Authenticly Transformed

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Just D on Thursday

Let me ‘splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up…

I am married. I have kids. I love my husband.
I am a Christian, I go to church, I love God.
I am a mom, a caregiver, a nurturer.
I am a doula, an educator, a giver.

Somewhere in there, the enemy has been silently laying down a trap and I fell hook line and sinker (bible, concordance, and highlighter?) into it.

he laid down a stepping stone pathway in places so soft and tender that I was misled. Where I stepped was not the place of love, obedience, authenticity, light, truth, or created by my Saviour.
Where I stepped was greed, selfishness, self desire, pity, fear, pride, self righteousness, self reliance, faux truth, justification, and worldly treasure.

God is so good though, so faithful, so present. He found a crack and shone in His light. And as the saying goes, “and even darkness flees from him…” And once the darkness receeded I was actually able to see the places I’d misstepped. It wasn’t pretty.

I was straddling the line… I fell off and tried to stay the course… and I went from D to Just D to Anonymous, Anonymous D, FC anonymous D… and I’m tired of trying to be someone other than me.

I need to focus on some big important stuff in my life. I hope you’ll stick around…

Compost Pile

Every good garden has it’s own compost.

Mine has one too.

Ingredients:  desire to be the perfect example of the perfect gardener,  wearing the right gloves bought on discount but still costing more than the cheapo ones, the failed startings of plants I “borrowed” from other gardeners before I knew that I can’t grow the same things in MY garden as others… My compost is full of low self esteem, 110% effort at all costs, guilt, generous generous helpings of expectation and unwritten rules.  It’s also full of unspoken anger, hidden irritations, feelings stuffed too deep.  And topped off with a broken car top carrier, twice tinted windows, twice installed stereo and speakers, lost ear plugs and car chargers, misplaced flashdrives and prescription sports eyewear… and prescription sunglasses… stirred up vigorously with “you statements” and unexamined expectations, with self righteousness and inbred conceit.

My Compost pile stinks.

But every garden needs one.  The secret is in how you allow your compost pile time to decompose, or if you hurry it along leaving half rotting unfinished bits of business laying around to attract bugs.

The View From Outside

What do they see when they look at my garden?  Rich black soil pebbled with iron, light fluffy loam atop the soil, rich and fragrant, a tender blanket of straw to protect against winter frost…  raked over to reveal sturdy green shoots in a blanket of growth…

What does he see when he looks at my garden?  Patches of untended soil, dry and crumbly, powdered in it’s neglect, bordering up to deep black sopping wet soil turned by long worms that consume and fertilize in the same motion, empty landscape of contrasting soils, withering lonely bushes scattered through out.

What do I see?  Weeds.  Mixed in with glorious fragrant peonies.  I see tall yellow dandilions hidden amongst the powerful bright happy sunflowers. I see trailing twining choking vines wrapping round my carefully tended flowering trees… and a scattering of brown dead things left behind by my pruning and plucking and pinching.  I see tall flowering vegetable plants, wildly growing herbs, and basic marigolds amongst the variegated grasses and the lavendar mixed with the Asiatic Lillies mixed with sexy Gladioli.  I see both the tipping top heavy flowers uprooted by those sneaky moles, I see the green buds on the tree limbs above the scattered dirt of a chipmunks rummaging.  I see the lacy beauty in a leaf partially consumed by a caterpillar awaiting his turn to become a cocoon.

What is real?  Which view is truth?  Which view is most practical? Do we have to vote? Why can’t they all be just the same garden?

If you don’t like it… you can leave.  But you cannot change my garden.  Only I can do that.  The thing is, I don’t think, really, that I want to change it. 

I think… really… that I like my garden.  Or at least, I like the way the roots are coming out.  The pulling of them is horrid but the absence of them is mighty… and I don’t want to stop now.  I like this thing I’m creating out of nothing but rot and trash.  I like this thing I’m creating out of your fertilizer, out of your water, out of your sunshine.  See what you started? Now watch me finish it…

Watch my garden grow, and then come in and see the beauty in the mix of things I’ve grown… I’ll prepare a special place just for you to sit.

Guest Gardener

Sometimes when you can’t quite figure out where to start, or maybe which particular plant is best for your zone, or if maybe you don’t even know if your soil is ready for gardening, you turn to someone who has done the work already, someone who has a little dirt under their nails, a little sweat on their brow and a blister or two to show for the work.  You look at their garden and see the things you like, and also the things that don’t quite fit your taste, and you ask them, “how do I do this?”

You must dig in your garden, deep, until you get to all the roots.  Sometimes you need to dig alone, for days.  Other times, you want help and company so you can fling the mud at someone or smush it until it’s dust and your frustrations, anger, fears, and pain are dissolved too.  I challenge you to dig deeper my friend.  We’re all here to support you as you do.  Don’t be afraid.  Be honest.  Be truthful.  Be YOU. Just begin with you.  The rest will come.

Those were the words my Guest Gardener had to say.  Dig.  Don’t fear.  Be true.  Begin at the beginning.  Have you ever heard better suggestions for redoing your garden?  I think not.

My dearest Guest Gardener, with you standing by to hand over your favorite tools for me to borrow, I’ll surely be able to plant something that blooms year round.

And for my kaba who feels connected to me through this gardening project? Yeah, it’s your strength that I carry in my heart…

Today weeds, tomorrow (or next year) tall strong sunflowers.

Daughter

Not too many more gardening cover ups here… just the facts.

I spilled my heart and soul to a church member the other night.  I happened to come across his comment here and panicked because I thought I’d been so careful to leave no trace of myself, my real self, anywhere.  As it turns out, yes, he had backtracked and found this blog, but had no idea it was me… so there was this interesting and awkward long pause after I hysterically confronted him, and then I just unloaded a whole delivery truck full of fertilizer onto him.  And let me say, this guy has his very own pile of fertlizer and one small shovel.  Poor guy – here I am sobbing and wailing and spilling out my whole entire garden worth of fertilizer and he was so calm and sweet.

He gave me some great biblical based premises and the one phrase that is in my heart over and over is this: ”Jane, you are a daughter of God!”

How cool is that?  I mean, I knew that already, but to hear someone else proclaim it to me as a fact, a given, an undeniable truth, was so comforting.    He also told me how one of satans tools is to keep us individually isolated.  My determination to keep this issue private, to keep it only between myself and whoevers house I was staying at, was another form of destruction.  To share my pain and confusion with christians who can minister to me is a way to defeat satan… that was news to me.  But it makes sense. Especially since my heart is driven to authenticiy.

Today I am a daughter of God.  He is my father and to him I will go for guidance, love, tenderness, comfort. and even to recieve discipline.  Unlike my earthly father who told me to “suck it up, you’ve got an attitude and you need to fix it!” My true father will share my sorrow and will provide clear direction. Or should I say ‘planting instructions’?