Take it out and bury it In the Garden

As a child at my grandma’s house, it would be my job to take waste to the garden. I would dutifully take the leftovers, coffee grounds, egg shells and other assorted items out to the garden and bury them for my grandma. She didn’t compost per se, but just buried, between neat rows of produce, what ever she could find, including occasional sheep poop and rabbit poop when the city ordinances didn’t catch up with her about keeping questionable livestock in her yard.

Grandma pronounced bury with a short “u.” With a whistle through her teeth.

This morning while driving down the road praying and meditating, God bought my “burying tasks” to mind with some other thoughts. Grandma, an early day settler who arrived in Wyoming via covered wagon, always had a wisdom of her own, often expressed with some down home Missouri Southern Baptist idioms, such as “Never stir in a turd, it just makes it smell worse.” Translation: Do not stir around in a scandal, gossip about a situation, continue a fight, and about anything else she wanted it to mean at the time.

I thought on the phrase standing out so strongly in my mind, “Take it out and bury it in the garden.” I felt my connection to the earth, the connection of pure labor (and pleasure) producing wholesome delicious food – and lessons from gardening with Grandma.

Sometimes in life there are events, feelings, things that happen to us leaving us crippled in some way or hurt, or resentful, or anything else that leaves us not feeling good – that leave us with something rotten or almost rotten in our hearts. I thought, “Oh, dear, God, what is it – what am I letting lay around inside to rot, what do you want me to take to the garden and bury?”

Maybe it is only my own self willfulness – I was thinking of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane when He prayed about the events awaiting him, His destiny. Maybe it is resentment from some events in the past, maybe it is being judgmental towards someone, maybe it is a desire that is not in line with my destiny, maybe even bad health, or a heavy duty carried on my shoulders, or a relationship in ruins or a relationship neglected, or even lack of trust in Him.

Yes, I think there are a few things I need to take out to the garden and bury. I’ll work on that and then I’ll wait for the pure, clean produce that will be reaped when the process is complete and the result of that burial bears fruit. Maybe something life sustaining and delicious like fresh leaf lettuce with a dressing of bacon grease and vinegar and salt that surely will be served at the Wedding Supper!