Category Archives: Stories

Restoration!

Restoration!  2/14/2022  Rev. Karen Fitz La Barge

There is a British television show on Netflix called, “The Repair Shop”. 

filmed at an open air museum, in an old thatched roof barn from the late 17th or 18th century.  Inside the barn is a regular cast of expert craftspeople and specialists. 

          In series 2, episode 4, the specialist stuffed toy restorers, Amanda Middleditch and Julie Tachell are shocked when a 1930’s stuffed lamb is brought in by it’s owner.  Made by a British toymaker called “Mary Thought” the toy restorers remarked that the stuffed animal was originally a beautiful quality piece of workmanship because the lamb had a multitude of intricate pieces.  But their delight at seeing the stuffed animal’s head come out of the shopping bag was immediately turned to horror and dismay when the remains of the lamb was put on the work table.  The body of the stuffed lamb was completely gone.  Only the stomach panel remained attaching the head and the four legs of the once cherished child’s toy.  Ann Bailey, the 74 year old owner of the lamb explained that the toy lamb had been given to her when she was one year old. She treasured the toy her whole life long.  But a couple of decades ago, her Irish setter puppies had gotten a hold of the lamb and they had ripped the toy apart. –Ann seemed rather embarrassed that her dogs had destroyed the antique, and she did not seem hopeful at all as she left the stuffed animal with the soft toy specialists.

          The two seamstresses very carefully started to disassemble the lamb stitch by stitch.  By carefully measuring the still remaining stomach panel, the two women back figured the approximate dimensions of the back and sides of the lamb parts that were missing and they designed a custom pattern that would integrate well with the remaining parts.  Once they had everything pulled apart, they carefully and delicately washed and dried all of the antique pieces and then they created a felt backing for all of the pieces, old and new, and did a test fit to make sure that everything would fit together.  The final step was to sew together the lamb integrating the old pieces of cleaned fabric with a new fabric that they had found that matched exceptionally well.  A new wire frame was added to give the lamb the structure to be able to stand up and they carefully stuffed the toy so that it would be firm and plump but still soft enough to be hugged.  The two craftswomen finished off their restoration by replacing the yellow buttercup that used to be in the lamb’s mouth and by putting a beautiful new blue ribbon around the creamy white lamb’s neck. 

          When Ann Bailey came back to retrieve her lamb she had great hopes for what she would find, but she was not prepared to see her lamb completely restored with a classic blue ribbon around it’s neck.  “It’s amazing! It almost looks real!” She cried. And she reached out and grabbed and hugged her old childhood lamb hard, rubbing the lambs face against her cheek.  Her smile lit up her face and for a moment you could see the little girl that she once was, peeking through in the joy in her eyes and her smile.  As the two master craftswomen detailed all of their careful repairs to the owner, she admired every detail of her old lamb friend.  One of the last scenes of Ann Bailey is of her leaving the antique barn with her completely restored lamb under her arm.  Wearing a pretty spring green dress and white sweater, the grandmother actually skips a few steps with her lamb in her hands, lost in the memories of how she used to play with her cherished childhood friend.  Her treasured and cherished stuffed lamb that had been ripped apart had been born again into a new life.

          Many of us are like that antique stuffed lamb.   We are covered with grime and the dirt from our frail lives and all of the mistakes that we have made in the past.  We show the wear of our years and some of us have had our souls ripped apart by the dogs of trouble that have hounded us.  But that is not the end of our story.  We are not some antique that sits forgotten in a corner.  We are the beloved children of God and if we will allow it, God is waiting for our permission to take us apart completely to wash us and to repair us and to put us back together again.  May that God who loves us fill us all with joy, hope, love and peace and may we skip like a child again with the filling of the Holy Spirit. So be it. Amen. 

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Shedding

January 01, 2022
Shedding by  Rev. Karen Fitz La Barge

Eph 4:22 – 24 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

The week after Christmas seemed to me to be a good time to go through ALL of my clothes and to get organized!  In the fall, I had gone through all of my sweaters and I had given several boxes of them away. The result was that my sweaters were still all nicely organized and neatly stored on shelves in my closet. This winter I could easily find and wear my favorite sweaters and cardigans. I really liked that.

