Author: The inner gardener

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Canticle of the kale

Can you see where the lower leaves that have been stripped by caterpillars?

I moved house (and country) at the end of May, which meant that I said farewell to my beloved garden before it was worth planting anything and greeted my new garden in a state of flux and disruption, meaning that nothing got planted there either. However, I couldn’t let 2026 slip by without planting anything at all, so I took the path of least resistance, which was to plant a couple of cherry tomatoes and some ‘salad’ in growbags. The salad turned out to be kale and eventually attracted the attention of the local cabbage white butterflies. After the first time they paid a visit, I picked off most of the caterpillars before they did too much damage, but as the season drew on, and multiple challenges came my way, I didn’t manage to maintain a high state of vigilance. My poor kale plants have repeatedly had their leaves stripped back to the stalks, but each time have made a miraculous recovery and grown another set of healthy new leaves. Their roots have been so strong, that even when there were only threads of leaves left, these meagre remains have been able to respond to the light of the sun, which in turn has brought new growth.

This is a pretty good parallel for how my life has felt for the last few months. It seems like I have spent much of it being eaten by caterpillars – consumed by the aforementioned multiple challenges – and then briefly recovering, before being brought down again by the next drama. However, on the plus side, my root, my connection with God, must be reasonably strong because, even when I have felt like I didn’t have even a single shred of a leaf left, the light of the Son of God has got though and given me the energy to pick myself up and face the next day.

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A Eucharistic Prayer

Excuse the after-dark photography: some inhabitants of my new garden.

I love the way Richard Rohr talks about the presence of Christ in the communion bread being a particular example of Christ’s presence in all bread, and in all things. I wonder about including something in our Eucharistic prayers to reflect this? Perhaps something along the lines of the following:

As we recognise Christ in these gifts of bread and wine
May we recognise Christ in all bread and wine
All birds and fish, mammals and insects
Reptiles, fungi, trees and flowers.
Acknowledging Christ’s life-giving presence in all things.

As Christ gave his life to bring us life
May we take the life that sustains our lives
Not lightly, but as gently as we can
With gratitude and humility
Treasuring and respecting the gifts you give us.

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Blessed insignificance

I didn’t know whether these irises would bloom before we moved house, so I was delighted to be greeted by these lovely faces today.

As I may have mentioned before, I suffer from an exaggerated sense of personal responsibility for the problems of the people around me and of the world in general. I tend to feel like I ought to try and solve the aforesaid problems, underlying which, I suspect, is an unrealistic belief in what I might be capable of doing about them. The other weekend, I came across the poem Thee, God, I come from, to Thee go by Gerard Manley Hopkins and spent some time meditating on the first few verses:

THEE, God, I come from, to thee go ,
All day long I like fountain flow
From thy hand out, swayed about
Mote-like in thy mighty glow.

In my imagination I saw a large shaft of orange-golden light illuminating innumerable specks of dust, which were moving around randomly, shining brightly as they caught the light. I saw myself as a one of those specks, bathed in the warming love of God. A tiny thing with no influence, no power, no purpose, just moving round in a seemingly meaningless fashion. Strangely enough, I found this hugely consoling – as such a speck, I am not responsible for everyone else’s problems, I cannot influence the fate of the world, my actions are largely insignificant. At the same time, the speck that was me did keep catching the light, did keep reflecting God’s glory back into the world.

Of course I have responsibilities, I have things I want to do, hopes and desires – but this image puts them into proportion in a way that frees me from that exaggerated sense of my own responsibility and importance. It speaks to me of living life with greater freedom, dare I say even joy, seeking to reflect the light of God into the world without any fear of being judged for not having sufficiently ‘done my bit’ to make the world a better place. Makes me think of Galatians 5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

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On not being able to help

I love these tenacious alpine plants, this grew up from a tiny piece of stem that fell off another plant.

