The Spiritual Discipline....of Composting?

Well dear reader, yes, the spiritual discipline of composting.  What on earth is that! (You might be thinking).  I remember reading Henry Nouwen's Genesee Diary and being amazed at the way God would teach him through daily, mundane tasks at the monastery.  The little things that he saw God in - I looked at that and thought, "wow, to be that 'spiritual' or close to God or whatever".  Well, let me just tell you, God finds the funniest things sometimes to reveal truth to us. And for me this weekend it was my pile of decomposing greens out in the compost heap. I think a spiritual discipline is something that we enter into for the sake of purposing to know Jesus better.  For example fasting points us to our dependence on him and creates space where we listen and know Jesus more. So why not composting?

I'm very new to composting, pretty green you might say (haha).  My composting lecturer (yes, I did attend a composting lecture that was fantastic by the way) did mention that summer composting in Phoenix can be tricky. So the composting isn't going as smoothly as I imagined my greens and coffee grounds turning into lovely sweet smelling compost. But hey, good things are growing out of it.  Composting is hard work in the summer; I break a good sweat turning that heap routinely.  I'm attempting hot composting where the internal breaking down the the materials and the right combination of elements create this fantastic heat and result in a the nutrient rich stuff for the garden later (at least that is the idea).

So let me try to set this up for you: On my counter is a green ceramic collecting canister for the compost materials from my kitchen.  In the top of the lid is this black charcoal filter that is suppose to help with the smell.  So Saturday night I was at a fabulous concert singing my lungs out to Jesus.  He was telling me all sorts of truth and bestowing gracious freedom as we worked through some stuff there.  And as I looked up at the ceiling in this place, well it looked a lot like the inside of the compost canister lid and I had this thought, "Huh! I'm in the compost bin!" and then came the truth part

I was someone else's refuse, rejected and thrown away; seen to have no purpose.  To them I was not good enough, I had nothing they valued.  But Jesus sees it differently.  He scooped me up and put me in His compost bin.  Things get broken down in there. And if it's a good mix, they really aren't recognizable anymore when they emerge because they've been transformed  He's working it, turning it, sometimes letting it get hot.  But when He is finished, what once was someone else' broken and discarded trash will bring life to the rest of the garden.  


So now every time I put something in the collecting canister, or take the whole thing out and add it to the bin out back, or I struggle to turn the pile, I will think of the glorious thing that God is doing. That he had different plans for me and that His work will pay off.

I get really excited about composting, even though I'm pretty terrible at it.  But God's a master Gardener and since I don't have to be perfect, I laugh at my efforts and smile with a dirt smudged face at my Father and rejoice that He's making beautiful things.

A Story

 (Just wanted to share with you a picture that God revealed to me recently in exposing some things in my heart and showing me how He is saving me.  I hope that you see His grace in this and realize His amazing love)

Sweet smelling, freshly turned earth cool and damp beneath bare feet.  Daylight is just coming.  All is still.  It is quiet and faint gray light reveals a soft fog hanging over the gardens.  Lush beautiful gardens, some bursting with blossoms, others laden with juicy globular fruits just at the cusp of perfection.  There are those where amid the toiled ground little seeds are just beginning to sprout, and in others, amid aged tendrils and cragged old trees the bright green buds of delicate green leaves are just appearing against the weathered bark.  But in this particular spot of earth, there is only turned up dry soil.  Something grew here once - something once treasured. 

Here in this valley there is Gardener who give to each a plot of earth; a small garden of their own, to tend and nourish.  A place to get some dirt under fingernails and feel the grass squish between toes.  And there is nothing that delights Him more than to come and garden alongside, to lend His expert hand under which even the hardest of soil brings forth graceful blooms. 

This place of earth- this empty upturned plot.  “This had been my garden!” screamed my bitter soul.  Through my tears and furrowed brow, my clenched teeth and shaking fist, I blamed the Gardener. “For years I tended to it, sacrificed for it.  Didn’t I do it for You even (or so I claimed)!!!  How dare you come and rip out all that I toiled over and gave my life to!”  I crossed my arms and stuck out my lip to pout.

The memory of that day racing through my mind:  I saw myself nourishing the tendrils of a vine, clearing some dead leaves away from a fresh sprout. I thought to myself, “I was doing a good job.  My garden was growing much faster than many of the others.  But the Gardener never would praise my garden like I’d overhear Him do to others” whined my self-righteous heart.  “When he walked by, he never came in and helped me work like I saw Him sometimes do in others” and I wrinkled up my nose in determined disdain. 

The images filled my mind again.  That morning when suddenly to my horror, with his great hands the Gardener stormed into my garden and  began to yank apart my garden, going at the roots, striking the earth with his plow he leveled that plot of earth, its surfaced furrowed and open like my broken heart.  My eyes were fixed on the crushed remains of my garden.  Did I not notice?  Could I not see?    

I sat there in the dirt and wept.  Through blazing sun and torrents of rain that would leave me splattered with mud, I moped along.  The Gardener would come by and invite me come work with Him.  “I hate you!” screamed my heart! “How unfair you’ve been!  Why did you do this to me?!” I wouldn’t look Him in the face, “I’ll give Him what He deserves” was what I thought.  “What nerve to offer me a second hand place in someone else’s garden!” I scoffed. 

