DID JESUS GARDEN?

How odd one's mind is: at one moment it is cruising along, planning the evening meal (I think I have ricotta cheese in the fridge), rearranging the living room, thinking about a family member in trouble, and maybe even alighting briefly on our life's friend and companion--that being Jesus and not the dog--and suddenly, the mind tosses up a strange question--Did Jesus garden?

Let's think about this together. I envision a small plot outside their house in Nazareth. The weather and soil being what they were, I don't see a rich, friable, or very fruitful earth. But perhaps Mary, being the savvy lady she was, saved her egg shells, scraps of food, and dug them into the garden, for surely Our Mother had a garden plot somewhere nearby.

I imagine her setting out jugs of water and asking Jesus, as a boy, to please take them outside and water the olive vines and the vegetables struggling to grow. Perhaps she called from the doorway, "Hey, Jesus! Don't scimp on those weeds!" I see him being a bit cranky with this hot and pesky job. But when the fruit came in--when the olives were picked and the veggies harvested--I see Jesus munching on the good, nutritious (and assuredly organic) food, giving a nod to his mother.

Of course Jesus lived in an agrarian society, but even so, the idea that He had prior experience in growing things becomes clearer when we look at His parables: the fig tree, which he blasts for not being fruitful; the vineyard which God sends his son to tend; the parable of the sower and the weeds among the wheat; the mustard seed; and in the end, even His tomb, given by Joseph of Arimathea, happens to be in a garden. Although it is difficult to imagine Gethsemane as a garden in any sense of the world.

But it held death and rebirth. Isn't that what gardening is all about? I start out the spring full of bright ideas and firm resolutions, grubbing about in the dirt, setting in warm circles of dirt my tiny broccoli plants, lettuce transplants, leeks, onions, and other wonders. Things go well for awhile. I stride about my deck, humming under my breath, and perhaps having a celebratory glass of wine. Or two. Then disaster ensues. Deer lean over the fence and chomp on my plants. Cute bunnies nibble their way through the new carrots, despite my fence. And voles, the Devil's spawn, burrow under my new potatoes and eat every spud from within, leaving a fragile shell. If that isn't a parable about evil, I don't know what is!

I think each time we plant, weed, care and nurture, and sometimes harvest, we are enacting the Passion in a small and intimate way. Our hearts are full of hope. Things look really good for awhile. But soon hope is dashed. Yet, we pick ourselves up, regroup, and manage to salvage some goodness from the ruins--a few carrots, some bent onions, a meal of sauteed broccoli. Because we believe in a God of Hope, a God of Possibility that is surely what gardening is all about.

So, yes: I believe Jesus was a gardener--on a larger scale, in a bigger plot, with far larger stakes than my tiny square of earth. But when I stick my fingers into the soil and hope, as I always do, I think I am partaking of God's plan.

REWRITING EASTER OR--JESUS AND THE TINY DONUT HOLES

It has been brought to my attention by a kindly reader that my recent blog post, "What Sticks to Our Fingers," is a bit dire. Yeah, I agree, it is. What was I thinking of to write about the agony preceding Easter? You'd think I'd know better, as a writer, that the word "agony" is destined to turn people away. "Chocolate" works better. "Comfy pillows" is a close second. Also, "Late Night Re-runs and Bowls of Popcorn."

Here's the thing: we are in the run-up to Easter, and it always makes the hair on the nape of my neck stand up. It is so definitely not fun. I'm one of those people for whom saying the Stations of the Cross is the equivalent to getting a root canal done without Novocain. I just can't do the suffering part. It hurts too much.

Part of the problem is that we live in a culture which does not do suffering. We do complaining, as in: this is a bad hair day; my kid is not toilet-trained yet and I am going out of my mind; my mother-in-law is interfering in my life; and my car makes this funny crrsshhkkk sound as it goes around a corner. And what is that about?

So signing on to a religion which has a substantial amount of pain at its core is a very radical and scary thing to do. I know that in the end it turns out all right. More than all right. But with my teensy-tiny attention span I am having difficulty seeing beyond Jesus' suffering to that glorious end point.

I have a modest proposal. Let's insert a rewind button into the whole Triduum and Holy Week. I can imagine myself lounging on the sofa, avoiding the cracker crumbs, looking at what's to come--the Via Dolorosa--and rearing back in horror. "Say it ain't so!" I mutter, pressing the rewind button and re-envisioning how the lead up to Easter should go.

