STEP ONE: BREATHE

Take a deep, cleansing breath. Allow the air to fill your lungs and expand your body. Exhale and empty yourself into the room. Repeat three times - once for the one who Created you, once for the Incarnate One who walks beside you, and once for the Spirit whose life fills your being.

STEP TWO: DWELL IN WORD

Transforming the Yard: Seeding the Beds

Standing on my deck with a cup of coffee in hand, I look over at the garden box. A few years ago, my sons and I built it as a Mother's Day project for my wife. Each year we have added reclaimed earth to our compost bin. Looking at the black soil, you can almost see the nutrients.

It is a good garden space, the best we could find in our shaded backyard. I would have liked a spot with a little more sun, but nothing is perfect. The sooner we stop our insane search for an elusive perfection, the quicker we will be happy. Enough sunshine makes its way through the tree canopy to shine on the garden box to produce enough vegetables for our table.

I look at our small garden. At this point, it is not much—just a large box of dirt. The Lichtenberger’s cat, Celia, perches herself on the edge of the wooden frame. She, too, scans the yard that is starting to come to life. Small buds appear on the trees and shrubs. The crocuses are in the last stage of their short lives. Other bulbs—daffodils and such—have broken the surface with green shoots of their own. Celia watches in silence for the creatures that scurry across the recently thawed ground.

Although my garden box appears to be a lifeless repository of earth, I smile with secret knowledge. There are seeds hidden from view. Beneath the surface lies nature's packages of potential life. Although I can't see the subterranean action, I know that things are in motion. Germination is underway, and it gives me hope as to what is yet to come.

Hope is an integral part of our spirituality. It gives us the needed encouragement that life is more than what we can see with our eyes or construct in our minds. Hope comes as a gift from God, and it creates within our spirit a sacred workspace.

Hope germinates in a variety of conditions because it is so resilient. Down in the deepest and darkest places of our soul where our harshest of judgments prevent us from accepting God's mercy for ourselves, God has planted the hope-filled seeds of forgiveness. When these tiniest of embryos crack out of their shells, they invite us to consider and pursue new possibilities. Suddenly, we have the gift of a future that is not constrained or limited by our past.

Hope also finds germination in seeds of justice and peace. Long the dream of God for all creation, these kernels have been sown over the centuries. In a world where violence, fear, and hatred separate and divide people, the seeds of justice and peace remain underground. Hidden, they await the warmth of all those who wait in hope. Prophets, sages, and seekers long for the time when the tender shoots will break through hardened surfaces.

I join their sacred yearning as I finish my morning coffee. Hope fills me up and warms the innermost parts of my being. Looking at the place where I will plant the seedling that I purchase at local nurseries, I can't help but imagine the garden. It will produce not only a harvest of vegetables for my table but serve as a powerful metaphor of God's future of a return to Eden's glory.

STEP THREE: PRAY

Gracious God,

sometimes I look all around me and all that I see appears hopeless. There is despair and pain, disappointment and disagreement, uncertainty and disease. Strengthen my faith to see beyond perceptions. Give me the vision to recognize your presence in my life. Let hope germinate and grow within my soul that I might find the wisdom, courage, and ability to participate in your life-bringing work.

Through Jesus Christ, Amen.