Southern Soil, Precious "Plants"
By Janie Wilkerson
Janie is an elder, teacher, and mom who finds a reason every day to show up at the church. She lives in Franklin, Tennessee, USA.

If you're looking for an authentic spiritual experience these days, here's a tip; try gardening. Believe me, it's full of questioning, seeking, sweating it out, panicking, and finding out what you're really made of, and that's all before your seed packets arrive.

This past summer, our church decided to throw out our "traditional" VBS model (read: weekday mornings, children ages 3-8, volunteer staffed by the ever-vanishing breed: the stay-at-home mom) in favor of a three-evening intergenerational model we called "Summer Nights" because we had to come up with something quick. Pre-planners, we're not. We built the idea around the creation of an organic garden, the produce from which, if any, would go to a local homeless feeding program we support. Can you say, "Leap before you've looked"? Can you say, "Clay plus rocks equals Tennessee soil"? Can you say, "Certifiable?" I knew you could!

Getting the actual permission for the garden site (a mere 14 by 14 feet!) required a virtual act of Congress. This is otherwise known as Presbyterian process…, and then we were off and running. Well, not so much. Removing the sod from the site took seven volunteers nearly three weeks. And since this garden was going to be planted in early July, this meant three weeks of digging in June. Did I mention we're in hot-and-humid Tennessee? Lots and lots of water, sweat, and sunburn later, the sod was gone and it was time to till. In no time (okay, actually in lots more time) we had our garden prepared: nine squares laid out quilt-fashion and walking paths between, with bags and bags of compost mixed in…did I mention the clay and rocks?

The actual seed-sowing was rather anticlimactic. It was done the first evening of Summer Nights by three groups of folks who were by turns reluctant to get their hands dirty, anxious to get in out of the heat, and eager to plant fast so they could head inside for dinner (the next thing on the agenda). The children, of course, were enthusiastic beyond all expectation. And a little child shall lead them… No matter. We had the beginnings of our garden.

I watered that garden twice, and lo and behold, things came up. I'm talking that a plant was technically supposed to grow out of the ground, but good heavens! Who knew it actually worked?

And if you saw it now - well, this garden is just about the prettiest thing you ever saw. Tall sunflowers stretching up next to towering corn; zucchini and yellow squash reaching their leaves all out of their designated spaces, producing vegetables as long and thick as your arm; zillions of little tomatoes sprawling all over everywhere (Stakes? Cages? Who needs 'em?); sweet-smelling herbs and greens lustily sending out new growth every time you prune them back.

We've been harvesting for about three weeks now, and so far we've sent buckets and buckets of produce down to the feeding program. Our parish associate likes to talk about prolifically producing peppers prodigiously poking into the path. It's just crazy. Even waving that giant zucchini around in the pulpit and making Presbyterian jokes about the Zucchini Development Task Force.

And me? Well, I'm continually reminded of the parable of the sower. No matter how inept, careless, or apathetic the planting, God's gonna help those seeds come up. The important thing is to get them into the ground, somewhere, somehow, some way. The kingdom of God can grow up, beyond all our expectations. And the harvest is just amazing!

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