Past Easter: New Growth--Carolyn R. Wilker

Easter Sunday is past yet we’re still in the Easter season in our church, a time we consider growth and renewal. It’s fitting that Easter occurs in springtime. At least that’s my take on it, though it may not match in other parts of the globe, with climate and different seasons.

I love watching the garden come to life, with leaves opening, buds on trees and then the early flowers appearing. First the crocuses and later the tulips and daffodils. Cheery yellow daffodils and pink tulips are among my favourites. After the white chill of winter, I’m ready for colour in my garden again. And ready for the season of gardening all over again.

This past week I took some new photos of my flowerbeds and posted several on my Facebook page. Friends say, “Already?” or “Is that this year already?” and I can reply, “Yes, it is.”

Mind you, there are weeds to contend with in spring, shrubs to be cut back and some clean-up to do, but it’s all part of the package of gardening. The lawn got its first haircut, and I’ve pulled some weeds from places. My husband gave the shrubs a seasonal trim; quite a trim, I might add. Lots of room for growth there.

After rooting out the plants that are overgrown or done and replacing them with new ones, I can sit back and enjoy the refreshed garden and watch it grow further. Perennials are the easiest to grow and tend, when the plant is matched to soil and conditions. They flourish in the right place, just as we do.

Making some changes for this year, I’ll dig out a few plants where ants have built a new hill. Those busy little insects have transplanted their home across the sidewalk after we rousted out the old one last year. We have sandy soil, and ants like sand. We may not rid the garden of ants entirely and that’s okay, as long as they don’t take over. My garden will never be perfect lines and precision, only pleasing to the eye and colourful. After all, it is nature which is sometimes a little wild around the edges, just like its caretaker.

I look forward to planting the vegetable garden later this month, hopefully with the help of our two oldest granddaughters who like to dig the holes and water. We’ll have a conversation about the plants we want to grow. They’ll come by to help plant the garden and then, from time to time, for a visit and help to tend the garden—mostly with the watering can. Then we wait and watch until it’s time to harvest whatever we’ve grown.

Think of Jesus’ resurrection and the opportunity of grace that we may start fresh each day in our Christian walk. Like spring and the promise of new growth, like the routing out of things that don’t serve our purpose anymore. Maybe not a brand new purpose, since we may have already believed and hoped in the risen Christ, but a renewal of sorts, like the earth giving forth new life.

www.carolynwilker.ca

photos by C. Wilker

The Extra Effort – Lawrence

What happens when we give that little extra effort to our regular job? What happens when we give out that 110% we hear people speak about sometimes? What happens when we go beyond the call of duty?
One hears, from time to time, whether on the TV news or in the local newspaper, of someone who did just that. The reason it gets noted in the news is that people are surprised by it; surprised that someone makes that extra effort to help another person rather than walking away in case one might get hurt or involved in another’s business. (Sounds a little like the parable that Jesus told of the Good Samaritan, doesn’t it? Luke 10: 33.)

I have seen this extra effort even in nature. In fact, I have seen it this month in one of my indoor plants, which is what made me think about this concept of doing more than is expected of us and the joy that it brings to others. Yes, to answer my earlier question, that is what happens when we do more than is expected of us—it brings joy and happiness to those around us; it gives a lift to the spirits of others.

Now, to my plant story—a few years ago, I knocked a Christmas cactus plant on the floor. It actually survived the ordeal quite well apart from losing some of its earth out of the pot, which I replaced, and breaking off a couple of its leaves. I decided to plant the two leaves into some earth in a small pot and hoped that they would put down some roots. I had to take it on faith that the leaves would produce roots because they were hidden from me, but I knew that they had done so when, after several months, new growth began to sprout out of the tops of the leaves.
Eventually, I put the young plants into a larger pot and, when several years later they grew too big even for this pot, I provided a large pot for each of them.

We call these plants Christmas cacti though, in actual fact, the ones that I have bloom in October. They have beautiful pink blossoms, which grow out of the tops of their leaves. In 2008, all three of these plants bloomed well and were covered all over with healthy pink blossoms for about a month from first sprouting to their final withering and dropping to the floor.

Earlier this month, March 2009, I noticed that one of the plants was producing a bud. It’s true that sometimes they do put out little pink protrusions other than at their normal October blooming time but these usually shrivel up and come to nothing. This bud, of which I am speaking, was definitely showing signs of developing into a mature flower; it was putting forth an extra effort.

It is now almost three weeks until Easter and this one flower on this one leaf of this one Christmas cactus is showing forth, in parable, the glory of Christ’s resurrection.
I pray that all we who are Christians may make the effort to do the same—shouting out our own hallelujahs in our own joyful song.

Even the wilderness and desert will be glad in those days. The wasteland will rejoice and blossom with spring crocuses. Yes, there will be an abundance of flowers and singing and joy! Isaiah 35: 1 & 2, New Living Translation.

© Judith Lawrence
Read and listen to Judith’s monthly meditation on her website at www.judithlawrence.ca