Planting

No one plants dandelions under the sidewalk. They just break through.

Roots find the cracks. Life insists on itself. There's something almost reckless about it, growth that doesn't wait for permission, that doesn't consult the calendar or the conditions. It just grows. 

And then there's the other kind of planting. Deliberate. Patient. You scatter seed not knowing which will catch, which will die, which will surprise you three springs from now. You do it anyway. You do it because you believe, even without evidence, that beauty is possible here. 

Both of these are true. Both of these are holy. 

Scripture is full of both kinds. The mustard seed that becomes something vast and sheltering. The fig tree that blooms on its own stubborn schedule. The sower who throws seed everywhere, on good soil, on rocky ground, along the path, with what can only be described as extravagant, almost wasteful faith. 

There's no tidy formula for which kind of planting we're called to in a given season. Sometimes the Spirit moves like a dandelion: cracking through concrete, arriving where no one planned, rooting itself in the most unlikely places. Sometimes the Spirit moves like a gardener: slow, intentional, tending what has been sown with no guarantee of harvest. 

Neither way is passive. The dandelion is not passive. The gardener is not passive. Both are alive to something, responsive to something, committed to the work of growth even when the outcome is uncertain.

Maybe that's enough to know. 

Peace, 
Travis Segar
Pastor for Care and Community

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