Doing a Dumb Thing

Today I may have done one of the dumbest things I’ve done in a while.  I planted garlic. 

I’ve never grown garlic before but they say the way to grow garlic in northern climates is to plant it in the fall before the ground is frozen.  You plant the cloves about 6 inches deep in the soil and then cover it with dead leaves or other mulch and let it be over winter.  In the spring you remove the mulch and the garlic will sprout and then the bulbs of garlic can be harvested in the summer.

If this winter in the Midwest is going to be anything like “they” are saying it’s going to be (worse than last year), I’m pretty sure that garlic doesn’t have a chance.  Why did I just put perfectly good cloves of garlic into the soil?  This goes against all common sense and logic.  Put something into soil that is going to freeze very soon, be covered with inches and inches of snow for months, and then expect it will grow and flourish in the spring?  Yeah right.

There is so much going up against the garlic: bugs and worms and other critters that may disturb the garlic over the winter, the soon to be frozen ground, feet of snow, sub-zero temperatures for weeks.  And then there are all the challenges the garlic will face in the spring and summer: making sure no one accidently plants something else where the garlic is before it sprouts, getting the right amount of water and sun, weeds, being harvested at the right time, more bugs and other pests. 

And to top it all off, the garlic has absolutely no control over any of these external factors.  It can only do what it can with the environment it is put in.  Honestly I feel really bad for that poor garlic.

And yet garlic was created to do exactly what good sense would tell us it cannot do.  Garlic was designed to withstand and overcome all of what we think would prevent it from growing and developing beautifully.  It was made for this. 

This may sound weird, but I realized as I was putting the garlic into the soil that I have far more in common with that garlic than I ever would have thought: the immense obstacles, patiently waiting for the right time, not being in control, doing what may seem illogical, needing so much and yet so little to develop.  I was made for this.

I really, really hope this garlic story has a happy ending.  

Hope Like Nothing Else

Today I experienced Church, the capital "C" kind of Church.  I don’t mean the buildings where many people gather on Sundays to worship.  Yes, I did spend time in what people think of when they think of “church”, but we don’t always find the “Church” in these buildings and in these buildings is not the only place where we find the “Church.”

What we should think of when we hear “Church” is the vast and hodgepodge group of people around the world who are followers of Jesus.

Today I saw the Church manifest itself as:

• People who stand up and reach out to support each other when it means getting nothing in return and even if it means giving up so much more than they ever bargained for.
• The men and women who preach Truth.  Those people who help us to remember our salvation and challenge us to discover how to respond with abundant love.
• The children who participate in a different yet just as vital role in the Church.  The young ones who more often than not understand better than adults the grace, love, and surrender God asks of God's people.
• The people who aren’t willing to let their relationship with God decay, who seek out every opportunity to enter into a deeper relationship with God, even doing what our culture tells us is not “cool” to do.
• The people who know that Church is not one hour a week, rather they daily and hourly live a life of being available to say “yes” to what God calls them to be and do.
• Groups of people who work together and in the end accomplish far more of God’s will than anyone thought was possible.
• People who are willing to be vulnerable, to share the profound pain and joy of God working in their lives.
• The individuals spending their lives passionately spreading the word about how God’s love is being manifested in our world.
• The leaders who acknowledge they do not have all the answers and are willing to submit to God’s leading.
• People willing to sit in silence, to listen to God, to be honest about what they hear.

I wish more people would think of what I experienced today when they hear the word “Church.”  As a collective group of people we have too often failed to be what God intended God’s people to be.  However, when we are able to push aside all the wreckage of our sin and failure and see glimpses like I saw today, the Church gives me hope like nothing else in this world.