The potatoes are nearly all out of the ground and most are a few inches tall. I have planted four rows (two varieties) of sweet corn, five rows (two varieties) of green beans, eight cabbage plants, eight cauliflower plants, twelve (three varieties) tomato plants, twelve (three varieties) pepper plants, four cucumber plants, four zucchini plants, and five mounds of acorn squash seeds. Additionally, I have two more varieties of tomato plants and two more varieties of pepper plants which are too small to plant outside yet, but are waiting in the wings to be planted in the next two to three weeks. Am I pushing the gardening season?
"I'm not sure," is my calm response as I sit munching on freshly pulled red radishes while trying to decide how much lettuce to cut for supper, "but I'm fairly certain that I have never put a garden out this early before." Sometimes conventional wisdom doesn't fit contemporary circumstances. Sometimes you just have to risk doing things differently. Sometimes you go and do when others urge to sit and wait. What is never risked is never gained. What is never tried will never be known. Sometimes you are the head of the nail . . . and sometimes you are the point.
Wondering how to get the attention and devotion of the very creation God breathed into being, just as God was about to try again to pierce through their hardness of heart, God wondered, "Am I pushing my love for them too hard?" . . . and in Bethlehem a Child was born to Mary . . . and in the Jordan John baptized a Savior . . . and by the Sea of Galilee, like once upon a mountain, a Teacher spoke to the thousands . . . and through the East Gate the Christ rode into Jerusalem upon a foal . . . and in an upper room a Friend said, "My Body", "My Blood" . . . and on trial the Paschal Lamb said nothing at all . . . and on the cross the anticipated Messiah said, "Father, forgive them" . . . and from a tomb known for containing death, there comes shouts of joy, "He is risen!"
"I'm not sure," is God's calm response, "but I'm fairly certain that my people have never seen it done this way before." Sometimes conventional wisdom doesn't fit contemporary circumstances. Sometimes you just have to risk doing things differently. Sometimes you go and do when others urge to sit and wait. What is never risked is never gained. What is never tried will never be known.
Sometimes you are the head of the nail . . . and sometimes you are the point.
On this Holy Week journey with Jesus, ponder deeply God's love for you. What is happening, what is being undertaken, what is being risked may not make sense at all in the current climate yet, then again, sometimes new things have a way of changing our hearts. Sometimes the nail saves.
Amazing, the things you can learn from the garden.
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