Day 18

The story of the kingdom of God starts with God in a garden. First chaos, then creativity. First darkness, then light. First the raw material, then the artwork called Earth. First atoms, molecules and microbes, then life in all its abundant splendour. In the end God, The Green Fingers Master Artist looked at the garden and said: “Wow!”

But something’s missing: Humour, Laughter, Passion, Dreams, Emotions, Hope, Faith and Love.

Then God made us.

What a great story. I love how it’s told. It reads like a play, feels like a song and smells like the ground after the first summer rain. Some theologians believe that it was first told by a farmer.

I think they are right.

I spent the first half of my Saturday morning in the garden. Instead of fighting against the end of summer, I’m embracing the splendour of autumn. I am starting off with a new canvas. I am busy planning the artwork. I have a picture in my mind and autumn is the time to draw the almost invisible pencil lines. The depth will come in winter, the colours in spring and the joy of a finished piece of art will be the highlight of summer.

I’m moving on from the “box of junk” metaphor. I found it’s not helping.

All around the house were dead leafs. Usually we throw them away, but not this winter. I learnt a while ago that if you use them as mulch or leave them to rot into compost, your garden will bloom like Eden itself.

We have to let go. We have to let die. We have to let rot.

But it’s not junk, it’s just shit waiting to decompose into life giving compost.

Day 10

There is something sacred about autumn. Yesterday I took the dogs to a park. Hard to believe I was standing in the middle of Joburg city, patterns of red, yellow and orange all around. Here and there the first fingerprints of winter were visible.

Nature is shedding like a sheep dog, throwing off the stuff it gathered on her journey through spring and summer.

To throw stuff out is sometimes good. We need to travel light. Same applies to faith. During our walk with God we tend to gather junk. Before we know it we hold on to sentimental Christian kitsch that holds very little worth and meaning in the bigger scheme of things. In the end it drags us down, holds us back and makes our faith look tasteless, out of date and ugly as hell.

I can feel it in my bones, my soul is heading towards winter. To throw out, shake off, to rest, to gather new strength, go back to the roots, to allow my spirit to dig deep, to find an undercurrent of the Big Stream, to drink, to be revived, to wake up and start believing again.