Our back yard is a little bit of a jungle. It’s nice to have the arbor vitae between us and the parking lot of the apartments next door. (P and her two buddies who live there have figured out a secret path which is really what childhood is all about.) The ivy on the garage and the back fence is pretty and serves to obscure the view through the chain link. And then there is the giant hydrangea, which besides being my favorite flower, blocks the swing set from the view of the busy road out front. In the summer our back yard is an oasis in the urban setting of our home.
Recently I was inspired by the sun and blue sky to do some yard work. I began by pruning the hydrangea. As I worked many of my clippings fell onto a pile of leaves from the large tree that dominates the yard. The leaves had blown against the base of the hydrangea and now after rain, wind, and snow they were a gray matt. As I was cleaning up my work and readying to head to the roses I raked up all the branches I had cut and many of the leaves. There, to my surprise, was the small stump of a tree and out of it were growing stems of holly. Once someone had planted a holly tree here in the corner of the yard and years later someone else had cut it down. Maybe that same someone then planted the hydrangea. A change was made and the holly tree died, but it didn’t really.
You know that I have a churchy brain when this moment makes me think of the current dynamics of our denomination. You see United Methodists are in decline, meaning less people and less money. I find that after years of hearing this at every conference and training it really is incredibly boring. What is exciting and interesting to me is my garden. You see I don’t know what is to come of the United Methodist Church, but I do know that no matter how things change there is always new life. Sometimes it’s a new hydrangea bush in the place of what was, sometimes it’s the branches of an old dead stump coming to life. Maybe it’s like the ivy that, no matter how I cut it, seems to spread overnight all across the wall until I’m sure one day the garage will be entirely made of living plant. I look around at my friends working in churches and ministries all over the country and I get excited about the new life they are helping to generate in their communities.
My sister always calls me sentimental and I guess she is right. I just couldn’t bring myself to cut down all the holly. I trimmed it, planning to let it grow a bit and use it in my wreath making for next Christmas. It will be a reminder for me as we celebrate the ancient rituals of Christmas that what has gone before offers life. I’ll maybe add some dried hydrangeas to remind me of the new things planted and a sprig of ivy for that which continues to live with passion now.
Hopefully what we are living in to here in the Sellwood Faith Community is made of holly, hydrangea, and ivy. We come from the Sellwood United Methodist Church which has closed. We are a new ministry in a new way here in this community and we are increasing every month in activities, people, and vibrancy.
Life in its many forms is here indeed.
-Eilidh
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| Some of last summer’s fun in the backyard |
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