But unfortunately, it had been a very long time since I had done a complete reassessment of all of the other clothing items that I owned. As I started getting into the project, I was shocked at just how many items I had crammed into the hanging part of my closet. There were even some shirts in there that were not actually hanging up any more. They had slipped off their hangers and were now just wedged in between the other shirts!

 In addition to the closet, I also have a tall dresser that was packed full of clothes.  My husband then reminded me that I also had four big black totes of items that I had stored away in the attic, and that there were a bunch of, “Summer” things that I had tucked into the back of the front hall closet. –It was all embarrassingly obvious that I had stored away far too much.  This project was not going to be a one-day task!

As I went through every single item, trying on each one, I was often distracted by how many of the items brought back memories. I found the linen jacket with the decorative coral trim that I had bought for a job interview in 2006, and the elegant black and white jacket that I wore when I was ordained as a Minister of Word and Sacrament in 2005.  Digging deep into the black storage totes from the attic, I found the sweatshirts that I wore when I worked for the American Red Cross in the 1990’s.  Along with the sweatshirts, I also found the 1980’s pleat fronted brown houndstooth patterned pants that I had purchased in a thrift store!


While some of the items that I found during my project still fit my body and still looked great, I often had to ask myself if that item was really still “me” anymore.  –I had to assess who I was now and where I was now and what sort of clothes I wanted and needed to keep and utilize.  While I decided that keeping a few of the stranger items on hand for costuming purposes was ok, I still had to make a lot of decisions about letting go of who I was in the past in order to make some room for who I am becoming in the future.  

Sorting through all of my clothes was much like the type of spiritual assessments that we frequently do at the beginning of the year.  As the new year begins, we should ask ourselves who we are now, and who do we want to be in 2022?  We may question our priorities and our relationships, and if we are honest with ourselves, we may take the time to do a little thinking about the actual purpose of our lives here on this planet.

 Who are you in 2022?  Are you today making the decisions and living the life that you want to be remembered for at your funeral? What are your relationships with God and with other people like? Are you part of a church community that is working on spreading the love of Jesus and making this world a better place for others?

As we stride into 2022, with all of its many challenges; today I invite you to shed the things about your life that you want to leave in the past and to make room in your life for the stuff that really matters today. –You may just find that some things in your life do not fit you anymore.  You don’t need to hang on to those things. Just say goodbye and let them go. Then open your heart to all the new adventures that God has in store for you. They may just look great on you.

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What Did You GIVE this Christmas?

What did you GIVE this Christmas? 12/7/2020 Rev. Karen Fitz La Barge

There once was a man who was poor in coin, but rich with the gift of three daughters.  As the years went on with the man barely making enough to feed and clothe his family, he knew the usual way of things was for his daughters to find husbands and marry.  But unfortunately, the custom at the time was to provide your daughter with a dowry to both entice a prospective groom and to provide some sort of financial security for the new couple.  Without a vineyard or an orchard or even a cow to give away as a dowry, the poor man knew that the unfortunate financial future of his girls was for them to either be sold as slaves or to turn to prostitution, futures that would break any man’s heart for the daughters that he loved.  Fortunately, the good bishop of Myra heard about this sad situation, and one night, he went for a walk past the poor man’s house.  The bishop suddenly paused and then he threw a bag of gold coins through a window. The gold landed in a stocking that had been washed and hung up to dry.  In the morning, the girl found the very generous but anonymous gift in her sock and she was overjoyed. Her father was relieved at this turn of fortune and soon his daughter was happily married. With worry, the father looked at his two remaining daughters, wondering what their fates would be. But the poor man needed not to fret.  Twice more, generous dowries of gold found their way through the open window to land in the girl’s shoes or stockings. While Bishop Nicholas never revealed that it was he who had provided the secret gifts, the people reasoned out that he was the only suspect with the knowledge, the means and the temperament to do such a generous thing. 

