“But some seed fell on rich soil, and produced fruit, a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold. Whoever has ears ought to hear.” (Matthew 13:9)
My father’s garden wasn’t much by the standards of many gardens. It was situated on a small plot of land in the backyard of my North St. Louis home in the 1960s and early ‘70s, planted with love, passion and knowledge gleaned from the pages of Organic Gardening magazine.
It sat at the back of the yard, near the alley, and I can still picture its layout in my mind’s eye, row by row. Onions against the fence, followed by lettuce and cabbage, tomatoes and green peppers, beans growing up the legs of my no-longer-used and rusting swing set, carrots, radishes, and no doubt a few others I can no longer remember.
All organic, and all planted with the knowledge that the soil was (or could be) naturally fertile and ready to accept the seeds or the young seedlings that my father started in our basement during winter under fluorescent lights. If it sounds like I appreciated all his effort and creativity, I didn’t. Not at the time, anyway. I was a kid and saw it as largely wasted space where I couldn’t play ball and poor use of a swing set, even if I didn’t use it all that much anymore. I was told, in so many ways, to keep out.
All these years later, I have a more mature view of what he was trying to do. He was giving us healthy, organic food free of pesticides and herbicides. He was helping us get by on a mailman’s salary and trying to teach us something we could take into adulthood with us. He was giving us something extraordinary amid the ordinary of an urban backyard. He was doing all this to tell us he loved us, even if he could never muster those words.
More than anything, I think he was seeking quiet, sacred moments with himself and God. He was trying to make sense of his father’s suicide (unknown to us kids at the time). He was silently grappling with own failed professional career as a chiropractor and perhaps wrestling with the oncoming darkness of depression and alcoholism.He was searching for something sacred in an ordinary garden. What I thought was wasted space he knew was holy ground.
We are called to prepare our hearts for the coming of the Word of God into our lives of faith like my father organically prepared the soil of his garden. The Word is planted in us already if we can just stir up the earth a little and add a little compost. The incarnation of Christ is not just about Christmas. It’s about the continual coming and planting of the Word into our lives today. It’s about seeking the extraordinary in the midst of the ordinary.
We need the Incarnated Jesus. We need a walking, breathing, working-with-us Jesus. Otherwise, he remains a word on a page of old parchment, an unfulfilled promise, an old story that’s nice to listen to but never quite seems real. A scattered seed that was planted long ago but never really took root and grew and bore fruit.
In contemplating the Incarnation during these post-Christmas, cold and often-dark days of a Midwest winter, I come to see and appreciate how our human and earthly nature is quickened and sparked by the Divine, just as life begins to grow in the dark of the soil. Even in the depth of winter, we can begin to see life through that spring lens. We can see we are the soil where the Word of God grows and, over time, we can learn to recognize the holy when God puts it right before our eyes.
Your garden story, I’m sure, brings memories to us all about the gardens of our childhood. Take Care & God Bless.
Excellent Steve! Thanks for sharing your story. On top of allowing the word of God to continually plant into our hearts, as Catholics, we are so blessed to be able to receive Jesus Himself each and everyday! We are so blessed!
Thank you Steve for such a beautiful message I needed to read today. God Bless you and your inspiring words of faith which always resonate with me.
I find Jesus in your very real “Living Faith”reflections!
I have been reading the Living Faith many, many years . I’m blessed when God led me to click on your blog. Thank you for sharing. God watered your seeds, as you planted some in others.
Your story brought back memories of my own father’s lovingly tended Midwest garden. And I believe it was his way of also lovingly tending to his family, neighbors and friends. As I look back I can see all the seeds it represented of a life well lived and good examples shared. Thank you for your words that remind me of not just my Dad but all the lessons he taught by example. God bless you.
I very much enjoyed your blog about the garden and your father. It takes me back to my own Midwest childhood with my parents’ backyard garden and what I know now must have been their challenges back then that I did not know about then. It leaves me with much to reflect on. Peace and God bless.
This morning I read “Living Faith”, Daily Catholic Devotions, and saw your page, “Our Testimony Matters”. It really touched my heart! So I saw your website and read your article “The Seeds of my Father’s Garden”, it was so so inspiring to read. Thank you!
Thanks Steve. The garden,even a small scruffy patch, can teach us so much. I remember seeing flowers growing the remains of the gardens of houses bombed out during WWIi. Despite everything that had happened they still flourished. There’s a lesson there for all of us. God bless you Steve.
How sweet. I loved it. Brought me back to that backyard garden where we kept leaving the salt shaker for Mom to find before dinner.
Thanks, Diane. That “salt” story sounds like one you should tell! Thanks for writing.
Thanks, Peter. What a powerful reminder of life and God. All the best to you and your garden,
Thanks for writing, Stacey. Thanks for visiting the site and for reading Living Faith!
Thanks, Mary Jo. Spend sone time with those memories…they can be powerful springboards to prayer.
Thanks, Mary. So well put…ponder those memories and take them to prayer. I believe we find there not only our loved ones by the fingerprint of God in our lives.
Thanks, Mary, for being a faithful reader of Living Faith and for finding your way to my blog. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
Thanks, Dotty. I appreciate your taking the time to write, and I hope Living Faith continues to be a place where you meet Jesus.
Thanks for reading and for taking the time to reach out and write, Debbie. I hope you are well today.
Thanks, Tom, and how right you are…we are continually blessed by the living word of God in scripture, in each other, and in the Eucharist. Gave a great Sunday.
Thanks, Robert. Have a great day.
Lovely!
Thanks, Mary! Hope you are well!
In Living Faith issue for January 2023, you mention telling God stories. Here is one of mine, my middle son died shortly after he was born. My oldest son has had many issues & I asked God if my angel baby couldn’t help his older brother?
God answered me quickly, ” what makes you think he isn’t?”
Thanks for the story, Sheila. No doubt God helps them both…and you!
Thank you Steve for a wonderful reflection. I have fond memories too of my dear Dad tending his veggie garden…delicious tomatoes, oranges, mandarins. My Mother had a beautiful flower garden. After working in their respective gardens, they would sit on the back steps and congratulate each other on their fine gardening skills. Precious memories! Like you, I didn’t fully appreciate their love and work at the time.
Thanks, Trish. It’s good that we all get a bit wiser the older we get…