Prune to Bloom

This past Sunday’s Gospel reading featured this familiar phrase from Jesus: “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat.; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.”

This adage makes me think of my mom, who is an avid gardener. She loves to collect various seeds and bulbs, plunging them into rich soil every spring or fall. She delights in the first green shoots that push their way up through the earth, and treats the rest of us to simply stunning pictures on Facebook during the growing season.

She has taught me that sometimes things have to die in order for something better to come along.

Mom is a pro at pruning what needs to be removed from each plant in order for it to flourish. I remember one year as a kid, my aunt and her family came to visit us, and she proudly came in the house after snatching all the “deadheads” off Mom’s petunias, only to find out they weren’t “deadheads”, but buds on the verge of blossoming! Guess my mom has more of a green thumb than my aunt.

I didn’t really get into any kind of gardening (it would be more apt to say I plant a few annuals each spring and hope the perennials come back up!) until well after I was married, and I always went to Mom (and still do!) for tips on how best to take care of my plants. Over and over again, a recurring theme has been the importance of that pruning.

I never really understood why everything couldn’t just keep growing and growing without having to bother with all the plucking of individual parts. Seemed like a lot of extra work to me. But Mom taught me that you have to get rid of the stuff that is choking out the new life.

She’s pretty smart. And she’s got me wondering about what I need to get rid of in my own life in order for growth to happen. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

I need to get rid of laziness. I have a tendency to either be all in with something, or letting it slide completely. It’s true of how I eat and exercise, sometimes not touching sugar for weeks at a time and starting every day with a workout of some kind, only to morph into brownies for breakfast after I’ve slept in.

It’s true of my prayer life. Sometimes I am completely dedicated to taking the time to read my daily devotions, offer up my own petitions, and listen for God’s prompting while I silently mediate. Other times, I just crank up the music and hope that God knows what’s on my mind.

It’s true of my marriage. I go through phases where I am all about nurturing this relationship and being as selfless as possible, only to get completely irritated and snap at my husband about how loud he breathes when I’m trying to concentrate on something! (Laziness gets a little help from menopause in this scenario!!!)

So first mental note: prune laziness from my life.

Next up, let’s cut out that critical spirit.

Whether it’s directed at my husband, or a political commentator or someone who experiences God in a way that is different from mine. I need to remember that I will never have everything figured out, and there is always a side of the story to consider that is different from mine.

I remember lecturing my husband one time about how critical he was of our kids, or of the staff person at Menard’s, or of the general workings of our government. And as I’m going on and on about how he needs to stop criticizing people, I literally noticed my finger pointing at him. A big old lightning bolt may as well have struck me in the head, it was such an a-ha moment. “STOP BEING SO CRITICAL OF OTHER PEOPLE!” I vehemently criticized.

I don’t want to induce PTSD for anyone by going into too much detail about election season, but let’s just say that in order to survive it, my critical spirit had to go. Getting sucked into that much divisiveness is simply not good for anyone.

My ideas about God have expanded tremendously in the last couple years, and I catch myself sometimes thinking in regards to someone else, “They should really perceive God THIS way and then they’d realize what they’re missing out on.” Who am I to tell anyone what their experience of God should or should not be? I would certainly tune out anyone who tried to manage my experience of God. I need to just let God be God and come to each person in the way that most resonates.

Chuck that critical spirit to the curb.

Last but not least, I need to prune fear from my life; specifically, the fear of not being liked. I get pats on the back on a pretty regular basis, and am coming to realize how much I depend on those sometimes for my own sense of worth. My job is a rather public one, and I am pretty intuitive about knowing what people want to hear in a given situation. So even if I disagree whole heartedly, sometimes, it’s just easier to keep the peace and say nothing.

I want to be the same person in all situations. The Kris who shows up for work should be the same Kris who cooks dinner every night, calls her extended family members and volunteers with the things her kids are interested in. I want to be authentically ME: who God created me to be, and not who I think everyone else is expecting me to be.

The fear of not being liked or being disapproved of is a powerful thing.

It’s a good thing that Jesus came along and rocked the boat first. He paved the way for saying what needed to be said in the face of popular opinion. He exemplified how to die to our own selfish desires in order to bring about the Kingdom of God.

Time to let go, do some pruning and see what blooms.