Being the Beloved:
stories of ongoing transformation in daily life
By Gwen Shipley
Fall has fallen—earlier sunsets, layered clothing, cooler nights. This evening, I am sitting where a breeze carries a pleasant pine scent through an open window, and motorcycles hum around curves in the county road nearby. The TV is off tonight while my husband and I each work out a Sudoku puzzle. Our Australian Shepherds lie near our feet like throw rugs. An owl makes its clicking sound as it glides past outside hunting rabbits, moles, mice. This brings to mind being startled by a covey of quail erupting from the dogwood hedge beside the sprawling cantaloupe I was watering today. And dinner. Everything but the salmon was from our garden. I notice myself accidentally smiling. Contentment.
Life in the PNW brings the gift of changing seasons. It also offers a long growing season which, if you grow things, is a bonus. Life in the human experience brings the gift of changing seasons, as well. Now in the autumn of my “one wild and precious life,” I am called into the garden where I have found a sanctuary of unfolding Grace. Consider:
Lowly soil microbes, producing nutrients the plants will use in service of their growth, offering up sustenance and pleasure
Tiny seeds have enough energy to grow dinosaur kale that withstands winter and becomes better in chilly weather.
A single raspberry row is an enigma: the more you take, the more it gives.
Perfect zucchini basks in hot sun while dangling handfuls of plump peas beg to be rescued from it; roses, hydrangeas, snapdragons and dahlias are dying to dance on your dining table.
Marvelous harmonies abound. Leaves of deciduous trees emerge when needed, shading tender, young seedlings, then fall just in time to provide insulation for perennial roots.
When the promise of a resurrection seems far away, remember the apparently-dead grape vine that re-births in Spring.
It’s all there, not in abstraction, but in tactile magnificence. Color, taste, smell, sound, touch, movement…The natural world revealing a lavish, loving God in every scoop of soil, every pail of water, every sunrise and new green shoot.
No one is more surprised than I that the garden has found me—and is forming me. In fact, most of my adult life I have wanted to be as far away as possible from any hint of the rural domesticity into which I was born; enough of dirt under my nails! Daily realities were abundant with lack and perspiration yet held in tension with love and kindness.
It seems the nature of lives and gardens to encounter this tension due to “weather.” Even this element of the garden speaks. It tells of the ever-present reality of One who holds all things together in dark nights, grief, and life moments of every kind. (See Colossians 1)
In essence, this year’s garden has been a kind of spiritual director, helping me notice God present in all things—when invisible microbes are less active under winter mulch, when spring seedlings are barely visible, when summer produces lush growth, when fall harvest brings…or doesn’t…what I expect. Wherever our time is spent, in work, in life, in prayer, each moment we are invited to notice a lavish, loving God. I pray it is true for you as it has been for me this season in the garden.
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It is the mission of CFDM to help people learn how to practice receiving the lavish, loving presence of God. If you find such a longing rising in you, consider participating in a mini retreat or spiritual direction training. You are welcome.
What books, media, activities are nurturing your heart, soul, mind, strength in this season as we are loving God and our neighbor as ourselves? Post in the comments below or hop on over to our Facebook page and share with one another.