Lent day 13: Roots

⁶Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. ⁷So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ ⁸He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. ⁹If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’

This past year, I've been the tree a fair bit.  Fruitless too much.  Needing nurture and care and watering and tending.  The reasons are many and legitimate.  Serious losses.  Dear, dear friends falling to pieces.  Ministry paths dead-ended.  Medical challenges.  The fruit I've been producing over and over again for years -- great big bushels of juicy, delicious creativity and excitement -- was a lean harvest at times. 

M., my farmer friend tells me that fields need to go to sleep for a season so the nutrients can be replenished and the soil renewed.  But, she said, it is different with trees.  A common problem with trees is that they are nourished too shallowly -- not deeply watered.  Fresh soil and manure laid on top of hard-packed ground and not dug into the soil.  The tree roots come up to the surface to get to the water and food and dry out and wither.  
Trees flourish and fruit when the roots go deep, deep into the ground.  The roots are supported.  The deep soil holds the water longer.  The nourishing soil lies deep in the ground.  How to fruit regularly?  Let that life-giving water of God's word pour into me and pour in long, long drinks.  Not the shallow one-verse self-help pablum that I have "time" for.  But deep wrestling, questioning, conversing, yelling at, crying over, conversations with scripture. I need to stretch my roots deep into the ground and know the soil in which I am planted.  To stretch into and through the world and be fed by the community.  To be fed by the many beautiful and diverse voices.  To listen deeply and be enriched and absorb the stories.  God tends and waters and provides the rich community soil for us.  No excuses.  Be nurtured and fed and stretch my roots and fruit. Bear the fruit of God's love.  Stretch those roots deep.