seeds from many gardens ago

“A little thing is a little thing, but faithfulness in the little things is a great thing.”
Hudson Taylor

I planted seeds last Thursday, about three weeks after I found out my CSA farm is taking a break this year to work on building projects and various overdue repairs. I don’t have confidence that my harvest is going to be anything like that bountiful weekly box, but doing nothing is a sure way to reap nothing. So I planted.

Asian greens, collards, kale, and chard. Arugula, chives, raab, and chicory. Radicchio, mainly because I just like rolling the word radicchio around in my mouth. And—forgive me—but also lamb’s quarters, miner’s lettuce, and chickweed as well. Teeny greens sprouted up rather quickly under the workshop lights, and so far my toddler has not pulled up any of the labeled popsicle sticks (I realize this is as inevitable as his pulling out the rod from the cloth beam on my loom, so I’ve already made my peace with it). Fennel, dill, brussels sprouts,escarole, corn salad, mache, and mustard greens, too.

If I get even half a dozen bunches of greens to my table, I will be thankful. If I get even half of that into my kids without having to hide it all in sauces and soups, I will claim my garden is victorious indeed. But methinks the whole process of planning and planting isn’t really about the harvest, as I am spoiled for choice in a country with abundant supermarkets. Maybe it’s about the clarity of mind I get as a result of clearing a patch of ground and scratching upon the loamy soil. The simplicity of smoothing the bed with the palm of my hand and noticing. Just the noticing.

How a breeze tickles one set of maple leaves and skips across the branches, flicking greens along the way. Or how the chickadees bounce through the air to the sunflower seeds in the feeder, always taking turns, one at a time. Or how pregnant the magnolia buds look already. Many times, I think, someday I shall die, and still these evergreens will drop their cones for the grey squirrels living down the embankment, and wispy white clouds overhead will still tease apart and sail across the sky. It’s a comfort to stand quietly in the garden and to know that this trowel in my hand works the most good in my mind, if not upon my table.

Certainly this must also apply elsewhere in homemaking. Dusting, polishing the furniture, scrubbing the floor. Cleaning a sink, making a bed and smoothing the covers. Switching the laundry, pulling out a baked cake, setting shoes by the front door in straight little rows. Certainly, I might find “better things to do with my time”, but what better things would keep me as humble? If no one sees the treads on the carpet from the vacuuming, was the vacuuming a waste? Or was it as important as planting a seed I had no guarantee of sprouting?

Jesus said his kingdom was not of this world. My work then, perhaps, also is not of this world, but instead a quiet witness and act of faith. Undocumented, uncelebrated, unknown, but born from a love of God and expectation that He will gloriously do what He has promised. I see the sprouts. I know He is coming. I will plant more seeds.

Blessings,