          Nicholas was born around 270 AD in Patara in Asia Minor, now the southern coast of Turkey.  His parents were wealthy Christians, but they died in an epidemic while Nicholas was very young.  Raised by his uncle who was an Abbot, Nicholas, even though he had inherited his parent’s vast wealth, tried to live out his faith by helping the poor. He was a just young monk when he was elected to become the Bishop of Myra.  Ancient documents tell us that Nicholas participated in the historic council of Nicaea in 325 AD, and there are records of his significant role in unifying the theology of the early church.  Nicholas was a Bishop who was very involved in the lives of the people.  He was instrumental in commuting the sentences of people in jail and also in defending the falsely accused.  He especially delighted in being generous anonymously.

After his death, the Catholic Church declared him a Saint and established December 6th as his feast day.  For centuries around the world, children would put out their shoes on the night December 5th hoping for gifts and sweets to be placed in their shoes in memory of St. Nicholas generosity.

            This Christmas season, instead of focusing on what we are going to GET for Christmas, we instead should focus on what we are going to GIVE. Instead of just buying luxuries for our families, will we help our neighbors who need even basic life necessities?  Because Jesus Christ came to this earth as a baby and generously gave up everything for us, we too are called this Christmas to generously give. May our perspective change this season as we each ask ourselves, “What did you GIVE this Christmas?”

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1st Day of Lent

The First Day of Lent.

Brittany sat in her car outside of the church.  The Ash Wednesday service was over and it was now Lent.  She peeked into the mirror on her visor and saw the dark smudge of ashes on her brow.  The shape of a cross and it stood out harshly against her winter white complexion. She bit her lip in thought. Before she started her short drive home, she wanted to think about the service a bit.

The service had been in three parts.  The first part was an opportunity to reconcile herself with God. She mused about that. She loved her church, she loved the people there and the music, but it was true that she had not been making it to worship very much lately. She told herself that she had just gotten distracted with everything else in her life. –Sure, she was up and awake by 11 am on Sunday mornings. But then she realized that it wasn’t her busy life that kept her out of church on Sundays, it was her video game habit.  It was too easy to just keep playing and let the time that she needed to get out the door slip on by for another week. She felt convicted as she sat there in her car with her phone in her hands. She whispered her apology to God and dedicated herself to attending church again. After all, some of the Jr. High School kids really looked up to her and needed her. Being someone to talk to about school stuff was really important. She remembered how tough Middle School could be.

Brittany’s mind then turned to the second part of the service.  That had been about reconciliation with others. In her hands was a blue 3×5 card where she had written the name of her sister Madison.  The worship attendees had been encouraged to take some time to write a note of reconciliation with someone. She had gotten as far as writing her sister’s name, and then she had stopped.  What would she say? They currently weren’t even speaking to each other. They had gotten into a huge fight about her sister’s boyfriend. –She still didn’t think he was treating Madison very well. But not speaking to each other wasn’t going to make things better.  She pulled up her sisters phone number and typed up a short text, “I am sorry for what I said, Madison.  Can we get together to talk?” Holding her breath, she sent the text out with a prayer. Perhaps this first step would help.

The final part of the service had been about reconciliation with yourself. The pastor had encouraged everyone to write down what they were going to give up this year for Lent or what they were going to take on. While Brittany at first had thought about giving up carbs for Lent and doing the Keto diet again; she had quickly moved past that idea to something that she had done in the past that had been so valuable to her. She used to go running in the morning and she used to pray while her feet automatically kept the pace. She remembered how great she felt afterward, to have that quiet peace of her body and mind and spirit all in harmony.  Her fears and all her concerns had all been left in God’s hands, and the rest of the day had felt open to a million possibilities. No matter what would come her way at work or with her family and friends, it seemed that she could handle it better if she had that morning run with God. 

With her mind made up and already planning her tomorrow, Brittany put her car into gear and drove off into the darkness. Tomorrow was the first day in Lent, and she was definitely going to get some things back on track. She was really looking forward to it!