My favourite spot on our walk around the village is an old wall with lots of cracks between the stones. As the heat of the sun warms the stones, the lizards that hide there venture tentatively out. I have spent much time gazing upon these sublime creatures as they sunbathe, at least until they perceive my presence and flee away. Last week, I was distracted from these beauties by the sight of an ant scurrying up the wall. It had in its legs a dried-up worm that must have been at least four times its size. It was determinedly struggling to drag its bounty up, what for it was, a sheer cliff face, beyond which lay the approval and delight of everyone back home. But the worm was bulky and the wall covered in obstacles. At one point, the ant lost its grip on its burden as it got caught in a snare of moss. Another ant came within spitting distance but didn’t notice the one I was cheering on. I was so tempted to try and help, but managed to control myself. Thankfully, the ant was remarkably tenacious; it set its prize free and dragged it off out of sight.

I wonder whether God sometimes feels that way about us?

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Psalm 84

The hope of cherries.

I find Psalm 84 a bit much. The Psalmist’s enthusiasm for the temple is difficult to relate to, so I’ve tried coming at it from a slightly different angle. Here are some thoughts about verses 1-4.

How lovely is your dwelling place,
O Lord of hosts!
My soul longs, indeed it faints
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh sing for joy
to the living God.
My soul certainly longs for the place where I experience God, but that doesn’t necessarily equate to going to church on Sunday.

Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O Lord of hosts,
my King and my God.
Even the flighty, distracted, busy, not-intentionally-worshipful parts of myself can find a home there.

Happy are those who live in your house,
ever singing your praise.
Happy indeed, at the deepest level, where contentment lies.

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Hannah, a model of faith?

It’s tulip time! These happy fellows are the first to appear in my garden.

My other half tells me I’m overacting, but the story of Hannah abandoning her young child Samuel really makes me mad. To be fair, it’s not the story itself, but the way in which Hannah is commended for what she did. To recap the story, Hannah was barren and desperate to conceive a child. While weeping during a visit to the temple, she encountered the priest Eli who chastised her, misguidedly assuming she was drunk, and they entered into conversation. Hannah promised God that if she conceived a male child, she would dedicate him as a Nazarite until the day he died (I’m not clear how she thought she had the right to make such an important vow on behalf of someone else, but I’ll let that slip for now).

God answered her prayer and Hannah fulfilled her promise by sending her son to live in the temple with Eli as soon as he was weaned. Granted, in those days children would be weaned when they were much older, but Samuel would still have been a very small child. Can you imagine the distressed little boy pleading with his mother not to abandon him? Can you imagine how he must have felt at being left with total strangers? Hannah’s husband, Elkanah, abdicated all responsibility by just telling his wife to do what she thought best, but that’s about as much as we might expect from a man who couldn’t understand his wife’s grief over being barren, saying ‘am I not more to you than ten sons?’

It reminds me of the story of Jephthah, who sacrificed his daughter as a burnt offering because of a misguided promise to God. I can’t help but read these stories from the perspective of the victim – surely if you make a foolish promise to God, then you should bear the ‘wrath’ of God for breaking it, rather than having the consequences pour out over someone who had nothing to do with making the promise?

I see parallels with the experiences of many missionary kids, whose parents sent them away for their education, prioritizing their calling over the needs of their children. Although to be fair, if you subscribe to a theory of atonement that requires God to demand the brutal death of his own son, then what right would you have to spare your own child? On a more mundane level, I remember the family of a very active church member saying there was ‘always a quiche in the fridge, but never for us.’

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t keep promises or make commitments, but I do think we need to think carefully about the impact of our choices on those around us. I know that, if they were reading this now, at least one of my children would be pointing their finger directly at me.

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There is need of only one thing

The first willow shoots pushing through to new life.

Luke 10:38-42

While reflecting on the story of Mary and Martha, I was struck by the words ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing’ and I wondered why. I put in the hours in terms of my prayer life, admittedly rather distractedly in recent months, but I am at least trying to sit at Jesus’ feet as Mary did. Then I wondered whether there might be another meaning for me.

I have totally internalised the protestant work ethic, which leads to an almost capitalistic perspective on how I use my time – every moment of every day needs to ‘useful’ or, at the very least, justified in some way. This has always been the case but is particularly pronounced in this very busy period of my life. I have a long list of things that need to be got through, and even when there is a hiatus, this list is still there at the back of my mind, leaving me no rest.

