On Care, a Word from Tito Colliander, and the Seasons of the Soul
A Note from Me
I have two pots on either side of my front door and two hanging baskets on the back porch. I walk past them nearly every day, watching the English Ivy inch forward. These plants have become my teachers. Each one needs attention: water in the morning, more light here, less there. If I forget, the leaves get sad. The lesson is always the same: growth requires care.
I’ve killed plenty of ivy over the years. But the gift of these pots and hanging baskets is that I can dig up the death and start fresh. Each time this happens I learn a new lesson about watering, sunlight, temperature, and ultimately, care.
The same is true of our life with God.
Transformation doesn’t happen automatically or by accident. It requires attention and care: Am I watering my soul enough? Am I placing myself in the right kind of light? Am I noticing how the seasons change and working within that rhythm or am I ignoring it? The old phrase in the Christian tradition was the “care of souls.” It still holds, I think.
Grace and care is what makes sustained growth possible—both for English Ivy, and human love.
A Voice from the Christian Tradition
The new life you have just entered has often been likened to that of a gardener. The soil he tills he has received from God, as well as the seed and the sun’s warmth and the rain and the power to grow. But the work is entrusted to him.
If the husbandman wishes to have a rich harvest, he must work early and late, weed and aerate, water and spray, for cultivation is beset by many dangers that threaten the harvest. He must work without ceasing, be constantly on the watch, constantly alert, constantly prepared; but even so, the harvest ultimately depends wholly on the elements, that is, on God.
The garden that we have undertaken to tend and watch over is the field of our own heart; the harvest is eternal life.
—Tito Colliander (1904–1989), Way of the Ascetics
A Question to Carry
Do you keep a pot of flowers, vegetables, or even a small tree? I learn how to care for my own soul, by caring for them.
Keep tending,
—Jon
