Abundance

I have never had much of a green thumb, despite my yearly efforts.  I forget to water or I water too much, leaving the hose running for hours while taking advantage of the fleeting summer days.  The weeds find little to deter them and the deer and rabbits think I am setting up a 24 hour buffet.  The harvest usually comes down to a salad or two, scattered with the few juicy tomatoes that managed to fruit before the fall freeze cut them short.

Lately, I’ve decided to try my hand at foraging instead.  I bought a book and have been wandering fields and trails in search of the various plants it describes. Aside from discovering a bounty of wild edibles I never knew existed, I have been struck anew with the incredible abundance of the earth.  Despite our best efforts to tame it, life springs forth everywhere we look.  Tree roots push through the sidewalk and flowers pop up in the cracks of the asphalt.  Mustard greens sprout in tiny patches of mud on a rocky lakeside and wild chives grow horizontally out of a trail cut. What we have determined a weed in need of eradication, is so often in fact a source of abundant nutrition to be enjoyed.

I have been reflecting on how I can invite this abundance into my life, to recognize the fullness of life that surrounds me, no matter how much anxiety and insecurity try to tame it.  It comes much more naturally to see the scarcity of things.  To notice where I fail as a wife and a mother, the resources I don’t have and the limits on my time.  What if instead I chose to focus on abundance?  What if I chose to lean in to my strengths, to be creative with the resources I do have and to do what I can in the time I am given?  When we believe that there is enough, that WE are enough, the world begins to open up to us in ways we couldn’t have imagined before.

I long for my children to know this simple fact:  that they are worthy of love and belonging, that they are enough, just as they are.  Yet the culture of scarcity presses in on them and my own imperfections as a mother perpetuate it.  One of my children in particular tends to see the glass as continually half empty—always something lacking in himself, in others, in the situation.  How do I open his eyes to abundance?  Certainly exposing him to the wonders of the natural world is a start.  Encouraging gratitude is another. Yet I also have to accept him as he is, let him choose his own path.  Abundance can’t be forced, but I hope, I believe, that it can be cultivated. 

The state of the world can be oppressive sometimes, as lacking as it seems to be in love, compassion, and hope. But one look at a history book will tell you that this is nothing new.  When it comes to finding fulfillment by looking outside, the world will always fail us.   When it comes down to it, the strange fact is that we don’t find abundance by trying to fill ourselves from outside but by becoming more closely acquainted with the beautiful fullness that already exists within.

I have finally surrendered my garden to what it wants to become—a mess of perennial herbs and flowers, sprinkled with edible weeds.  Maybe none of it is really in our control anyway.  Maybe abundance isn’t exactly what we thought it would be, but I guarantee you it is there if only we open our eyes to see it.