It's hard for me to write when I'm emotionally dysfunctional, or at least more dysfunctional than usual. I was on the road for Rosedale Bible College for a few months, travelling all over the place. I think I put about 15,000+ miles on since I went home to Oregon for Christmas back in December. Host families' living rooms & rooms of 20 somethings off at college are not good environments to write in. I need either something familiar, or exotic and extraordinary.
For my triumphant return I would like to humble myself by talking about a topic I know very little about. Gardening. Courtney and I planted a garden, we're sort of flying blind. I think we both expect that sometime next week our weed free garden will produce perfect plants, including some we didn't even expect. I'm enjoying the utopian delusion for now.
Whether or not our wildest gardening dreams come to pass, I already consider this garden a success. It has produced relationships that have enriched my life and hopefully spreads the kingdom of God. Forgive me for throwing out aspects of my dating relationship all over the web, but a couple of weeks ago Courtney and I were having a little misunderstanding. She went to work on the garden a bit while I stayed on my porch and thought about life. While she was there, the neighbor brought by some chicken wire for us to put around our garden to fend off the millions of illegitimate children of bugs bunny. He invited the two of us over that night to sit around the fire and catch some fish out of the millrace.
After settling our little dispute we took them up on the offer. There was a small crowd gathered when we arrived. There was Steve, an electrician in his fifties with a deep love of good southern moonshine, his daughter Carrie and her boyfriend Aaron, the neighbor Jeremy and his wife Nicole, and their daughter Stevie (yes their daughter Stevie). For the last few years they have spend their weekends with each other, laughing, drinking cheap beer, fishing, swapping stories, and enjoying more community than many Christians have.
We haven't talked about anything serious, but after showing up two weeks in a row, I feel like I'm one of the gang. Courtney and I were out working on the garden yesterday. Steve came up and started chatting with us, he let me use his shovel, gave me some gardening tips, we talked about his apple trees. After a bit, Nicole and Stevie came over and started chatting as well, they gave us some tomato plant starts and some cups to transplant them in. They have accepted us.
The first thing Steve said to us (after having a few Milwaukee's Bests) was "Make yourself at home, if someone ever needs to sleep something off underneath the apple tree, it wouldn't be the first time, and no one will ask any questions." Sure it wasn't exactly a Christian greeting of hospitality, but I liked it. If you need to puke in my yard, it's ok I still accept you.
We'll see how things go in the future, I hope and pray for opportunities to love them like Christ loved them, and hopefully I'll have opportunity to share the message of the good news that the maker of the universe loves us all immensely, even if we're sleeping something off under an apple tree.
