Cultivating the Garden of Our Souls

What is summer to you? Does it taste like watermelon and smell like sunscreen? For gardeners, summer smells like warm earth and tastes of homegrown tomatoes bursting with tangy sweetness. It also means a sweaty, daily battle with vicious villains: squash bugs and weeds.

When I first planted my backyard garden, I chose the “no dig” method of layering cardboard and compost right over our weeds. I hauled in wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow until our small patch of earth was no longer a snarled mess, but an unmistakable garden plot ready for planting. It was exhausting work, but each shovelful brimmed with the promise of homegrown vegetables, and that vision drove me on. I naively believed the no-dig promise that the cardboard and mulch would be enough to smother the weed seeds lurking below.

Confession and the Garden of the Soul

It was around this time that my daughter received her first Confession. When it came time for her second Confession (which held none of the excitement and glamour of the first to obscure the objectively nerve-wracking nature of bearing your weaknesses to a total stranger), I found myself coaxing and cajoling a fearful and anxious eight-year-old to our local parish. I couldn’t really blame her for her reluctance. I am an adult convert, and fifteen years later, I felt the same aversion when dragging myself to Confession.

During one particularly painful examination of conscience, I felt my shame spilling over into hot tears. I berated myself for failing to avoid those same sins that land me in Confession week after week. When will I stop needing Confession? I asked myself in exasperation. At this moment, a tiny drop of wisdom bubbled over from my head, soaking into my heart as the image of my garden popped into my head.

The Weeding is Never Done

I pushed open the gate to our back garden in July, after about a month of neglect, to find my once pristine vegetable beds entirely overrun by weeds. There was cheese weed with its deep taproots, nearly impossible to remove without the right tools. There were tall, bright green grasses with shallow roots that nonetheless reappear every year, and—worst of all—nefarious bellbind with its deceptively lovely white blooms wound its way up my crops, choking the life out of them. (Incidentally, this is the indefatigable weed that inspired the name of the demonic title character of my upcoming book, The Bellbind Letters, a creative take on C.S. Lewis’s spiritual classic for Catholic moms.)

I spent the better part of a week on my hands and knees yanking every last one out by the roots. When I finally stepped back to survey my work, my triumph was short-lived: Although my well-defined borders were once again visible, they were dotted with tiny specks of green from weeds that had either escaped my notice during the initial battle or had simply grown back in the time it had taken me to tackle the other beds. Tempted as I was to hang my head in shame at my utter inability to dominate this space, a fleeting moment of grace whispered deep in my heart like the fluttering of a hummingbird’s wings: Maybe through this garden the Lord is trying to grow patience with myself within me.

Like our sins, weeds are impossible for us to eradicate entirely. Continuous weeding is the fate of every gardener, and if we want to make our souls delightful gardens for our Lord, we find ourselves in need of constant cultivation. We will always need to diligently weed out vices. Frequent visits to the confessional will prevent the roots of more serious sins from penetrating too deeply and dissuade the deleterious effects of sin from choking out emerging seedlings of virtue.

What the Master Gardener Sees

The garden is rich with spiritual metaphors. Scripture is full of agricultural imagery that helps us unravel the mysteries of the spiritual life. Of course, tending the garden of our souls is not something we are meant to do on our own. We must consult the Master Gardener, sower of good seeds. What is His vision for this space? What fragrant varieties would He like to see planted here?

As gardeners and disciples both, we cannot become overly distressed when we see the weeds creeping in. The Master Gardener calls us to a life of joy and unceasing prayer. Of course, weeds cannot be permitted to flourish in the garden, but their appearance is not cause for despair. He expects to find weeds, and so should we. If we attend to them diligently, day by day, we will find that they can be managed. With His help, flowers will still blossom and trees bear good fruit.

If the Master still sees all the beauty in this garden, why shouldn’t we?

Samantha Stephenson is a Catholic convert, bioethicist, and homeschooling mother of four. She is the author of Mama Prays, Reclaiming Motherhood, and the forthcoming books The Bellbind Letters, a creative take on C.S. Lewis’s spiritual classic, and Grow Where You’re Planted, helping families reclaim the sacred rhythms of the soil, the seasons, and the soul. She hosts the podcast Brave New Us: Being Human in the Age of Biotechnology and tends a sprawling garden. You can find her at www.snstephenson.com.