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The Cracks in My Walls

The Cracks in My Walls 11/4/2019

Rev. Karen Fitz La Barge

I have been doing a lot of painting lately, the painting of walls. Over the last several weeks, I have been immersed in French Colony, a sophisticated grey-blue. I have stirred up two cans of Sand Castle, a creamy latte tan and I have painted trim in a custom white color that is actually very close in tonality to Polar Bear. The boldest color in the palette though was Aqua Fresca, a very striking turquoise that was inspired by someone either gazing over the Caribbean seas or captivated by the rich tones in the most exquisite piece of Native American jewelry.  

But even as I spread these lovely colors on my paint trays, rollers, brushes, hair and shoes; I did also manage to apply most of it to the walls, which was of course, my primary goal. –But that did not mean that everything I painted turned out picture perfect. No matter how many times that I painted over it, the cracks in the walls could not be healed by my careful application of paint. There was definitely a gap there, and even though I hoped that my well loaded paint roller could hide the glaring emptiness, no matter how many times that I went back over the spot, it would still be a crack in the wall, a wicked long black line that anyone with eyes could see. –It reminded me of the broken relationships in my life, the people that I had separated from over the years. There are folks from my past that I have never been able to reconcile with. And those old wounds, like the cracks in the walls, are still very visible if you look in the right places.

There were other places too where my walls bore witness to my poor attempts at a slip shod repair job. In those places, while the paint did not fall away into a gap, it did however highlight in bright tones the bumps and the ridges of the scars that remained after I badly tried to fix relationships that were broken. My faults were not glaring, but they were not very pretty either, and even two coats of paint did not hide those mistakes of my past from clearly showing up in the middle of the wall. 

 The most wonderful section of the walls however, where those who were repaired or completely replaced by the Master Craftsman. In those places in the house of my soul, expert hands with eternal scars had taken away all of the troubling broken pieces and had smoothed away all the faults and ridges. Those huge new sections of drywall soaked up the primer and the paint like a child soaks up love. In those places, the colors on the walls were simply beautiful. They softly reflected the light in all of their semi-gloss glory. Those walls were not only made whole, they were made new. The beauty of the colors, both sophisticated and strikingly bold all shone in the way that they were designed to. It was a spectacular thing to see.

In the evenings, as I rinsed out my brushes and hammered shut the paint cans, I gave thanks to God for all of the gifts that I had been given and for the beauty and the joy that comes from a job well done.  But most of all, I was grateful for Jesus, the Master Craftsman who patiently patches me up again and again and who offers to fix all the deepest cracks in my life that I have so stubbornly try to paint over and ignore. He comes and stands there, with his tools in his hands and with love in his eyes, asking me gently if I am now finally ready for him fix those ugly spots in my walls that he definitely already knows about. With my slow nod of permission, he goes to work as I sigh in resignation. This process of fixing all of the cracks in my walls is going to take a great deal of energy, time and patience. But I know that in the end it will all be eternally worth it.

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Try Something New

Try Something New
Rev. Karen Fitz La Barge 1/9/2019

Recently, my family and I went out to eat and we decided to try out a, “new to us” restaurant.  We all love Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai food, but we each have our favorite dishes that we tend to order over and over again.  My daughter is a big fan of green curry.  My husband likes to challenge his palate with eye watering spice levels.  My favorite is a certain Vietnamese comfort food dish called, Bun Tom Thit Nuong Cha Gio.  But this evening we were all feeling kind of in a rut with our usual food places and so together we hopped into the car and decided that we wanted to go on a bit of a culinary adventure.  

Since we all like sushi, the restaurant that we unanimously decided to try out was a Poke place. – A restaurant where they put all of your favorite sushi ingredients together in a bowl and dress them with a mysterious sauce.  At the ordering counter, I looked over the menu with a bit of trepidation. — I wasn’t entirely sure that I was going to like what they were offering.  It was risky to try something that I had never ordered before.  But I was here for the very reason that I had decided that I was going to try something new.  One entrée caught my eye.  It had marinated ahi tuna, avocado, cucumber, sweet onion, mango, wasabi, pickled ginger, seaweed salad, spicy mayo and shoyu sauce.  Many of these ingredients were familiar to me, I already knew that I liked tuna and avocado and mangos.  But I wasn’t sure that I was going to like them all put together in this new way! 

