Sunday Before Pentecost

Wolfie and I worked in the garden yesterday, digging up the earth, working it through our fingers tossing out roots and rock, breaking dense clods of red clay. The earth in this so-called “garden” is a small plot of hard-packed dirt on either side of a concrete walkway in front of our house. A pick ax and many heavy bags of Nature’s Helper were needed to give it back some of its air and dark sponginess.

Our first buy was a packet of moonflower seeds, the bread-and-butter annual with the saucer-size white discs that only bloom at night. We erected a trellis, stakes at the bottom, a web of twine at the top, anchoring it to the house. We put nasturtium seeds big clay pots, dislodged from a pile of other discarded pots of different shapes and sizes in the backyard. We planted string beans in pots with tall stakes in the middle to make even more of a wall between us and passersby, not 12 feet away. In front of the moonflowers, sunflower seeds and at the foot of those, Wolfie and I planted pickle bushes and cucumber vines.

Sometime this summer, Vincent will have built my six-foot porch swing and I’ll sit out there in the late afternoons and peer through the leaves and vines at the foot traffic. I’ll lie down maybe and relax, begin to let the day go as the swing glides slowly, lulling away the many noises and ideas and activities that makeup any given day.

I thought about all of this seed sowing this morning before the early service, and I mentioned to Patricia that I hadn’t gardened or planted seeds in such a long time. It must say something about where I am in my life that I would even think to plants seeds.

Not because there’s so much work on the front end—but because if you plant a seed, at the very minimum, you know you’re going to have to water it. So committing to watering something means you’re committed to be around to water it. It means you’re anticipating a good outcome. Faith, hope for this future that you (me) yourself have created in picking the colors, preparing the earth, basically getting your house in order.

And funny, I think that’s where I am in my life now so this is a perfect week because it leads up to Pentecost, which we were discussing in Sunday School this morning. The 10 days after the Ascension, Patricia told us, the disciples prayed and got their house in order (adding another disciple, Mathias, to make 12 again). They knew something big was coming, but they didn’t know what. (It was the Holy Spirit).

Of course, I don’t imagine that we’ll be hit with anything like speaking in tongues next week (the Bishop is coming, in case you hadn’t heard). I do know the Bishop is doing a special blessing for those who wish to renew their baptismal vows and he’s also teaching Sunday School. And I’m pretty sure that after the service and coffee time and cleaning up and turning off the lights, most of us will go home for an afternoon nap. And all will be well.