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Last month we have spent some time at the lake as Minnesotans are supposed to do around this time of the year. When we came back after 10 days our garden had gone wild. The brand new installed automatic sprinklers plus a week of rain (who would have known?!) had transformed our green sanctuary into a jungle. I forgot how fast plants can grow! The broccoli was just a baby plant when we left, and now, look at it, it is as tall as you, I called out in surprise to my little daughter who was running with me through the jungle. And look at the tomato plant! O my, not only had it grown probably three times the size I left it, its branches poured all over the little growing structure which now looked like a dwarf underneath a wild bush with flowers and little green pearls showing here and there.
Now what?
As much I like to let things grow as they please this tomato plant called out to me. It urgently needed help. So we started untangle the branches who had grown around in circles, some broke off while only touching. The poor plant had put a lot of energy into growing around itself putting out more little sprigs every where trying to reach the light. The more it grew wild the more it shaded its own flowers and the less it could concentrate on producing flower buds and fruits.
Untangling the poor thing I thought about cultivating our inner life. Was it time to untangle may be? Is too much energy going into circling around myself than into growing a strong branch into the light? I was quite taken by the lesson the tomatoe plant had in store for me.
Now I had to decide which branch was the strongest and which of the entangled green mass had to go. Some sprigs had turned long and thin, with only a little flower stand at the very end, or even none. All the energy in vain. I nodded. I know. Have those branches, too, I try to comforted the tomato plant. It is not easy to let go of what has become fruitless. Sometimes we need help to get all our well meant attempts untangled, don’t we?
As I ended up pruning the tomato bush back into a tomato plant, cutting off more than half of it, I pondered its lesson: growing wild is not the same as growing strong. Cultivating is work. In the garden as well as in the heart. It needs a kind gardener who carefully and tenderly untangles what has become fruitless and prunes back what needs to go, so the strongest and most healthy part can grow into the light. And produce sweet fruits in its time.
May it be so, in my life, in your life, Amen.