I gathered my courage together and I ordered it, but I made sure that I had plenty of water on hand for when it arrived.  Since the dish involved seafood, this was not going to be a cheap experiment.  After the bowls arrived, we said a quick prayer with our forks and chop sticks hanging in the air.  We should not have worried.  The Poke was absolutely delicious.  Someone had the creativity and the boldness to take many good tasting ingredients and to mix them together in a brand new and wonderful way and we were completely blessed by it.  All we needed to do was to take a risk and to try something new.

In this New Year, it is a good time for all of us to look at our faith lives and to take some of the best and most loved ingredients of our days and to try do something new with them.  –Perhaps you like to sit in quiet prayer and meditation; or maybe you like to sing along to inspirational songs.  It could be that this is the year that you want to volunteer to lead something new at your church or work to revitalize a ministry that is important to you.  Whatever things that you find good and valuable for your life of faith and spiritual balance, what ever practices feed your eternal soul and your loving relationship with Christ, I would invite you to try to incorporate them into your weeks in a new and intentional way.  This New Year, try something spiritually new.  You may find out that you really do indeed like it.

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Free Childcare

3/27/2017 Rev. Karen Fitz La Barge

Kayla and James stood together in the doorway of their 3 year old’s bedroom.  It was, for once, blessedly quiet.  Their eyes moved over the plethora of items scattered all over the floor.  Stuffed animals, duplo blocks, plastic dinosaurs, trucks, board books, balls, socks, and happy meal toys were all sprawled without dignity where they were last dropped or thrown.  Some were items that had been lost at least once that long Saturday.  The instigator of all of this chaos was finally and completely asleep.  One small hand still gripping a green crayon, the other grabbing the covers, his bangs hair curling on his temple in darkened sweat; his breathing low and gentle.  Asleep, Mason looked far too innocent to be the cause of all of this trouble.  But here it was, 11:38 pm and Kayla and James had finally won the three and a half hour battle to put their young son to bed.  –They both were completely exhausted.  Kayla looked up to find her husband James looking at her.  He motioned with his head for them to leave.  As silently as possible they shut the door and slipped quietly down the stairs to the other end of the house where they were able to have a conversation that would not wake Mason up again. This meant standing together in the laundry room. “We can’t keep living like this.” Reasoned James.  “We need some help”, he continued.  “I don’t know what to do.” Said Kayla, interrupting and repeating back the same phrase that she had been saying for the last six months.  James, this time surprised her with a new line. “What we need is a community.  Your parents are not around here, and mine certainly aren’t either.  What we need is something like a group of grandmas and grandpas who have been through this before who can tell us what will work.”  “Or some moms who are going through this same phase, but have figured out a better way.” Kayla added.  They both were silent for a minute as they thought. The smell of detergent and fabric softener curled through the air.  “What was the name of those retired teacher friends of your mom’s?  The ones that she said were great with kids?”  “Mike and Debbie” Kayla replied. Then she added more hesitantly,  “Mom said that they go to the Presbyterian Church and that we could connect with them there.”  “Church. huh.” Pondered James.  Kayla looked up hopefully. “Are you really considering going to a Church?  You said that if they couldn’t prove things scientifically, you wouldn’t believe it.”  “Well, I am ready to believe that Mason could use a dose of morality!  He bit me today, twice.  I think it is going to bruise.  How is he ever going to be able to go to school if he doesn’t learn how to get along with other kids?”  James flashed his forearm with two sets of perfect bite marks in front of Kayla.  She glanced up from her phone to see his arm, and made a sympathetic face, but ignored it.  “It says here on their website that church is at 10:45 am tomorrow. Nursery care is provided.”  “Really?”  Said James.  “Free childcare? ”  “Yup. During church nursery care is free.  And hey, look they even have a Mom’s group that meets on Monday mornings at 10:30.”  “Let’s try it.” Said James. “If they are the Christian community that they are supposed to be, maybe we can get some support or at least some good parenting advice.”  “I am sure that we can.” Said Kayla.  “Hey, while we are in here, let’s start some laundry, so that we have something clean to wear to church tomorrow.” “Ok” said James, “But I am not wearing a tie and that isn’t negotiable!”  “I am sure that ties in church are optional.”

