Grace Notes in the Desert

Grace Notes in the Desert is written for the saints of Rio Grande Presbyterian Church and the surrounding community.

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Grace Notes acknowledges we need God's grace and forgivness as much as the desert water.

7/22/2008

GROWING GARDENS

It’s a slow time of year, summer in the church; but, for those of us at Rio Grande, it is also a time of new growth: with rows of eggplants, beets, green beans and yellow squash, growing to maturity, outside, in the Rio Grande Community Garden.

It’s a joy to see green plants growing in the New Mexican desert, their leaves glistening in the sun. It’s a delight to know the faithful hands (some weathered from work in other gardens; some new to gardening altogether) that are tending, weeding and cultivating them, alongside neighbors.

I think of that garden as a metaphor for our life and journey of faith; and how we, too, are those who are growing, sometimes in all kinds of weather: heat and wind, and, lately, those (rare) torrential desert rain storms.

In her book The Fragility of Goodness, scholar Martha Nussbaum writes:

"Human excellence grows like a vine…and the excellence of a person is like a young plant: something growing in the world, slender, fragile, in constant need of food…fostering weather…as well as care…(Plants need this) and so do we.”


I’m thankful for you at Rio Grande Presbyterian Church who labor, so faithfully, to grow God’s garden: not only in the rich soil outside, but the rich soil inside young and old. May we each keep growing together!

Yours in Christ's Service,
A Pastor in the Desert