A gardening neighbor told this...
Illustration
A gardening neighbor told this story about her pea vines. She was running late in maintenance tasks and, when adding a mulch of layered newspapers and grass clippings around the plants that already had started to vine up a chicken wire fence, she disturbed the young plants. Several tendrils fell to the ground. Within the day, however, she noticed that the plants again found the fence and sent their spirals upward.
Moving in two directions at once, a plant knows how to grow. With roots spreading deep into the soil or across a shallow swath, a plant first anchors itself. Then it concentrates its energy on developing limb and leaf and moving toward the light.
Human beings also live in two directions. We must extend beyond ourselves to the balancing realities of relationship. However, as we are able first to maintain contact with an inner core --the roots of our being, we become conduits for the quiet learnings which give us a base as sturdy as a plant's anchoring roots.
Both plants by nature and people by nature and choice have the capacity to attend to and trust the revelation of this inner sense of direction which comes as a guiding source not of human origin. Again, my gardening friend reflected her awe at the resources our Creator God provides for guiding life.
--Brauninger
Moving in two directions at once, a plant knows how to grow. With roots spreading deep into the soil or across a shallow swath, a plant first anchors itself. Then it concentrates its energy on developing limb and leaf and moving toward the light.
Human beings also live in two directions. We must extend beyond ourselves to the balancing realities of relationship. However, as we are able first to maintain contact with an inner core --the roots of our being, we become conduits for the quiet learnings which give us a base as sturdy as a plant's anchoring roots.
Both plants by nature and people by nature and choice have the capacity to attend to and trust the revelation of this inner sense of direction which comes as a guiding source not of human origin. Again, my gardening friend reflected her awe at the resources our Creator God provides for guiding life.
--Brauninger
