Seedlings and Swingsets

What is spiritual formation and what makes us who we are? reading time: 6 minutes

When I was 10 my family moved to a house in the country which sat on eight acres, three in the front and five in the back. The five in the back were mostly fenced pasture which we sometimes lent to our neighbor who used it for his horses, except for the few years we had a horse ourselves. And the year we had a cow. (That is a story for another day, and I promise I’ll tell it sometime.)

It was a single-story ranch style home with a long front porch, wooden shutters on the windows, and a pump for a well-water system in the front yard which was built to look like an old fashioned well house. There were two Bradford Pear trees in the front yard, symmetrically planted, until tornadic winds brought one of them down. I can still remember how they smelled so distinctly of pollen every spring. We also kept a trampoline in the front yard between the trees, on which I could lay and on dark nights see the stars. One night my mom woke me in the middle of the night, and we wrapped ourselves up in quilts to go lie on the trampoline and watch a meteor shower. We counted over 100 before we went back to bed.

In the back yard, we had a swimming pool, a swing set, and a willow tree. I can remember climbing the willow tree with a book in hand and finding the perfect nook in the branches from which to sit and read. My dog lay on the ground below me. Occasionally I would sit on a blanket under the tree but my favorite spot was inside it. I cried when a storm brought it down. 

I remember Texas blue skies with white puffy clouds, thick humid heat on my freckled skin, and the ordinary green grass. Certain patches of the yard were to be avoided so I didn’t get “stickers” in my feet, but once these were memorized, going barefoot was always my preference. Somehow even on the hottest summer day, the grass was cool beneath my feet.

Soon after we moved in, we got my beloved puppy Dusty. She was a yellow Labrador, and her fur had tints of pink. Her nose was pink too, unlike other labs we had seen or known before which all had black noses. She was our family dog, but I think my parents and my brother would all tell you she was really mine. We started with rules that insisted she only slept in the garage, and if the weather was particularly bad, she could come in the laundry room. She couldn’t sit on the furniture and definitely wasn’t allowed in the bedrooms. I don’t know how long those rules actually lasted but suffice it to say I have no memories of Dusty sleeping anywhere but my bedroom. 

The swing set we had out back was your standard prefab American style, metal and plastic, with a slide, a handlebar with rings for budding gymnasts, a regular swing, and a bucket style swing in which you could sit facing another person, with a ledge for your feet between you. The frame was white, and the equipment was red. At least that is how I remember it.

I spent many days out on that swing set, sitting on the bucket swing with Dusty the puppy in my lap. It might have been minutes or hours – I don’t know which. All I know is that she fell asleep in my lap as I swung back and forth, back and forth. I got lost in daydreams, sometimes singing to myself, observing the clouds, feeling Dusty’s soft fur on my arms.

It was in those moments when time slowed, and I remember feeling God for the first time.

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Last October I moved into a flat with its own outdoor space for the first time in my adult life. I live in England, and here all ‘yard’ spaces are called gardens, whether you grow food in them or not. In the months leading up to the move I spent my time dreaming of tending the garden, learning about plants, and making my own plan for our veg patch. 

I have always enjoyed trees, flowers, and all manner of green and growing things, but I would’ve never been able to identify much more than a dandelion or a tulip. However, now it is my mission to know what every plant is in the garden. I am low-key obsessed with discovering the nature of every seedling that pops up in the dirt we prepared last autumn. I take photos and upload them to an app, wondering ‘Is this a good plant or a weed?’ Usually it is a weed, but I am not deterred. I only become more fascinated. 

I have spent most weekends this spring out in the garden, where it takes me hours to sow a few seeds, re-pot things, and read gardening books which teach me the basic needs of things I’m growing. I’m now one of those people who always has at least a little dirt under her fingernails, and I lose all semblance of time when I spend a day pottering around the garden. I feel God in these moments just as I did when I swung with Dusty or climbed the willow tree.

Kendra Adachi of The Lazy Genius says that self-care is whatever makes you feel like a person. If that is true, then my garden is my self-care. Being outside among the bees and the worms now feels like I’m in the backyard at that ranch house on Clear Springs Road. 

Another way of describing this is that being outside, engaged in the created world, is part of how my spirituality was formed as a child, and I now see that being outside in the world is one of the primary ways I continue to nurture my spirituality, or engage in spiritual formation, as an adult.

What does that look for me these days?

My family is making some big decisions about our future soon, and much of it is still unknown. There’s actually a very good chance I won’t be in this flat long enough to harvest the veggies I’ve planted or to see the flowers bloom. That was nearly reason enough for me not to even try to work in my garden, but I have decided to do it anyway as an act of honoring the present moment before me. Planting seeds has been a spiritual discipline in staying grounded, tending to the things in my care, and not wishing those moments away by thinking of the unknown future before me.

I do hope I get to see my beans climb their trellis and the squash spill out over the edge of the plot, but even if I don’t, this time spent is not wasted. Gardening isn’t only enjoyable to me because of the anticipated product at the end. Gardening is enjoyable because of how it brings me back to the willow tree, the swing set, and the stars above the trampoline.

If self-care is what makes you feel like a person, then spirituality is what makes you a person. It is the relationships, environment, beliefs, and transcendent experiences that define how you see and understand the world. It is what compels you, drives you, and moves you. 

Spiritual formation then, is tending to those things that matter to you and enable you to continue connecting with yourself, others, the world around you, and the divine. 

I hope Viriditas will be a resource that helps you recognise and tend to your own spirituality, however it is expressed. In the beginning, this will happen in two primary ways:

·      A monthly newsletter that will contain a reflective essay and practical resources for exploring the theme presented. This might be suggested spiritual disciplines, practical ideas for engaging children, book recommendations for going deeper, ideas for connecting with your community, etc.

·      A book club in which we will explore spirituality through fiction. Our first pick is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, and together we’ll examine what it is that makes the character Francie who she is, and how her spirituality is nurtured and how it’s stifled. In so doing, I hope you’ll discover how some of your own spirituality has come to be and also how it is nurtured and expressed.

In these first few months of Viriditas, the monthly newsletter and the weekly book club chat posts will come to all subscribers, and depending on engagement and my learning from you all as we go, I may migrate the book club elsewhere or create different membership tiers. Emails that are only for the book club will be labelled as such, so if you don’t plan to read the book feel free to skip those! 

The book club will begin on Wednesday June 9th, which is when I will send out an intro post with questions for your reflection as you begin reading. Then we will discuss 5 chapters each week until mid-August. I will send out a weekly email with a prompt for discussion, and I will share this on my Instagram account as well. The first Viriditas newsletter will be sent out at the beginning of July.

It is through my work as a hospital chaplain that I’m learning the immeasurable value of our stories and how important they are to tell. When I meet a patient in the hospital, I am not meeting only the patient. I’m encountering that person, their relationships, the environments which have nurtured (or hindered) them into being, and the beliefs that impact how they navigate the world. The giving and receiving of time and presence provide the privilege of bearing witness to the stories that shape the person before me.

I wish I could share with you the incredible stories of some of my patients over the years, but those are not my stories to tell. However, those people now make up the stories that shape me, and that is something I can give to you. I hope you will bring some of your stories, too.

For reflection: I wonder if you can remember the first time you felt God (or had a transcendent experience) as a child? And I wonder what practices enliven you now. Do you see a connection? Use the link below to share in the comments if you’d like, or you can reply to me directly. I’ll share more memories of my own in the comments, too.

I’m really looking forward to sharing this space with you.

With grace and peace,
Janette