by Pastor Audrey
Take a pair of pruning shears and lop off its head. That’s what I finally did in my summer vegetable garden this weekend.
It started out well at the beginning of the summer. I took some lessons learned from last summer’s garden and put them into practice. I abandoned the useless tomato cages and conscripted Brian to build a set of giant wooden trellises. I pinched the tomato suckers religiously every day and trained them up the trellis. Same with the cucumbers – up the trellis they went!
Things started off pretty well. I harvested spinach every day, pinching off the flowers as soon as they appeared to prevent them from bolting too soon. We enjoyed gobs of tomatoes – especially the Super Sweet 100s. I was taking quart-sized bags with me everywhere to give away. At one point, I had to severely prune back the basil, which was towering over the thyme and rosemary. I ended up with an entire kitchen garbage bag full – no joke. And the cukes? I think they produced 2-foot long fruits from start to finish on the daily. Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration. More like every other day.
So what happened? Where did I go wrong? As I think back, the place that my memory is drawn is to was an infestation of leaf footed bugs on the tomatoes. Their appearance unnerved me in a way I’m not usually unnerved by insects. Their young are red and almost translucent, like ginormous red ants.
I tried to spray them off with the hose, but that didn’t work. I contemplated a pesticide, but just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Before long, I was avoiding the garden altogether. And even though it is not within my line of sight from inside the house, the same of the rotting food on the vine and overgrown, inaccessible jungle began its paralyzing work. I even avoided going outside to water my beloved succulents, which are now severely distressed. I know they’ll bounce back.
But this weekend I was confronted by the jungle and tangle of the garden in a way that I could no longer ignore. We’ve recently begun homebrewing. That’s right – the pastor and her husband are brewing better in their home. (Don’t you just love that whole sentence?) We were outside before dawn on Saturday morning with a giant pot, burner, and propane tank. And in the dark, I couldn’t see the garden. The light came slowly and gradually, until finally it was full day, and I was stationed at the pot of wort as it cooled, directly facing the garden. At first I tried to resist even looking at it. When I could no longer avoid it, I glared at it, full of self-loathing. The list of reasons for how it got to that state is long and not unique to me: I’m busy; I have a (more than) full-time job; I have a family; meals to cook; house to maintain… We can all list these kinds of reasons for the ways in which life gets out of hand.
And then I decided that I couldn’t let that kind of thinking continue. When we finished with our brewing process I went back out with a pair of pruning sheers and our large green trash bin. And I just started cutting. That first cut was all it took to empower me to begin to let the paralyzing shame begin to fall away. It felt good literally cut away that which had been hanging over me like a dark cloud. I felt reenergized about being in the garden and working in the garden. I began to even consider planting a fall/winter garden – something I’ve never done before!
Not all shame can be so decidedly tackled. In such instances, I’m a big fan of the saying, “It’s okay to love Jesus and have a therapist.” But there is a good deal of shame in most of our lives that CAN be tackled at home, with a pair of pruning sheers.
What in your life are you avoiding? What is hang over you, draining your energy? Can today be the day you address it with a pair of pruning sheers and a garbage bin?