rest – The Victory Garden

I take my coffee and step outside, inhaling the cool morning air. Geese honk as they fly in formation against a cloudless blue sky. The grass is still green and wet with dew. Warm weather has kept the leaves green, but little pops of color are peeking through. October is a wonderful time to be outside.

I walk my garden, but there is nothing to see, nothing that demands my attention this morning. The basil still grows. I will need to make a batch of pesto before it gets too cold for the plant, but not today. My raspberry and fig still bear fruit, one fig and three or four raspberries a week. Nothing to pick this morning, but their perseverance impresses me.

Soon I will need to pull up the old cardboard and lay a tarp over the ground for the winter. This is a technique one of you suggested as an alternative method of reducing weeds (Thanks LS!), but it won’t happen today.

Today, my garden and I are at rest.

Not all my idleness is restful. Often, I am caught up in books or movies or football games and the hours spent sitting leave me exhausted, or worse, agitated. This is what the people in Jesus’ time were missing about the Sabbath. The rules that kept people idle had generated so much stress that the Sabbath was no longer restful, no longer a day of rest.

Rest comes from the confidence that God has our situation in His hands, and He loves us. It is not always time to plant, to harvest, to work in the garden. Sometimes, it is time to rest.

I can’t speak for you, but rest is hard for me to accept. I want to wrest my situation from God’s hands, take charge, devise a plan, and make it happen. Why put anything off until tomorrow? The world in which I live supports this kind of thinking. We are supposed to be doing something, striving toward a goal, expanding our social group, moving up through the ranks, being all that we can be.

For a few years, when people asked me what I did, I said “Nothing.” You can imagine the reactions I got. I later amended that to say, “I entertain myself well.” Now I say I write, but that always leads to questions about publication and what I am working on and my plans for the future. Perhaps I should say I’m at rest.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Matthew 11:29

This time of rest is good for the garden. Plants take nutrients and water from the soil, and the earth needs time to replenish these. All the little critters and microorganisms in the ground need uninterrupted time to turn dirt into nutrient-rich soil. The garden at rest is not idle; it is resting. Similar to what happens when we sleep, the garden at rest is busy below the surface.

The world can’t see it. I can’t see it. But I know God is in action preparing the garden for the future demands I will make on it. Like sleep prepares us for the next day. Like this time of rest prepares me for what God has in store for me.

For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. Ephesians 2:10.

Will you join me and my garden and rest today? No stress, no agitation, no wresting your life out of God’s hands. Just rest. Breath in the cool air. Listen to the geese. Admire the cloudless blue sky. Trust God. He created this world, and He loves you.

Love in Christ, Betsy

January arrives wet and cold. The ground sinks under my weight as I go out to the garden for the first time in weeks. Intrepid winter weeds dapple my brown yard with green.

Nothing is happening in my garden. It looks very much like it did after I planted the garlic in December. Only wetter. I should say that there is nothing happening that I can see. Because there is a lot happening where I can’t see it.

Underneath the cardboard, garlic cloves are fattening themselves on nutrients from the dirt and an abundance of water. Below the leafless branches of the fig and raspberry, their roots are growing thicker and stronger. They too are collecting and storing nutrients for the coming year.

Under my yard, hidden aquifers are replenishing their stores of water. Unfelt vibrations of the earth are pushing rocks and minerals to the surface. The ground is using this time of rest. The earth needs to lie fallow for periods of time, just as we do.

But I wonder if I do that, lie fallow and rest, well enough. Is just the winter enough of a sabbath for my garden? Is just an occasional “down day” enough for my spiritual life? I observe Sabbath during lent; should I do it year-round?

2 Chronicles 36:21 makes refence to the holy land making up for its lost sabbaths while the jews were in exile in Babylonia. As if God was imposing a stop in activity because his people would not take it willingly. A stop in agricultural activity and a stop in normal life. It echoes God’s promise in Leviticus.

Then the land shall enjoy its sabbath years as long as it lies desolate, while you are in the land of your enemies; then the land shall rest and enjoy its sabbath years. As long as it lies desolate, it shall have the rest it did not have on your sabbaths when you were living on it. Leviticus 26:34-35.

I am not going to make the leap that if we do not rest, God will make us rest, but there is some scientific support for the concept. Stress kills people. Inadequate sleep leads to poor decision making, unhealthy habits, and a weakened immune system. We need our rest.

The land needs its rest. Some say the pandemic was a forced sabbath for people and for the land. Almost five years later, I hope we taking regular small sabbaths, self- imposed rests for our mental and physical wellbeing. God made us and all creation to need rest.

Rest may look like nothing is happening, but we know that is not true. Rest allows us to absorb nutrients and strengthen our root system. Rest fattens the Spirit’s presence within us and prepares us for the coming year. Rest allows the rain that falls to fill our hidden reservoirs.

The rain has made my yard spongy and filled my creek. I love to see the water ripple over the rocks and swirl in the eddies. I love to think of how much life is carried in that water. Life for the dormant fish eggs lying among the rocks. Life for the resting trees lining the creek banks. Life for the growing plants who will benefit from the aquifers this creek fills.

On the last day of the festival, on the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water’” John 7:37-38.

January arrives wet and cold. What a great time to rest and refill the river of living water in our hearts.

Love in Christ, Betsy