Growing season

In the heat of late summer, gardens are wilting. The rows neatly planted in the early spring look disheveled now. There was great anticipation of a big crop of tomatoes, squash, cucumbers.

Even our backyard, filled with pot after pot of tomatoes, is showing heat distress. Somehow, the excitement of watching plants grow and bear fruit wanes as August comes.

We had never planted cucumbers in our backyard before this year. We put 4 tiny plants in two pots. Of everything else in the garden, the cukes were the most fun to watch. They doubled in size almost every day. Beautiful vines climbing up the trellises produced yellow flowers which in time yielded many cucumbers.

My husband cannot eat cucumbers. They give him a stomachache. I like cucumbers and we have given a lot of them away. We pick cukes four or five at a time. Miraculous! So many gathered on the counter, I decided to make a small batch of refrigerator bread and butter pickles.

I use Grandmother Harris’s recipe to make sweet pickles, a three-day process. I use these for chicken and potato salad. The refrigerator pickles are more tangy and just right for topping a hamburger or a sandwich.

Growing season reminds me of God’s bounty. What a wonderful creation is fruit and vegetables that we pick and cook. Sometimes we eat right out of the garden. At times, the fruit is still warm from the sun.

God set us in the garden for a reason. In the garden we see the creative work of God.

Growing season is what we are created to live. Spreading out, yielding fruit, striving to reach higher and be more.

God grieves to see starving people in the world. In lands riddled with land mines and toxic waste, less grows and fear abounds. The bounty of creation is planned for sharing, until all are fed and sheltered. Caring for creation and other people is our response to the goodness of God. How can we do less?  

In 1971, Bruce Larson wrote a book, Living on the Growing Edge. He describes a life like Jesus lived, “growing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and other people.” (Luke 2:52) He describes a life, not unlike tomatoes and cukes, eager to grow.

It’s easy to get “cooked in the squat,” as Zig Zigler says. Growth is stunted. Our world narrows and our minds fallow. When we quit growing, our potential is lost to the world, our fruit dries up. What is left is small, dry, unyielding.

Growth in plants is irresistible, programmed into their being. Humans have a choice between growth and stagnation. It’s our ability to make choices that takes us off the path of growth.

We got kicked out of the garden because we made a bad choice, wanting to be God. All these years later we realize the fruit wasn’t worth it.

Growing season ends for gardens and pot plants. We clean out the debris and remember how delicious the fruit of the garden was. Growing season does not end for human beings until we die.

As long as we are alive, as long as the sun rises, as long as we make good choices, there is opportunity to grow.

Life on a growing edge blesses us and blesses the world around us. When goodness is lived, it ripples out in blessing for others.

Learn, surround yourself with people of good character and good humor. Seek ways to give back. Be aware of needs around you. Step up to give yourself to something larger than you.

The formula for growing season is not hard. Plant with love. Water. Fertilize. Weed the bad stuff out. Stand in the sunshine of honesty and truth.

You may be surprised what your life yields when you do.  

Lib Campbell is a retired Methodist pastor, retreat leader, columnist and host of the blogsite www.avirtualchurch.com. She can be contacted at libcam05@gmail.com