of His harvest!

            As I reflect on God’s cultivation of His creation and His beloved and how I can participate in that process, I am reminded of Jesus’ words in his Sermon on the Mount. “Consider the lilies,” Jesus urges, as he speaks of God’s attentiveness and cultivation of His creation. Jesus knows that the beauty of the lily is evidence of God’s care, how He “clothes the grass of the field.” Through this allusion we can be filled with gratitude and feast on God’s provision for us too.

Every Monday.

Every Monday I ride the bus for 1 1/2 hours to get to therapy. And then afterwards I reward myself with coffee (sometimes cider or tea if I've already had my fill). Every Monday I head from therapy to work at Mars Hill Graduate School. And every Monday, as I walk to Westlake Center to take the bus or the light rail home, I stop in at Pike Place Market, my absolute favorite thing in Seattle, and buy a flower.

Photo from here.

At least there is one benefit to the cool springtime weather that lingers on here in Seattle even though it's almost June: we've had spring flowers for nearly four months straight (local!). I mean literally, there are still daffodils and tulips blooming in the ground, and the crocuses dared to show their face in January! And so I simply must indulge. We'll call it engaging in Pacific Northwest Culture. I try to get a new variety each week. There are so many unique kinds that I've never seen before! My favorites thus far are a peachy daffodil that is layered and looks like God was throwing a party with confetti, and a tulip that is so full it looks like a peony. But this week, I really stepped out on a limb and got an Iris. Sometimes a little change appropriate; don't want to get too spoiled with the tulips after all. 

One lovely springtime stem is just $1, and with complete and utter joy being such a bargain, I think I'll be making this a routine until the very day I leave Seattle.

In Progress,

Lacy

Moving On With What I've Got

I  have this succulent from Ikea. I don't even know what it's called, exactly, but I was very happy to have it, because you see, I once had a fern, and I tried very hard to care for that fern. But it died. Over Christmas. I had even made a homemade upside down water bottle self watering thing. It worked; the fern took that water. And then it died because it wasn't enough.

I wasn't going to risk it the next time. After getting an annoying heather plant that sheds its buds all the time, prompting me to get a dust buster, I was so proud to get a succulent. I see them growing everywhere around Seattle. Between every nook and cranny. Literally. That's where they seem to grow. They thrive because they don't need much care. You only have to water them every two weeks or so. Granted, I've never looked this up, and perhaps only gathered this information from the price sticker on the plant. Which could or could not explain why I cam home the other day and one of the stems looked like death. It was green on the top, green on the bottom, but black in the middle. With the slightest touch the stem fell to pieces, the center of it not even shriveled. It was moist, it was dark, it looked just like the dirt in which it sat. And it looked like a plague had over taken it.

I was just so sad. My succulent! My last hope! I'm supposed to live a life with a huge garden, for both edibles and lovely flowers. What does this mean if I can't even keep a succulent going? But instead, I simply removed it and put that one stem in it's proper place: the trash can. And on my shelf the succulent lives on, lopsidedly in the pot. Because sometimes death just happens. But I'm not going to let it distract me from the beauty that remains, and I'm certainly not going to let it rain on my parade. Or plague my plants.

My succulent, right at home and
moving on rather nicely, thank you!

In Progress,

Lacy

Long Live the Basil!

I've been growing herbs for the past couple of months--basil and parsley from seeds. I love watching the growth process and never cease to be amazed by how much the herbs tend to shoot up each day. I've memorized their pattern of growth from my green thumb endeavors last year, which has me waiting in anticipation for what happens next.

Yesterday, however, it seemed that this was what happened next:

Not mine, but equally disheartening.

Having been away for two and a half weeks I had left my beloved herbs in ikea pots in the care of a co-worker at school. Make no mistake, she did quite the lovely job tending to them. It is I who failed by neglecting to get them over the weekend once I returned (so they could get a little drink if nothing else). Of course I have a myriad of excuses--she was gone so her office was locked and I could never quite find the right person with the key... but I could have if I had put more than an ounce of effort to it.

"Ah, well," I had thought, "another year without successful herbs. Perhaps if I replant now I can have sprouts by the time the sun finally decides to shine in the Seattle summer." I watered them anyway, less filled with hope, more of an apology to that poor wilted being.

However, to my complete and utter delight, when I came upstairs today at school to accept my plant's fate, it looked just like this:

Still not mine, but just as perky!

It was completely revived! Resuscitated! Resurrected! Alive! How amazing is that?! (I can't deny: part of me gets some twisted curiosity and fascination with the thought that I can allow it to be on the brink of death and brink it back to life.) I am more proud of it now than I ever was before. And imagine: all in a day's time. 

Long live the basil! (The parsley is still working on it...)

In Progress,

Lacy