Jesus comes into Jerusalem on a fine, white charger, all of the red leather trappings gleaming in the hot sun. He is welcomed by the High Priests. He is invited to lie down to supper with the Romans and feted with song, wine, and some very delicious olives sent especially from Rome. There is no betrayal, no scourging, no horrific walk down the Via Dolorosa, and no final ending which we can scarcely bear to witness.

Instead, Jesus hands out boxes of tiny donut holes to his followers, and all is well. People sign on to his renewal of faith, and pledge to follow his way with no complaining. His dear mother, Mary, does not have to suffer with her son but instead hands out cups of strong coffee to their followers, happy that Simeon's dire prophecy has not come true. She envisions a tiny stone house with olive vines growing around its walls and Jesus, her son, growing old and wise along with her.

In my alternate Easter there will be no pain, no beating, and no accusations of the innocent. In my alternate universe Pilate will hand out chocolate Easter eggs--having discovered that worshiping chocolate totally works--and his hard, ruthless interior will have disappeared. In this world, nothing hard will be asked of me, no sacrifices need to be made. I smile in relief, thinking--This is a religion I can get behind!

Bemused by my happy rewriting of history, I forget that there is one small problem: When I die there will be a pause, a moment of silence as I come to the startling realization--there also is no resurrection.

WHAT STICKS TO YOUR FINGERS

I am thinking about death. And ashes. Possibly this is because Easter is looming on the horizon, and if you have any truck with Jesus and think that what happened to him REALLY happened, going through the Triduum is scary. Relentless. Deeply emotional, riveting, and scouring out of one's emotional innards. Because in order to get to the cool part where Jesus shares grilled fish on a beach with his disciples, you have to go through the crucifixion first. And I so don't want to do that.

I've been rereading Kate Braestrup's amazing and powerful memoir, "Here If You Need Me," which chronicles the sudden, accidental death of her husband Drew, a State Trooper, as he chased a speeding motorist. One moment--here, with your cereal bowl still in the sink, its spoon leaning against the side; the next, just left, with the bed still warm where you slept, and your smell and shape impressed on the mattress. Then dead--as Kate bathes her husband's face, dresses him in his uniform, and watches him be cremated because her fierce love for him calls her to witness it all, no matter how painful. Like Mary. This is about as close to a personal crucifixion as I care to get.

What sticks to our fingers when we lift to the wind the remains of those we deeply love? Annie Lamott talks about scattering her mom's ashes off a small mountain in California, as well as shaking the ashes of her dear friend Pammie off a boat. (If I remember correctly!) Ashes stick. And are heavy. There are bone fragments in the box, as I discovered to my horror when I picked up my mom's cremated remains and my dad's, years later. There is something undeniably solid about those fragments. They knock against the side of the box and keep us from getting dreamy and talking drivel about seeing each other in the next life--not that I don't believe that, mind you, but it feels like drivel when you are sifting the fragments of someone you adored through your fingers.

So--in the end, what is left? When we opened the beautiful pine box made by my brother Nick which held my dad's ashes, some of us chose to put things into the box before burying it. Nick put in a shiny beetle to remind us of how Dad shared his son's love of insects. My stepmother put in a piece of paper covered with writing--a last message to my father? I just wanted to say goodbye, and anything I had to say to Dad could not be represented by anything physical.

As I think about those ashes in boxes, dropped overboard, and Jesus sagging on the cross all breath gone, what comes to mind? What will I hold in my heart, like Mary? Here are some things which stick for me, which I expect to find nestled inside my heart once it stops beating:

--the look in a friend's eyes when she took my hand after great sorrow;

--the feel of a warm baby nursing at my breast as the sun set outside the window;

--my husband touching me silently after a miscarriage;

--my kids skating around our living room, shrieking with laughter;

--the feel of our "therapy dog" lying on my lap, twitching in sleep;

--the sound of geese as they call to each other over the pond;

--how my dad's voice lifted on the end of my name when I walked in the door to visit;

--God's presence inside, closer than my own breath.

God's creation, our family, friends, pets, and more are stored in the box of our hearts as a reminder of God's deep love for us and His world. And I expect Jesus to have some really fine sliced lemon (no tartar sauce, please) and maybe a splash of good wine to accompany that grilled fish when we celebrate our resurrection on the beach when time is no more.