Orchard, courtesy internet archive

I like to garden. Where I grew up, on the Red Rock Loop Road, we had irrigation. That means that water was diverted into a man made ditch, the Red Rock Ditch as it is known, about a mile upstream from our house on Oak Creek. The ditch carried water paralleling the creek for a few miles allowing residents and landowners to irrigate the land generously in order to produce and grow in abundance. Our neighborhood was, therefore, a lush green riparian habitat blossoming and defying the dryness of the desert all around it. But we had no vegetable garden at our house! Once upon a time we did. Once upon a time the whole middle lot of Disney Lane was cultivated by neighbors and yielded bumper crops of okra, corn, tomato, and more. I thought it a sin that that massive garden was gone and we grew no vegetables. So I petitioned the local land owners, mom and dad, to sublet a section of the front yard for a vegetable garden. “Go ahead,” they said. It probably seemed a better idea than having me mountain bike or burn campfires out in the wilderness. 

So I marked off a rectangle in the bermuda grass sod. With a pick, shovel, and hoe I decimated the grass raking it up and filtering it out of the soil meticulously. The soft red earth was easily furrowed into rows, and yes, the plenteous cool irrigation creek water filled the troughs between each furrow nicely saturating the earth. But before I planted seeds I allowed myself the luxury of sensuously stepping my bare feet into the mud, feeling it ooze between my toes. Yes, I was a teenager but for a brief window of time in the early summer I played in the mud. I was unprepared, then, when the new pastor to our church drove up to our house in his pastor car. He was coming to see my dad, a builder, to talk about plans for the pastor’s new house. He walked up to me with a button down shirt, khakis pants, and patented leather shoes. I wore a raggedy old t-shirt and shorts; up to my calves in mud. I felt rather silly. The pastor smiled and said, “Hello. Making a vegetable garden I see.” I agreed, not really knowing what to say, having been caught playing in the mud. He smiled and then turned to meet with my father.  

The following day I planted the seeds and some tomato starters along with soil conditioner. Memories of the bumper crops that once grew in the middle of the cul de sac flooded my mind as I stared at the tiny sprouts willing them to grow. Day after day passed and the summer flew by. Soon it would be time to go back to school. Autumn was coming, and the little plants barely grew. I sat cross legged on the ground at each corner of the garden praying and meditating sending psychic energy to will the plants to grow and they did not.  There was no fungus or pest that kept them from growing. There was enough water, but not too much. They just didn’t grow. At church, Pastor Quello asked me how the garden was going. I shook my head and said, “Not well.” Clearly I was better at playing in the mud, than actually getting seeds to grow.

Jesus shares the word of God freely

Jesus talked about the disappointment of plants not growing too. He told a story of a gardener planting seeds in the Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew chapter thirteen. In the parable the sower throws seeds indiscriminately and wastefully. He throws them on a road, in the weeds, on rocks, oh and yes a few of them fall on good soil. Not surprisingly most of the seeds are eaten by bird