Grace is Found in a Garden

The Sacraments¹

I once spoke to my friend, an old squirrel, about the Sacraments—
he got so excited

and ran into a hollow in his tree and came
back holding some acorns, an owl feather,
and a ribbon he had found.

And I just smiled and said, "Yes, dear,
you understand:

everything imparts
His grace."

I daily divide the sacred and profane by the way I eat - buying industrial food in a cold cash transaction from the clerk at Fred Meyers with no thought of the farmer who grew it or the farm s/he produced it on. 

And so I miss out on the grace imparted by, not the acorn, owl’s feather or piece of ribbon brought by the squirrel visiting Francis, but the soil teeming with life; seeds miraculously sprouting; plants growing, seeding and fruiting to feed me in body. I miss out on the grace too that nourishes my soul because soil, seed and fruit is also about the gift of friendship with creation and Creator. 

It’s all one.

Dividing the sacred from the profane results in what humanity is faced with today – a soulless, progressive destruction of the very creation that, if lived with in unity, would care for us for generations to come. And we humans are diminished because of it.

It’s time to live gracefully again. This Spring I begin my own Garden Granary where all is holy, and I take my place alongside the Master Gardener for a gardening of soil and soul on the sacred ground of my own backyard and heart.

I daily divide the sacred and profane. St Francis does no such thing. We shouldn't either.  ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

1St. Francis of Assisi, translated by Daniel Ladinsky, Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Volumes from the East and West, copyright © Daniel Ladinsky 2002, Penguin Compass.