A wonderful image for ourselves is the garden.  Each of us is God’s garden filled with potential to blossom and to show beauty as we listen and respond with grace and compassion. Yet we also can be attacked by any number of bugs, fungi, and weeds that stifle our practice of following the Lord.

Let’s take a look at a few of these.   Weeds are a huge challenge to a gardener.  I’ve discovered that weeds can disguise themselves as the plants they’re growing next to, making them hard to spot, and can eventually crowd out the plant.  In our personal garden, grumbling can cleverly disguise itself as legitimate words that are hard to spot in our conversations.  Yet grumbling is a weed.  What happens when we grumble?  We crowd out our own goodness as we recite a litany of complaints and frustrations, gnawing on them to ourselves with self-satisfied relish or declaring them to someone else in a state of self-righteous justification.  While we chew away, we’re not in the present moment and will most likely miss God’s direction for us.  Grumbling blocks listening and responding.  Be on the alert to recognize and pluck this nasty weed.

We can nourish our garden with acceptance by acknowledging the limits that life has placed on us and live out those limits in love.  We do what we are given to do, accepting that it is the Will of God.  We can view our daily tasks and responsibilities as God’s plan for us and do them in love.  The most holy responsibility is to love one another and to let this love guide our choices and our actions.

A few more important ways to enrich soil:  nourish your garden with fertilizers like respecting people, supporting with patience the weaknesses of others, seeking peace in all you do, and putting the love of Christ before everything else.  (St. Benedict’s Toolbox, Jane Tomaine)

Bloom,