Some thoughts on fertile soil of various kinds

Before I was a gardener I had a vague idea that to create a garden you chose plants that you liked and planted them in a pleasing arrangement.  After that point your role was to keep the garden free of weeds, but the garden itself was more or less 'done'.  

This has not been my experience.

I now understand that a garden is never 'done'.  It is a living, growing, ever changing space.  The plant that I planted last year isn't getting enough sun in that location, so it needs to be moved.  The plant that was so visually appealing when it was small and compact is much less so now and needs to be trimmed or possibly removed altogether.   I prune, trim, rearrange, pull out, renew the tired soil.  There are literally always changes to be made in a garden.

What I have come to realize,  even more recently, is that my faith journey is in many ways a lot like my garden.  I used to feel secure in the fact that I had a tidy packet of beliefs that were irrefutable and once I understood them, and tucked them safely away in my consciousness, I was more or less 'done'.  I still needed to learn new things but the basic framework was in place.  In one very broad sense that is still true, but on many levels it is not.  My faith has stretched and grown and accommodated many new and uncomfortable ideas.  Some have become a part of the mix, others are left on the cutting room floor.  But there is no end in sight.  My faith is a living, growing, ever changing space.  

Here is a quote from a book by Brian McLaren that meshes with and adds to my faith/garden analogy:

Doctrines don’t exist in a static linear outline where you can take out your outdated eschatology module and replace it with a new updated one, leaving everything else intact. Rather, doctrines cohere and interact in a dynamic system in which each part is related to all the others. (Brian D. McLaren, Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? p. 158)

New ways of thinking create the need to rethink not just that particular belief, but many of the others that are intertwined with it.

It's messy.  Both gardening and living life as a follower of Christ are messy. But I discovered years ago that some of my happiest moments are spent outside with my hands in the dirt.  And I've learned to love the questions, the  discoveries, the multitude of new and old voices that echo truths I sensed but couldn't express. I treasure the cloud of witnesses both ancient and modern day that help me find my way into the mystery of life in Christ and all of this has brought a wealth of new joy, energy and depth to this journey of faith.