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Mitch the “Angel Wing” Goose

Our flat-roofed fixer-upper house is located on a small lake. Every year we watch a new spring flock of baby geese grow from excited balls of fuzz to awkward and indolent teens by midsummer and turn into mostly disciplined young flyers eager to migrate south in the fall.

In 2011, one gosling was deformed.  His wrist joints twisted and his wings stuck out like an airplane.  The syndrome is called, “Angel Wings” and there is no cure. I named the afflicted young male goose, “Mitch”.

In early fall, as Mitch’s siblings quickly learned to madly flap, take running steps off the bank, launch themselves into the air and fly, Mitch splashed again and again into the lake.  His father and siblings took turns running next to him, honking their encouragement.  But Mitch  just couldn’t do it.  As the gander advanced the rest of the flock to taking flight from the water, Mitch’s mother kept working with him individually, but Mitch’s trajectory always went down instead of up.

By Thanksgiving when they usually migrated, there was great disharmony in the flock. The gander was taking the brood on longer test flights away from the lake, but his mother refused to leave young Mitch alone. Finally after two days of loud argumentative honking in mid December, the flock left the lake, leaving the young deformed goose all by himself in the rapidly freezing water.  As it started snowing, the sad young goose took refuge under a neighbors deck by their blue paddle boat. –And  I researched where to buy cracked corn.

But the next morning , I couldn’t find him. Mitch was gone. During the long months of winter we wondered what happened to Mitch. We shouldn’t have worried. In the spring, a fat and happy Mitch suddenly appeared back on our lake, welcoming his parents and siblings back home with joyful honks.  A later report from one of our neighbors was that Mitch had overwintered with a flock of ducks on a nearby creek that typically flowed all winter.  Unable to fly to a winter haven,  Mitch had walked there instead!  He had a plan the whole time.  (This story appeared in the online version of Presbyterians Today. Summer of 2015 and ended here.)

In Celtic Christianity, the Wild Goose is used as a symbol for the Holy Spirit. While many of us think of the Holy Spirit as a dove, our Scottish spiritual ancestors knew better.  Geese are creatures that live in community.  –While a pair of doves will be off on their own building their nest only in the quietest of areas, geese live in a flock and will live and work together their whole lives. For example, when geese go to an area to forage for food, one goose will not lower their head to eat.  Their job instead is to stand up straight and to keep looking around keeping an eye out for the next thing to happen to them.   After the flock eats for a while another goose will take up the watch position and allow that former guard goose a turn to eat.   This unique sentinel behavior in geese has been noticed and exploited. The Romans often used flocks of geese as watchdogs.  Their system of always having one goose on duty, scanning the horizon proved to be not only beneficial to the lives of the geese, but to the humans who allied themselves with the flock.

At the Scottish Iona community, where the symbol of the  Wild Goose is prominently used for the Holy Spirit, there is a phrase that often accompanies the image of a wild goose.  The phrase is “Where there is no vision, the people perish”.   To me this brings to mind that one sentinel goose, keeping a lookout for the next thing to come around the corner.  It means keeping an eye out for what the next thing is.    As a flock guided by the Holy Spirit, let us pay attention to what is happening around us.  Let us be prepared with a plan for when our winter comes.   Let’s have a vision of where we are going to go and what we are going to do with the people and the potential that surrounds us.  –For if a simple goose can do that, so can we.

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What is your purpose in life?

This is an experiment.  A Lenten Experience Experiment.
–Over the next 40 days of Lent, I plan to ask 40 different people the question,
“What is your purpose in life?” 
–And then to post their answer along with their picture.  Here is Day One:

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“To Succeed.” –Alyssa
(A new friendly server at Far East Restaurant on Clyde Park in Grand Rapids.)

