With foot on the garden fork, its prongs sunk into the roots
of another vigorous weed, I lend my weight to the downward push and upward lift.
Though it feels too late, I am finally making space for things to be planted
and grow up in this thirsty ground. Roots separate from earth, extra soil and needed
worms are shaken off, and the dandelion joins a growing pile beside me. Also beside
me, a little girl makes circling turns of the vegetable plot, asking her
questions and sharing her worries as she walks.
I am so grateful Love came to me and called me today. I am so grateful that the To-Do list was left
behind and that I remembered what love is and does.
Love makes space for the other.
Here the space is created by no errands to run, no people to
see. And here space is created by a task that allows togetherness without
intensity: our eyes don’t often meet but our hearts and minds can, and there is
the rhythm of the push and lift, and of the circling turns, to keep us both occupied
and yet available.
And so, as I dig and she paces, I ask her questions; and
there is no way she could know from my casual tone and downturned eyes how
deeply I long to hear her answers, how infinitely precious this conversation is
to me. I cherish the way a soul hides its secrets, and then how it unfurls these
secrets, like a fern in the spring, when it senses that safety and acceptance are
coming out to meet them. The unfurling happens slowly at first, then with
growing boldness and freedom, as each new leaf or tendril meets the sun and moisture
it craves.
I hear this growing boldness and freedom in her voice – in the
confusion she expresses, the emotion she begins to convey and the rising desire
to hear my response.
And as we talk and the relief starts to flood her veins –
simply that she is heard and understood and loved – she tells me why she had
been so silent walking home after school. She was thinking, muddled, worried,
and deciding she would talk to God about all this swirl later, when she went to
bed. But, she tells me, it’s like God has already heard her and already
answered and helped her through this conversation. Even before she really prayed.
She was amazed and grateful to realise this. And I was grateful too: that Love came out to meet us both today, and
that Love created a space for us to meet each other.
And isn’t this what love does? Isn’t it always running to meet us?
Always longing to be gracious to us and rising to show us compassion?*
Isn’t love what makes
space for us? And also what fills the spaces between everything and inside
everything, by always going out of itself, out towards the other and down into
the low and thirsty places?
Doesn’t it always
answer before we call and hear while we still speak?*
We go inside together, and while I’m washing the dirt from
under my nails I tell her that if she ever wants to talk about these things
again she only needs to ask. She’s silent for a moment, but the freedom is
still there to be vulnerable, and she ventures: “I’m wondering what you’re
thinking now. Are you thinking that you’re glad this conversation is over, that
it went on too long?”
I pull her to me and look into her eyes – because there are
times when the eyes do need to meet – and tell her softly, truly, that I love
to talk about these things with her, love
to hear her, always love to hear
her.
Because that’s what love does.
* Luke 15:17; Isaiah 30:1; Isaiah 65:24.
