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I am an enthusiastic, optimistic, but not very good gardener. I love pottering about my yard, which has been a work in progress as I gradually get rid of my weed patches and plant flowers and shrubs. It’s a garden I attend to in fits and spurts, weeding at whim. I tend to plant what I like and sometimes pay little attention to the instructions carefully printed on the little plastic marker stuck in each plant from the garden store. In that way, I’m like the sower in the gospel, who sows seed on rocky ground or among thorns. But the parable tells us that whoever has ears should hear. The lavender I planted with such high expectations probably needs more sun, perhaps some compost. It’s not doing so well. But my tomato plants, in their sunny, mulched plot, are growing tall, flowering and producing little green tomatoes. My mother used to tell me that sometimes I would hear, but I wasn’t really listening to her. ( And that must have been annoying!) Sometimes we don’t hear the word of God, really hear it in the way that the word and the message take root in our lives and the way we live our lives. My faith needs even more tending than my tomatoes to make sure that my faith is growing, flowering and producing fruit. My prayer as I am watering and weeding my garden is that I really listen to God with my heart. |