Windowsill Gardening and the Nourishing Soil We Need

We've been growing several plants on the sweet girl's windowsill this spring. Right now she has a small plastic green house with impatiens (which frustrate her patience by their refusal to bloom!) and a pot with a lima bean plant which is flourishing.

We also have a medium sized pot with a grass plant. Yes, I said grass. Now the funny thing about this grass is that it was originally planted near the end of S' preschool year when she was four, so we've had it for two years. They uprooted a bit of grass and planted it in a plastic cup in her preschool classroom and she brought it home. We watered it faithfully for months and it grew pretty well, but the size of the cup limited how big it could get. Eventually, a few months ago, I realized belatedly that the poor grass plant was looking pretty peaked...pale leaves, drooping. The reason was obvious. Through the clear plastic of the cup, you could see the deep root structure which had become quite long and tangled up. The poor plant was reaching for deeper soil, deeper roots, but it had run out of space and richness.

So we transplanted the pale bit of grass this spring, right around Easter time. I know it was Easter because I borrowed the soil from the potted tulip plants we'd bought at church, in memory of D's grandparents. I wasn't sure how wise it was to borrow soil that had already been "used" and had other plant roots in it, but it was handy and the dirt still looked so rich and I hated to waste it. I also wasn't convinced that the grass plant would make it anyway, so figured we had nothing to lose.

Imagine our surprise when the plant immediately perked up and began to grow like gangbusters! It's doubled (maybe tripled?) its size, and become a gorgeous vibrant green. A few weeks ago it suddenly shot out a long, skinny shoot. Looked sort of weedy, but we let it keep going, curious, especially when it seemed to be launching another bit of grass at the end of the shoot. And then this week, much to the sweet girl's delight, the shoot BLOOMED! Tiny little white flowers, like slender stars, opening out from the shoot.

All of this makes me think about our spiritual lives. How often, I wonder, are we ready to deepen, ready to really push our roots deeper down so that we can grow, only to discover we don't have enough nourishing soil? Part of the richness of our daily disciplines is the way they help to break down/build up the soil that we need. We might think of our "daily grind" but it's a "grinding" that helps to take the stuff of our lives and works it into rich soil that helps us grow. Maybe it really isn't a coincidence that "human" and "humus" (the root word for "earth" or "soil") seem so closely related! We can't expect to make even a sudden spurt, much less sustain growth over a long time or manage to bloom, without being surrounded by the nourishing soil we need. Our roots need a real place to deepen, and our daily disciplines help God make that space and soil in our lives.