Saturday 9/1/18 4:39 AM
Today I read this quote from the book Letters of the Scattered Brotherhood. “When you meditate or abide in your quiet times of communion, you do not charge in and do something, like saying, ‘I will now be good and move mountains by my act of faith.’ No, you water your garden, knowing that these ideas are growing into a heavenly garden; the indwelling spirit does the work, not you: you merely water it. do you not see the comfort there is in that? I can tell you in primer language that a very gentle, calm, unemotional, selfless, and patient attitude toward your spiritual growth is essential – such as all old gardeners know. They know that patience, hoeing, watering, and a certain order, a quiet rhythm, bring to birth a heavenly beauty.”
Over the course of the past year I have not had an order or a quiet rhythm to my time of meditation. The hoeing and watering of my garden has been sporadic at best and my spiritual garden seems to reflect my yard and flower beds, which have also received only periodic care. A month ago, we left for our annual trip to Michigan. We were gone for a little over two weeks and I watered the lawn and flower beds liberally before we left. I didn’t ask anyone to water while we were gone. The temperatures hovered in the nineties the entire two weeks we were gone and when we returned the lawn was brown and the plants in the flower beds were wilted, with browning and bug-eaten leaves. I went out to water the first evening we were home and discovered that a bromeliad in the back flowerbed was blooming under the brown-leaved plumeria and the bug-eaten flowers. I’ve spent years tending to the plant, making sure it had the proper amount of water and care, but it had never bloomed. I was completely surprised that it was doing so well in spite of the extreme temperatures we had when we were gone and the neglect it had experienced. It bloomed in spite of my failure as a gardener.
I wonder, can God do the same thing with my heavenly garden? Can God birth heavenly beauty in the midst of my neglected spiritual life and my browning, bug-eaten, spirit? If I believe Isaiah 61, the answer is a resounding yes! “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to … comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion – to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. … For the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.”
