Weeding is something I enjoy. It's primal and satisfying, as I carefully root out plants that are encroaching on the growth I'm trying to encourage. Grasses and chickweed, clover and creeping violets? They're all welcome to the rest of my yard, which is a flower-speckled natural smorgasbord for pollinators. But in the 272 square feet I've got set aside as raised beds, I've got other plans.
So I take the time to root about and remove all of the growth that doesn't match my intent for that space. It's a constant effort, but well worth it for the health of my vegetables.
Where it gets peculiar? Volunteers.
As most of my soil now comes from the compost piles in my shaded back yard, the last few years I've noted an ever-growing number of desirable plants rising from my compost-amended beds. The seeds that make their way into the compost bin have a tendency to want to grow.
The familiar forms of squash seedlings rise in the middle of a bed I've got set aside for okra. The usually welcome leaves of young tomatoes spring up where butternuts and 'lopes are intended. This year, I counted over thirty 'maters popping up their distinctively complex first leafings. Thirty. That's a whole lot of unanticipated offering.
In some places, I'll leave them. Several of the Providential tomatoes are welcome to stay in my tomato plots. Last year, when a cantaloupe unexpectedly presented itself, I just let it run, and man, it was delicious. I look forward to planting the progeny of those 'lopes this year.
But in most of my garden, they're just not part of the plan.
Here, my pastoral predilections come into conflict with my gardening awareness. As a small church pastor, unexpected volunteer energies are as welcome as manna from heaven. Where human beings of their own free will make the choice to serve and put in effort, it's a marker of something afoot that needs to be encouraged and enthusiastically supported. Those blessings are a vital part of God's work in the world, and the primary pastoral task is to nurture, resource, and celebrate them.
Sometimes, a gentle nudge of the pastoral crook is necessary to keep things on track, to assuage the mutual misunderstandings that we humans are so good at, or to keep limited energies from scattering. But mostly, it's a question of not letting my ALL-SHALL-LOVE-ME-AND-DESPAIR ego-desire to be in control become a stumbling block to what the Holy Spirit is doing.
It's remarkable how much of pastoring is simply not getting in the way.
But an actual garden? It needs a bit more focusing than the metaphorical garden of the faithful. It only takes the form and shape we give it, as herbs and vegetables aren't capable of sharing our intent for their growth or placement, no matter how many planning meetings and visioning exercises we inflict on them.
Weeding must be done.
So, with muttered words of apology and promises to tend well to their kin, I'll dig fingers into the ground, and pluck tiny tomatoes and seedling squash from the living soil.
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