Squash Blossom 2009

For the last few years, I've been growing a garden in my yard in Morgantown. This year, I think I've taken fewer photos, but I've been trying to spend more time in the actual maintenance of the garden. Recentyly I've started waking early to run and get started with work for the day, and by the time I make it to the garden, the blossoms on my squash and zucchini plants have closed.

I'm getting plenty of zucchini and yellow squash from these plants though. In fact, me, Joel, Jamie, and Derek have been enjoying quite a few meals featuring rice, squash, zucchini, basil, and onions (all but the rice is coming from the garden).

It's pretty cool to think that during these summer months, I can get a large part of my sustenance (and also feed others) from a small square garden in a little corner of my yard. What's even cooler is the idea that I'm joining in solidarity with the majority of our world who still live through small subsistence farms--I'm not even growing enough for subsistence, but I must say there is something different about eating vegetables that have come from a small piece of land 50 feet from your doorstep.

It's a good reminder that God is the one who causes growth, and that He brings good things from the earth. I planted the garden, and my roommates and I cultivated the soil, but God has brought much food from a small grain of seed that fell to the ground and died. Much of what Jesus said about fields, about grain, and about farming can only be understood superficially or in theory by those who have never grown crops. Next year, regardless of where you live, plant something and watch it grow and produce miraculously.

I think you'll be amazed at it all. God not only produces a lot of food, but He produces beauty while He's at it. He takes the time to make the flower on the squash one of the most beautiful large flowers around. It's a reminder. We in the West are caught in the snares of pragmatism--we work for efficiency. God does something different. He produces, but He always takes time for the aesthetic, for the beautiful.

Take a look at your life. There may be the pain from dying to yourself like a seed. There may be productivity from all of the work of your hands each day. But more than anything, there is a deep and abiding beauty in your life, and in the lives of others as we are faithful to the calling God has entrusted to each of us.

May you catch a glimpse of your own God given beauty as you are faithful to your call today and every day!