I am reminded of how much my little garden speaks of Christ’s resurrection. In the garden, death is never just an ending but always a beginning. The drying up of a tree’s summer leaves falling to the ground lay a blanket of decomposing, nitrogen-rich humus for the tree to feed on for its Spring growth. Raspberries need the harsh bite of winter in order to produce fruit.
Back at the farm, compost was our only hope for our acidic, sandy soils. Compost: discarded food waste collected from schools and other institutions left to sit, be digested by microorganisms, turned and sifted–becoming gold for the farmer and food for plant life. We would lug wheelbarrows of compost to each of our beds before planting. It was the most taxing of all garden tasks and yet arguably the most essential. This death and decay brings forth so much green, so much potential. This digested carbon creates an ideal environment for the millions of soil microorganisms beneath our feet and, in time, produces the harvest on our tables. These protozoa, bacteria and fungi feed off of each other and produce life out of death. Compost reminds me of how peculiar this God of ours is, who delights in making something out of nothing, making beauty out of ashes and rows of salad greens out of last year’s discards.
Another tiresome task on the farm was pruning the tomatoes. A tomato needs to be pruned back, entire parts of the plant eliminated, sacrificed, for the main stem to receive all the nutrients the soil has to offer and produce the most sizable, healthy fruit. If left unpruned, a tomato would get carried away sprouting new growth and all that would be left is a chaotic mess of green and some piddly fruit. Trimmings or “suckers” of the tomato plant can be saved and rooted to produce entirely new plants. Always death giving way to more life, more abundance.
My mind doesn’t want to go where I know it must this Easter. The same dying and coming alive that I see in the garden and in the life of Christ is required of me. If I am to truly live abundantly I must first carry my cross next to Jesus and enter this Winter with Him.
Motherhood has given me a small taste of this death-to-self. It’s been 8 wearisome, beautiful months of having this little human chipping away at all my rough edges but I am still here, ashamedly, somehow finding the breath to complain about my interrupted sleep, bickering with my husband who forgot to close the diaper pail, refusing to carry this cross that God has asked me to, failing to see the privilege of it all. The daisies in my garden have long learned the lesson of surrender and they function so effortlessly in the cycle of life and death but here I am, trying desperately to hang on to my petals.
In these long, ordinary days, my prayer is a simple one from Hopkins: “Let Him easter in us.” Not simply this single day of the year; I need resurrection every day. I need the presence of this mysterious God whose art is in making something out of nothing. I need Him to do this pruning work. I need to learn this lesson from my daisies.
I want to flee from this death. Everything around me tells me to reject this message– to preserve, defend, protect self. From a very young age our school teachers hammer into our heads messages like “follow your dreams” and “believe in yourself.” No one wants a cross. We are surrounded by gospels of self-care and esteem which leave us tired and wanting. If I am not careful, I will spend my entire life decorating the altar of my ego– pursuing things that build my image. I want to stay seated here in the ease of Springtime and not face the sanctifying knife of wintertime.
Our society has redefined this life that I currently find myself in. This life of motherhood, hidden behind sippy cups and pumping parts and oatmeal crusted on the floor. This hidden life. I try my hardest to see the romance of it all and there are moments when God gives little glimpses of the true art that this unseen life is, the privilege in the calling. But most days I am struggling to emotionally and physically give of myself to my child, trying desperately to conjure up the energy to use the 30 minute nap to write, envying my old self that seemed to have endless minutes in a day in comparison.
I need Him to Easter in me– even when I don't have the energy to ask for it. I so badly want to know “the power of His resurrection” and skip over what precedes: “sharing in His sufferings” (Phil 3:10). Most days I am like the rich man who, though happily approaching Jesus, confident in his own holiness, went away despondent after hearing all that was required of him– all the emptying of self left to do.
Lilias Trotter knew this sacred Easter-jewel that I long for. A jewel only attained by those courageous enough to follow in Jesus’ footsteps to Gethsemane. She felt that same Easter tension I feel this year: “There lies before us a beautiful possible life – one that shall have a passion for giving that shall be poured forth to God – spent out for man. But how are we to enter in? How are we to escape this self- life that holds us?” A flower does not stop at flowering but goes further still to give of itself, to reproduce, to make way for new life. Are my hands off “the very blossom of this life?”
She tells me that “sacrifice is the very life-breath of love” and that it's this unglamorous love that the world is starved for. That my neighbor is hungry for. That my marriage needs om me. The kind of love my little girl needs to witness. What God asks of me this Easter.
After visiting Calvary with Him “even the commonest things put on new beauty.” Love turns piles of dirty dishes, spilled milk and hours spent in the dim of the nursery into glorious pathways to the Easter heart of God.This God that turns banana peels and coffee grinds into rich, nutrient dense soil is the same God that takes us by the hand that we might rise with Him.
Oh that I wouldn’t fear this death– cling to this glass of wine but choose to give it away, pour it forth. That I would, like the oak and its leaves, let my sin wither and fall to the ground, giving energy to produce in me holiness and fruit.
Today we replace our nailed sins on our little wooden cross with flowers and take up the task of celebration, boisterously proclaiming that he is not the God of the dead but of the living! We raise our flags and light our pressed flower luminaries, rejoicing that He has overcome the darkness. Oh, glorious life with “nothing to keep and nothing to lose.”