 

(This project was inspired by the blog Humans of New York.)

 

 

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The Rose Garden

11-5a_labarge_magic-show.jpgGod promised me a rose garden. In my head I had envisioned long winding paths of immaculate lawns where around each corner was a glimpse of heaven renewed. I could picture it. I could visualize it. It would be perfect! I would walk there, inhaling the strong perfume of roses of every color, size and type imaginable while singing and rejoicing at the goodness of God to me and the beauty of this wonderful and amazing creation.
But then I started working in this garden that I had been given. I found out quickly that it was an old rose garden with a long history. There were generations of memories there in its long walls and solid embankments. There were still remnants of many statues and other garden wonders. Many of these were broken, neglected and long abandoned. Old waterways that were once flowing and free and designed to echo with ripples of pouring delight were now plugged up and stagnant with debris. Garden pathways were overgrown and some were completely gone or impassable. Flower beds that used to be packed with blooms now held one or two bushes of very hardy heritage.
And on the very roses that held the promise of so much magnificent beauty there were terrible and sharp thorns. Working in this garden was a place of pain. My hands reaching out to help and repair were repeatedly pierced, my side torn, and my brand new shirt was ripped and ruined. My blood flowed and the sharp thorns would stay under my skin troubling me for days and weeks on end. Out of self preservation, I would pull back, my careful attempts to tie up and support the canes and to care for the blooms was met with stinging prickers on every side. The long gloves that I had been issued to work in the garden were clumsy, outdated and almost useless. I was constantly finding that they were getting in the way of what needed to be done. I often took them off and left them lying on the path and tried instead to do my work more cleverly and carefully with just my tools and my bare hands.
And then there was the continual invasion of weeds. –I would never be finished with them! The pulling and yanking things up, often with one hand and other times with two. Some of the roots of the weeds were very deep. When I got to the wayward mulberry bush my attempts to pull it up made me fall on my butt, sprawling with the indignity of it all and sputtering in anger. As I got up, I dropped my handfuls of mulberry leaves, and went in search of a good strong shovel. With much sweating and groaning, the leafless spindly stalk finally came up. All around me there was a pile of misplaced dirt, and the whole corner of the garden was in complete upheaval. The root that was dangling from the bottom of my fist was longer than the bush was tall. It had obviously grown there for a long time, from the many years before even before I had even thought of walking in this garden. I moaned as I spied yet another mulberry bush. This rose garden was going to be a terrific amount of work!
Then the Japanese beetles arrived and began their festival. They were eating the centers out of the blooms. Their sleek bronzed backs shimmered and glowed as they trampled on the blossoms, and fornicated openly with each other. Where there was one, there were soon a hundred. I patiently tried to shake them off of the roses, going after them one by one. My little can of water and soap was filled with their crawling, seething mass, and still they came –ignoring my puny attempts to stop their culture of consumption and their destruction of the very hearts of my roses.
I also desperately needed to prune. Dead branches stood out stark and brown amid the fragile new growth of green leaves. My hands ached from the use of the heavy shears. The pruning saw gave me blisters as I worked and cut at a terrible angle sprawled in the dirt at the base of one big old stubborn bush. I begin to doubt what I was doing. How could I ever get all of that dead wood out? Will this garden die back faster than I can care for it? I struggled on. I watered, I fertilized, I sprayed and I worried. The garden grew and died and then lived and bloomed and then wilted again. Why was this happening? Why wasn’t it working? I sat down on a bench and put my head in my hands and simply cried. How would I ever have a beautiful rose garden? This one was such a complete and total mess.
And then I felt a presence behind me. Loving hands were placed on my shoulders and a kind voice called out my name. I knew who this was. It was the Master Gardener. I was so ashamed that the garden was not all perfect and beautiful and completely finished. It certainly wasn’t good enough yet to be seen. I couldn’t bear to face the Master Gardener. I stared straight ahead at my garden that wasn’t worthy to be viewed by anyone at all. Then I tried to explain,
