I keep finding new ways to celebrate the holiness of small things...

It has been raining everyday for the past week. Sometimes it is ferocious with

startling cracks of thunder and torrential down pours; other times, like yesterday as I was cutting the grass, it is mostly a mist. This morning, right on schedule, the skies opened again and our nearly saturated soil soaked up another 45 minutes of steady precipitation. The tomato plants are thriving. So, too the lettuce and Japanese eggplants. The herb pots are full to overflowing, too. Sadly, the deer ate my pumpkins and the kale looks a bit worm-ravaged. But the pole beans and cucumbers are holding their own as well as the marigolds, day lilies, wild roses and the soon to blossom gladiolas.

I take solace in our garden this year more so than ever before. Sheltering in place is clearly here to stay for the foreseeable future - and I am grateful. In our small patch of Mother Earth, the contagion has been well contained and there have been no recent contaminations or deaths. Still, unlike the SW and Deep South, our neighbors remain cautious and compassionate: everyone wears masks, no one takes interstate trips or attends public worship, and nearly everybody who can spends most of their time at home. I am sick with anguish over the cavalier way some states have "re-opened" and encouraged their less than responsible citizens to party and play with abandon. As Dr. Fauci prophesied yesterday, we may well be seeing an infection rate of 100,000 per day in the very near future. It is already at 50K and climbing. Finally a Republican, LaMar Alexander, called-out the President for his capricious behavior - yet another obsession with denial that is killing vulnerable Americans - saying: put on a mask sometimes! Another headline clarified it all: this is just the BEGINNING! Make no mistake about it, we're going to be isolated for a long, long time.

Perhaps that's why I was taken with a short essay posted in a recent Christian Century magazine. The author, Melissa Kuipers, is director of family ministries at Central Presbyterian Church in Hamilton, Ontario. Her reflection, "The Gift of Nurturing Small Things," spoke to me:

Perhaps in the absence of time with people, our relationships with other, nonhuman living things becomes heightened. They do not speak or reach out or smile the way people do. But they grow, and they give—through providing food and color and oxygen and beauty. Nurturing inanimate life forms provides a brief respite from the challenges of parenting, especially during a pandemic.

In the Reformed tradition, from which I hail, God’s first instruction to humans after creating them is often referred to as the cultural mandate. The newly made world is so wonderful that the Creator deems everything as tov tov, or “good good,” the repetition creating emphasis in the ancient Hebrew language. Then God instructs people regarding this good good earth: be fruitful and multiply. Have dominion over every living thing. Throughout history, and still today, people have perverted this command in many ways. Two in particular continue to damage Christianity. The first is to limit the command to be fruitful and multiply to human biological reproduction. The second is to interpret the command to rule over the creatures and plants of the earth as permission to exploit them in ways that suit our desires, rather than serving their interests as well as our own in a reciprocal relationship.

Being fruitful - creative - has been my mode of resistance during the early days of the plague as well as my testimony of solidarity with neighbors and the emerging uprising for deep social justice. Like Ms. Kuipers confesses, what I can share is modest, small acts of nourishment, and I must be content with the holiness of the small. Reckoning with this has been liberating - mostly - as well as periodically frustrating given the limitations of this hour. Once again it is clear that all humility requires acquiescence, surrender and yielding. There are no exceptions. Kuipers continues:

The cultural mandate is a theological concept that posits that this very

first human calling is not just to literally make more people but to build culture. To be fruitful and multiply, to have dominion, means to be given the gift of taking the raw elements of the world around us, elements fecund with potential, and to make: to cultivate relationships, build connections, design structures, and shape the created world into new concepts and constructs. Everything from sourdough starter to just business practices to video conferences can be considered products of this first calling, to make good things of this good good world. God gives us the gift of caring for what God has already made. We have been given many good good things to prune and knead and raise and nurture. In the pre-fallen world, this is a toil-less offering, a joyous gift of raw materials we can use to imitate a generous Creator. In a post-fallen world, we strive to continue to remember these joys against the annoyances, pain, and labor of day-to-day life.

These days I don't have much patience with the Reformed doctrine of original sin and fallen humanity. There is sin, of course, and an abundance of brokenness and evil, but now I trust that this was built into the genius of creation by the sacred, not a ghastly act of unexpected rebellion. My soteriology cannot abide a God who demands blood sacrifice for human frailty. Rather, like Merton and Rohr, I affirm that the very essence of the holy is firmly lodged deep within our being. We were, indeed, made in the image of the sacred. And like an eternal diamond, that never-ending goodness endures forever like God's steadfast love. But the Reformed notion that fruitfulness is greater than just birthing babies rings true. So does this observation:

When “a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies,” Jesus explains, “it bears much fruit.” “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed,” he says, “which is the smallest of seeds.” “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast,” and “the kingdom of God is like when a man sows seeds.” Jesus knew plants. The small, organic, everyday, life-giving elements of creation were ripe with holy potential for him. The smallest of plants, of microbes, of organisms, can bring great meaning to our lives. Some say Jesus chose these images for a reason: he spoke in metaphors people in his agrarian culture would recognize. I believe this to be the case, that his images were down to earth. But I also think the Son of God, who came to earth as a tiny baby who was shared with animals and shepherds, simply took delight in the little living things around him. “Consider the lilies,” says Jesus, and we do.

St. Francis of Assisi came to understand that Christmas is proof that original goodness in humanity abides forever. The Christ-child, born vulnerable and tiny in a harsh world, needed tender attention - and that is what he received even in a world filled with uncertainty and fear. The infant Christ not only documents what God's presence in our world looks and feels like, but this child invites us to respond with appropriate compassion. This is NOT original sin, but authentication that small is holy. 

So, I spend time in the garden weeding and trying to thwart the voles who are digging weird holes in the soil. I sit on the damp earth and pull out the small weeds that have exploded given all the rain. I clean the basement and search for new art and photographs to bring additional beauty into our small home. I brush our old dog, Lucie, who goes ecstatic with this attention. And I find ways to prepare simple suppers that bring the flavors of the nations to our table in this stay at home season of solitude. For me it is good practice in celebrating the gift of nurturing small things - and that is what I will explore with those friends who tune in to my Sunday morning live-streaming reflections on Face Book: the gift of nurturing small things.