Sprout

I've been worried that my kids might have inherited my brown thumb. I cannot seem to grow plants to save my life.

Pascal has been painstakingly saving his apple seeds at lunch every day. He wants to sprout the seeds and grow an apple tree.

Usually, he forgets and throws them out when dumping the trash out of his lunchbox.

Or loses them.

Or puts them on the counter next to the sink and someone else pops them into the composter.

One day he remembered, and we wrapped them in damp paper towel and stored them in a baggie and a seed actually sprouted, strong and astonishing ... but that was thrown out by the next person to clean the kitchen.

So a few weeks ago when he finally remembered at every step, we wrote SEEDS SPROUTING, DO NOT THROW OUT! on the baggie and tucked it on the window sill.

Today, we checked it for life, and wonder of wonders, a slim and scraggly green shoot was waiting for us.

Pascal was in raptures.

He called everyone to see it, carefully extricated it from the paper towel, placed it in a shot glass and set it on the window sill.

"You should pray for it now," suggested Vava, hovering over his shoulder, and he did.

And my heart flowed while my baby asked God to not let anything bad happen to his baby, and to help it grow. 

"How does it happen?" Vava asked, "how does the seed turn into the sprout?"

In spite of my long history of killing plants, but I tried to answer. "There's life inside, and when it has the right conditions to grow, it bursts out and reaches for them - water, and sunlight, and warmth," I said. "It drinks them in and transforms them into more life."

And of course, I was looking at my own little seedlings, grown taller and lovelier than I could have imagined. The life inside of them stretching and growing, reaching for sunlight and fresh air and love, for food food and kindness and care. And I, too, pray over them as they stretch out and up, and I rejoice absurdly over each new achievement.

And I see you too.

I see you, friend, with your busyness and your family and your hard work, and I see how you still tend the seeds that fill your life with colour. I see you picking up that paintbrush, that notebook, that guitar. I see you staying up late to tend to your own sprouts, trying something new, making life burst out where only seeds had been. 

I see you daring to hope that seed will sprout this time, when so many seeds have failed before. 

Making your patch of dirt bloom is beautiful and ordinary and holy.

May God bless you and protect you as you grow your one wild and wonderful life.