” I am so sorry that the garden looks like this. There is too much to do here. And of the few roses that are left, the beetles are destroying every bloom, and there are way too many weeds and there are all of those terrible mulberries with their long deep roots and now there is black spot killing so many of the roses as well. I have tried everything that I know how to do, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference at all. — Master, I give up. I can’t do anything with this garden. It is too far gone. I can’t save it.”
The Master Gardener laughed quietly with love. “It isn’t your job to save it. That is my job. Your call is to simply care for the garden that I have given you. –To care for it the best that you can.”
As I sat there in silent despair on the bench, my eye caught the dark shadow of another Japanese beetle flying into another small sweet emerging bloom in order to have his lunch. –It was all just too much to take, and I cried out in protest.
“But I have cared for your Garden, Master!” I cried. “I have fought beetles and worked and sweated and pulled weeds and sprayed for diseases and sacrificed so much here for years and years. I have tried so hard to restore this place! But this garden looks nothing at all like the amazing garden that it used to be. I will never again get it to look like it did back in it’s glory years.”
The tender voice continued, and I felt the Master Gardeners hand smoothing my hair. ” You are right about that, my child. You cannot make this garden exactly like the picture of what it once was. In fact, you should not even try. A garden is a living and growing thing, and it changes with the wind and rain and it grows with time. It is different now than it was before, and it will be different again tomorrow. You cannot step in the same river twice and you cannot live in yesterdays garden, today. You are to take what is given to you here and with those old pieces, with these plants that are left, every day work with them to create something new.”
Feeling reprimanded, I slumped down further on the bench and stared at my hands. There was dirt under my fingernails and scratches that were both new and half healed. I had calluses now in places that I didn’t before, and there were fresh green stains on both of my thumbs. My hands were much different than when I had started working in the garden. I held up my hands to show them to the Master.
“But I have been working to create something. All of my work is seemingly for nothing. I quit! I’m done! I have done everything that I know how to do and this old garden of yours isn’t even close to being finished yet! ”
“My child, you will never be “finished” with your work, since there is yet no end of the evil beetles and the disease that come to attack and destroy my beautiful creation. There will always be another mulberry bush growing in the wrong place, choking out the light and stealing all the nutrients from the beautiful rose bushes. Your job is to be faithful, my child.”
At this point, the Master Gardener took hold of both of my up stretched hands and pulled me onto to my feet. I found myself pulled around and staring into the wise gentle eyes filled with love for both me and for this old garden.
“My child, what you need is to have just have a little bit of faith. All you need is a little bit of faith, no bigger than a tiny little mustard seed. You don’t need enough faith for the next year, the next week or for even the next day. You just need to have enough faith to help get you through the next minute. To get up every day and to do the work that is laid out in front of you right now. Your job is to be the caretaker of the garden that I have given to you today. –The place that I have placed you in now. Work in love to create something beautiful today, and all of the work of your days will grow together to create a new garden, and a new place of joy and delight.”
I bowed my head at the wisdom of my Master Gardener and looked down at my hands that were being held so gently. The scratches on my hands had been healed, and the stains and dirt were now nowhere to be seen. The calluses remained. Somehow I knew that they were both a testament to the work that I had done and would serve as protection for the work that I still had left to do.
“Even though you have worked so very faithfully, there is still more work that I need you to do. Prepare a feast to celebrate and to give thanks for this beautiful garden that I have given you to work in. Take joy in what you have created and grown here already and tomorrow take up your mustard seed of faith and work each minute at the task that is right in front of you.”
With these words, the Master Gardener hugged me and held me close, and then let me go with a blessing. And the sun shown down on the roses and the mulberry bushes, and the beetles buzzed and flew as a faint heavenly scent of roses found its way down the scattered paths and embankments. It was a beautiful rose garden, both yesterday, today and tomorrow. My work was in front of me. The never ending work of the garden, and the joyful work of celebrating and enjoying how much has already been done. I had better stop sitting and get started. After all, the Master Gardener had given me a beautiful rose garden.
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