On Patience with Your Soul

Spring is rainy and muddy here in Oregon with shoots of daffodils that are vivid against a gray backdrop.  Our backyard is particularly muddy with sodden mulch,  puddles of  muck, and weeds and plants competing for space in the flower beds.  Whoever lived in our house before must have been quite a gardener.  He or she would be sad to see the state of things now. All of their glorious flower beds either mowed down, dug up, or surrendered to a life of weed diversity.  I like to think that I may be a gardener at another point in life when I am not nurturing children and a university. When there is more space for sitting in the mud and taking care to weed, and tend, and plan a beautiful garden of vegetables and flowers.

Evelyn Underhill reminds us in her essay entitled "Patience" that in the garden of the soul one of the most common and worst mistakes we make is to not take the time of a master gardener.  Instead we make violently plunge in and pluck out all the weeds as fast we can, creating a big pile, feeling good at the end of a morning of how much we accomplished. (Yes, this is my kind of gardening in my yard if any happens at all).

But, Evelyn reminds us, that an expert doesn't work like that.   This style of gardening breaks leaves and knocks shoots. It has only got the tops of the weeds and not the roots.  It's the expert that is careful not to disturb the growth of the plants, gently tending the ground, picking off slugs and snails, and tending the little plants with care.

This is the work of God in the garden of the soul.  A patient gardener, in no hurry for a bloom of flowers, instead caring for the foundation of a soul that will bloom flowers year after year.

Be gentle, Soul, and patient with yourself and the work of God. Be patient to be Where-You-Are-At.  In the mud, and the snails, and the weeds of it--knowing that Life and the Gardener will be at work in your soul with precision and care.

Your work, Soul, is to wait with humility as the work is done.  To welcome the often painful and usually slow work of the Gardener, but also to realize that Gardener is gentle and determined that you, Soul, will be Glorious.  As you take note of what you want pulled up and plucked out, be gentle with yourself and with intentionality and care work slowly and carefully on change.

So for today, facing a rainy Saturday with buckets of laundry, challenging family dynamics, university work, grading to do, errands to run:  I will welcome the events and interactions of this day as God's gardening tools:  slowly and persistently at work in my Soul.  The Gardener has such vision for you, Soul.   I don't know, Soul, if you grow potatoes or roses, but my sense is that work of the Gardener will take us to fruitfulness and vivid color.