October 11, 2009

Dear Friends,

A time to plant.
Took a few days of vacation last week. Went to Lynchburg to check in with my brother and ninety-one year old mom. I’m happy to say that both of them are doing very well, although my preacher brother has a lot of pastoral care to do this week after Virginia Tech’s loss to the Ramblin’ Wreck.
     One afternoon while mom was taking her after lunch siesta, Bob and I took a tour of Poplar Forest, Thomas Jefferson’s country estate where he retreated from the demands of life at Monticello. Poplar Forest came to Jefferson as a bequest from his wife’s father. It was originally a working farm of over 4,500 acres. Jefferson designed and built a beautiful octagonal house on the property, two bedrooms, a parlor/library, two small vestibules and in the center of the house, a beautiful square dining room. The farm was known as Poplar Forest before Jefferson and his wife inherited it because of the dense groves of poplar trees on the property. There are still poplars within fifty yards of the house that would have been young trees when Jefferson lived there.
     In addition to designing the house, Jefferson paid close attention to the landscaping of the area.  He designed a sunken lawn like he had seen at country villas in Europe and kept meticulous records of all of the trees, shrubs and flowers that he planted. Let me encourage you to take the virtual tour at www.poplarforest.org. 
     Inspired by Jefferson, I spent a morning after I returned home making the yard presentable.  Trimmed a few limbs, mulched a bunch of leaves, cut the iris back, and planted some bulbs that I had bought in Lynchburg. The bulbs, daffodils and paperwhites, are sitting in the increasingly cool earth, waiting for the sun to get higher in the sky. By the time they push thru the mulch that covers them, I will have forgotten where I planted them, maybe even that I planted them. I suspect that I will be surprised by spring.
     It occurs to me that much of what we do in the church is a lot like the fall planting of spring blooming bulbs. It is an act of faith. What we do does not bear immediate fruit, and there is no way to measure the immediate impact of efforts. I think that it was either Desmond Tutu or Nelson Mandela who said something like, “we do not usher in the Kingdom of God. We plant and another waters for a harvest yet to come.” The impatient who want to see immediate results, results that can be quantified and graphed and presented as proof of efficiency and effectiveness will undoubtedly be frustrated by life in the church. That does not make what we do any less
real or significant.
     I believe that what we do makes a difference. It makes a difference in the lives of individuals who begin to sense that they are a part of something larger than themselves, and in that discovery, find meaning and purpose for their own life. And equally important, when we are at our best, we live as a community that subtly shapes the larger community of which we are a part and makes the world a more livable place for all of God’s children. Jesus talked about leaven, working quietly and unseen, and yet deeply influencing the shape of the bread to be.
     This coming Sunday we will celebrate a children’s sabbath at Central. I deeply hope that some of the children that we see in our Sunday School classes and in KidSing and coming down front for the children’s moment in worship will grow up to be people who love and nurture and care for the church. But I am equally hopeful that they grow up to be thoughtful, honest, compassionate, justice-seeking, peace-loving members of the human family. We plant those bulbs hoping, trusting, knowing, that spring will come.