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So, my focus word for 2011: cultivation. Why cultivation? Baby steps, my friends.
I’m not a seasoned mother. I can barely keep my house tidy, and it’s rarely photo-worthy. I’m not a savvy blogger. I’m not one of those she’s got it all together people.
I’m a new mama, with a new family, and I don’t know what I’m doing half of the time.
Like Paul says, I’m just a cradle-babe craving milk:
So clean house! Make a clean sweep of malice and pretense, envy and hurtful talk. You’ve had a taste of God. Now, like infants at the breast, drink deep of God’s pure kindness. Then you’ll grow up mature and whole in God.
1 Peter 2:2 (The Message)
Oh, how much do I want to grow up mature and whole. (And, literally, clean house!) I’ll pass on the she’s got it all together (look at her amazing blog!) thing. I’m aiming for God’s stitched her up good in His mercy and is keeping her that way.
I firmly believe that the universe deals in the economy of grace, and that is a gift we fling our arms wide open to, because it’s nothing we can generate. But I also believe that to be ready for it in abundance, we have to cultivate our soil for the seed.
What does the Greatest Storyteller say about soil? The hand of God sows seeds that fall in:
- gravel—the person who hears and instantly responds with enthusiasm. But there is no soil of character, and so when the emotions wear off and some difficulty arrives, there is nothing to show for it.
- weeds—the person who hears the kingdom news, but weeds of worry and illusions about getting more and wanting everything under the sun strangle what was heard, and nothing comes of it.
- good earth—the person who hears and takes in the News, and then produces a harvest beyond his wildest dreams.
Sign me up for Good Earth, friends.
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The message laid on my heart this year? No one else will do this work. No one else will till my soil.
Not my small group, not my pastor, not my soul-friends, not my parents, not even my husband. Building up a marriage is not the same as building up my soil, and if I’m doing one I’m not necessarily doing the other. And my heart comes first, because that’s what I give to God and then offer to share with my spouse. And, believe me, my husband would rather live with a garden than with a pile of crumbled, rocky dirt.
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Our friend Wiki says, We can use the human health analogy and categorize a healthy soil as one:
- In a state of composite well-being in terms of biological, chemical and physical properties (am I taking care to nourish all aspects of myself so that they form a healthy composite?)
- Not diseased or infirmed (ie not degraded, nor degrading), nor causing negative off-site impacts (am I rooting out diseases of health and habit, and not impacting others negatively?)
- With each of its qualities cooperatively functioning such that the soil reaches its full potential and resists degradation (are all my talents being cultivated to act in concert to become fully what was fearfully and wonderfully made?)
- Providing a full range of functions (especially nutrient, carbon and water cycling) and in such a way that it maintains this capacity into the future (am I taking care of my body physically, so that I live out my life abundantly?)
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Each of us is called to cultivate an inner garden in which the Divine Word may grow and flourish.
~ St John of the Cross
That’s my focus for this year. What’s yours?
Happy tending, blessed reaping,
