Both my sons have inherited the gardening bug from me. Nevertheless, one in particular intersperses our conversations and texts with his storied gardening exploits or even seemingly failures. I receive pictures of: a truck load of compost and plants, a camellia bush showing out, and herbs gone amok!
Sometimes it’s a picture of a barren corner accompanied by the question, “What do I put here?” I love these back-and-forth exchanges!
Lately though, much of our prattle is dotted with angst, wondering if the ravages of storms and unprecendented freezes have killed so and so. Will that pile of dead twigs that once was a beloved plant come back to life?
Do you have someone in your life on whom you’ve given up, someone who evidently seems dead? I know in the depths of my soul that it is not love to help those we love to hide from the evidentiary truth. It is not love to indulge them in their own disseminating illusions. Yet, it is also love to not give up on them, to keep hoping for resurrecting love to bring them back to life.
I’m still hanging on to the hope for a demanding, forceful, springtime in their lives, one that muscles forward signs of new growth. I want to hear the sizzling seeds sprouting after an April shower, to watch in slow motion the bulbs bursting through their crusty, seemingly dead covers, and the brown, brittle tree branches to suck up their life-giving sap and push out promising blooms and tiny tender leaves.
I need to be patient and not give up on what is apparently dead, not pull up and discard detritus taking up space in my life.
Who are you on the cusp of throwing away?
So we fix our eyes not one what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.