I wonder if the ‘one thing’ I need is to be present to the present moment, to live life to the full in the complexity of the here and now – not at some mythical point in the future when life is simpler and I’ve crossed every last item off my list?

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The Gospel of Mary Magdalene

Wild garlic filling the vacuum.

I recently came across the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, a short text that wasn’t included in the New Testament canon when the council of Nicaea met just over 1700 years ago. It contains some beautiful words that bring me great joy, given my love of inner and outer gardening. Let me share a few of them with you:

The Saviour answered: “All that is created, everything that is formed, every natural thing, all exist interdependently in and with each other. Then each will be dissolved again back into its own roots. It is [the way of] nature that everything will eventually decompose back into its own elements. Those who have ears, let them hear…This is why the Good has come into your midst, pursuing [the Good] which is in everyone’s true nature, to restore it inward to its root.”

You can read the full text here.

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Make disciples of all nations?

New life pushing its way up through the darkness and into the light

Matthew 28:18-20

These verses at the end of Matthew have long been understood as a command for Christians to get out there and convert people. Not just our friends and neighbours, but people in far-off countries, right to the ends of the earth. The call to evangelise people who don’t want it is difficult enough, but worse than that, the history of Christian missions is intertwined with the history of colonialism. Is there a way to interpret these verses in a more life-giving way?

A disciple is someone who follows a leader, who seeks to learn from them, to live like them, to imitate the good things about them. I suggest that this is mostly behavioural, and that what a disciple actually believes about the ontological nature of their leader only matters in as far as it affects their behaviour. Making disciples is more about supporting and encouraging people to follow a certain path – expressed in these verses as obeying Jesus’s commands. This is where it gets interesting. What did Jesus actually command? Compared to the volumes of theological statements made over the years, he commanded remarkably little, and the few commands he gave seem to be grounded in love, for example:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” Matthew 22:37-39

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. John 13:34

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Matthew 5:44

In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets. Matthew 7:12

These are values that, were they adopted worldwide, would result in massive changes for the better. This isn’t a list of religious tenets to believe in, these are commands to follow the way of love as incarnated in Christ. This is what we are called to encourage and support in others.

The other potential sticking point is the matter of baptism. This symbolic act marks a major life transition, traditionally a turning away from sin and turning to Christ – couched in the extreme terms of dying to sin and rising to new life (although for many of us the turn from darkness to the light is more gradual.) The important thing is the turning from darkness to light, turning away from a destructive way of life to a more constructive one, not the marking of that turn, helpful though that may be.

What then might this mean in practise? To make disciples of Christ in a culture that is hostile to Christianity or that has a different spiritual identity, we need to interpret our understanding of Christ and his commands into language and concepts that make sense. For people who already adhere to some sort of religion or philosophy, this might mean supporting them to dig deeper. For someone with no obvious interest in spirituality, it might mean encouraging them to reflect on their inner life, to consider what their values are and how they might want to live them out more fully. We can encourage others to seek the gift of a rich spiritual life, but I don’t think we need to feel obliged to insist that people ascribe to a certain set of beliefs. Discipleship is about following the way of love, and that can be expressed in as many different ways are there are human beings.

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Brace/embrace

Spring is officially the best season.

Rainer Maria Rilke’s beautiful poem Go to the Limits of Your Longing contains the striking words:

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.

They inspire me to live life in a stance of openness, with arms outstretched to welcome what comes, and the flexibility to absorb the shocks. A position of embrace. However, recently I have been a million miles from that. Rather, I am holding myself in brace position, permanently tensed up and ready to defend myself against the next problem that comes. This is entirely counterproductive, as a rigid structure cannot absorb shocks but rather shatters, and in my case this is being expressed in chronic lower back pain that I don’t seem able to shift.

How I respond to events will not change their essential nature of beauty or terror, but whether I hold myself in brace or embrace position will affect how I live my response. It might help me to live in embrace position if I fully take on board that God is holding me safe in her womb and that a spiritual ‘umbilical chord’ deep inside of me connects me with the Divine, whether I feel it or not.