And so time passed and I lived in the shadow of my ruined garden.   But one day, I don’t what was different, something in the Wind seemed to rouse me from my sleep.  It moved me that morning well before dawn to rise and walk out to the gardens. 

And as I came near to that empty plot, just nearby through the gray, I saw Him.  He was working in a garden I felt I had not noticed in a long time, or that it was so close to mine.  He looked almost weary and sad there in the almost dark, bent over and working.  And as I tried to tiptoe past, for the first time in all that while my eyes met His.  Everything seemed to suck in my breath and I couldn’t move; I couldn’t breath and the world stood still.  He gazed deeply into my heart, and like a spotlight in a cave, Something pierced the hard soil of my soul.

 “Darling”, Oh, He spoke so soft and tender.  I hadn’t realized how much I had longed to hear Him speak to me like that “I’m glad you are here”, He said and a smile turned the corner of His lip.  But I saw tears glisten in His eyes.  I began to feel small and fragile.  And all that I had built up in my mind of who He was fell to pieces and I began to tremble.  “Why…Why did this happen?” I stammered softly dropping my eyes to the ground.

 “Let me show you something, Dear One” He said and slipped His strong arm around my shoulder and moved me to where He had been working.  Oh that touch!  I am glad He moved me for my feet felt rooted there.

 “Here.” He suddenly spoke, stopping in that little garden plot that felt a little familiar for some reason where small sprouts were just peeping out of the carefully tended earth.  “This, was the garden I intended for you”. 

My head shot up in an instant. I looked bewildered at his face.  “You see right there, at the edge of this garden” He pointed and I looked.  There was my little bare patch of dirt all crusty and now appearing harsh and cold.  “I don’t understand” I said, “I..I..just wanted to please  you! Didn’t I?” “Oh Dear One” He smiled a sad but loving smile,” you were an eager little girl.  I loved to watch the fire in you.  When I gave you this garden, oh I remember well...”  and with a happy, dreamy look in His eyes He continued. “You threw your arms around my neck and you twirled about.  So happily you began to prepare the soil.  But the seeds come in season, and you were full of dreams for what your garden would be.  Ah.  Now I had created that garden for you and what would be best for you.  But one day a little sprout, coming up faster, caught your eye. It was there at the edge of the garden” He pointed to a little stone that marked the boundary, and I remembered well seeing that little shoot and being delighted that something was finally growing in my garden. 

“You began to focus so much on that little sprout and others that began to come up nearby.  You diligently watered them.  But you were no longer in the garden I gave you, and you didn’t realize what you were tending”  His gaze firmly held mine and that was the Moment.

There is a feeling that comes after a whirlwind, after a sudden realization.  When suddenly the world seems to stop and center in and grow very still, and something hits your consciousness and knocks the wind out of your understanding.  Everything that you once understood and believed to be reality is tuned over on its head and dumped out on the ground.  And it trickles away and dissolves into the sand in a second shorter than you could imagine; it simply vanishes like the wind.  Everything you held onto, your basis for argument, your claim to being right…it seemed solid! Infallible! Then suddenly for a moment it is mist, a vapor, and now it’s gone.  That is the Moment when you must pause and consider.

 I suddenly realized, as the dawn began to grow lighter,  that what I had been tending was not life- giving trees and fruit and blossoms and vegetables…but deadly weeds and poisonous truffles!  And with my mouth open in shock and a feeling of horror, I realized that for all those years I was tending my way to death, for had the harvest come and I had been allowed to eat the fruit of my toils, I would have died! And as I began to weep, I realized with what great love the Gardener had come that day, knowing I would hate what He did to me,  and ripped death away from me.  I stood and stared at that empty space.  I could feel His loving eyes on me.

 “I’m so sorry” I whispered, “I didn’t tend the garden you gave me”.  I could feel Him smile and he placed his hands on my shoulders and turned me just so slight and gentle.  I realized we were standing in the garden He had given me, and all around I could tell it had been lovingly tended.  The shoots were very small, but someone had been spending hours tending my garden.  My eyes met His with a questioning gaze and He smiled.  “Beloved, so many times I know your heart hoped for me to come to your death-garden and praise the work you were doing.  But I loved you too much to praise your foolishness, and so it is I who have tended your garden, your life-garden.  It is small and young, and much work needs yet to be done. But I will help you, I will teach you, and I will be with you as you tend your garden”.

My shoulders slumped as if I had just let go of a very heavy weight; all that bitterness melted into the earth beneath me.  All that time I never saw, yet blindly thought I did.  And all the while, the Gardener patiently worked.  He gently kissed my head and went back to work.  I stood at the edge between my two gardens for a moment and took a deep breath, and heaved a big sigh.  And will a small shake of my head, and a smile in my heart,  I turned away from that empty plot of earth and faced the rising sun at it burst over the horizon exploding forth in crimson and gold yet it’s light falling so gently on the sprouts in my garden that were just beginning to appear.