|
Excerpted
from "The
Seasons of Our Faith: Lessons Learned in a Garden" -
a homily delivered during the Lenten Noonday Preaching Series
at Calvary Episcopal
Church, Memphis, TN, on March
30, 2000.
Gardening
has a lot to teach us. It teaches you to pay attention to the
seasons, the weather, the atmosphere, your environment, nature.
You learn that seasons are not stages, they are not linear, nor
are they necessarily chartable. They do not begin and end at
predictable times. ...
Likewise
with your soul, likewise with your life. Your
life goes through seasons, seasons that cannot
be charted, seasons that are not necessarily linear. You have
to pay attention to realize and to be attuned to when you’re
moving into a new season. ...
We
know that a new one is upon us by noticing the changes in
the texture of what is going on inside of us.
It’s
a new season in your life. Songs that used to make you cry no
longer move you; songs that never used to move you, now make
you cry. ...
One
of the most important things I have learned from gardening magazines
is that regardless of which bulb I choose, inside every
bulb is everything it needs to become what it was created to
be. The
daffodil bulb has everything it needs to become a daffodil. The
tulip has the specific nutrients and seedlings within it that
it needs to become a tulip and not a daffodil. ...
Likewise
with each one of us, everything you need to become who you
really are supposed to be is already in you.
Your
destiny has already been imprinted in your soul. All you’re
looking for is the right place to be planted; the right amount
of light, the right amount of water.
But
who you are supposed to be, who God created you to be, what you
are supposed to be doing is already in you. It's not out there.
It’s like that daffodil bulb. It’s already in you,
and your purpose in life is
to find out your purpose in life. ...
There
is an old Hasidic tale in which a Jewish rabbi says "When
you die and go to heaven and meet your Maker, your Maker is not
going to ask you why didn’t you discover the cure for such
and such? Why weren’t you a leader? Why weren’t you
successful? Why didn’t you become more?
The
only question that will be asked of you is, why didn’t
you become YOU? Why didn’t you stay true to yourself?
Why didn’t you feel good about yourself?
Why
did you pretend to be something or someone you weren’t?
Why weren’t you proud of who I made you to be? Why didn’t
you ever get to know who you were supposed to be? Why didn’t
you listen to Me with your soul? Why were you afraid to step
out? Why didn’t you become YOU?"
Copyright ©2000
The Rev. Dr. Renita J. Weems
Excerpted
from "The
Seasons of Our Faith: Lessons Learned in a Garden" -
a homily delivered during the Lenten Noonday Preaching Series
at Calvary Episcopal Church, Memphis, TN, on March
30, 2000. |
