“I am the true vine; and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me, that beareth not fruit, he will take away: and every one that beareth fruit, he will purge it, that it may bring forth more fruit.”
-Jesus
John 15:1–17
Working on this website has already helped me clarify a few things. I’ve been busy, like a gardener, filling in fields with words. It’s a bit like writing a social media post or sending a text to a friend. The difference is, what I’m writing here is meant to stay put and take root. The ideas are accumulating and becoming more clear.
“Well, it’s nothing really new,” my husband interjects. “Writing things down always helps to organize one’s thoughts.”
There’s something different about this work, though. I find myself making lists; collecting all the different topics, rationales, people who may be my intended readers. There’s so much variety, so much to pull together, it begs the question: what is the underlying message? I mean, what does a recovering alcoholic, an old family friend, someone from church, an admirer of my art, or a student—what do they all have in common as an audience? What’s the essence of the thing I have to share with them all? What brings them all into my world to hear what I have to say? Why do I want so much to say this thing to them?
A Dream of Love
I keep seeing this image and I want to share it with you. It comes from a powerful dream I had once. Its a real ‘Queen of Dreams,’ one of the few that stands above all others, like a star in the gloom of memory, static and true, illuminating the things below:
I’m at the studio in Seattle—which is really the old garage at my father’s house. I’m standing outside of the building, on the grass, where the bushes and vines are growing thickly around the hundred year-old structure. I look up: out of a hidden place beneath the overhanging roof, there comes a vine. It’s not an ordinary vine. It seems to emanate from inside the studio somewhere, growing out from the dark places underneath the roof. The vine grows toward me as I stand there, looking up, dazzled by its rapid growth. At once it delivers, down to my outstretched hand, a fruit. Not just any fruit, though—the most glorious, supernatural, beatific fruit I could ever imagine. It’s gigantic. It’s like a peach, but it is much more than a peach. Something impossibly good. Just to look upon it is to taste it’s goodness. Beholding it, I am overcome with love.
Fruitfulness—that is the greatest gift I could have been given. And the vision of that ‘Beatific Fruit’ is the message I have to give to you, dear reader. I want you to hear this, because I want you to have what your heart desires most in this world. It’s not just about getting married; there’s a much more fundamental process going on underneath all that. If you don’t attend to it, I’m afraid you may miss the opportunity to realize your dreams of love.
Our Lord commanded us to be fruitful and multiply. It’s so simple. This is what He wants from us. His imperative for us is not just about conceiving and giving birth to children—it certainly is about that in many instances, don’t be mistaken—but it’s also something more. Our Creator designed us to live and to germinate. We are His seeds.
Tell me, have you ever seen a seed germinate in the most unlikely of places? Ever seen a poor, hopeful bean sprout from a wet napkin? A lone flower push through a little crack in the concrete? Life finds a way. Life tries at all costs. Life is tenacious. Life obeys the imperative: be fruitful.That’s what He commanded us to do. Do it however you possibly can and to the fullest measure that you can. Find the light. Grow. Push through. Send down roots until you find the water. Push forth vines until you find the sun. Go to seed. You must go to seed.
When I was a little girl, I remember delighting in the ‘helicopter’ seed-pods that fell from the trees in our neighborhood. A breeze would come and you’d see them falling slowly through the air like little paratroopers. They’d spin around and catch the wind and end up all over the place. Some landed right underneath the mother tree, some spun and flew so far they’d make it into a neighboring yard; maybe to get covered by other leaves and rain and perhaps they’d germinate there. We can hope. Or else they’d land on the hard sidewalk, or on some other man-made surface, doomed to die.
They couldn’t all make it, of course. Yet each one of those little seeds was designed with an intricate plan inside them that enabled them to try—not necessarily to succeed—but to try and land in a good place where they could germinate and take root. Somehow or other, in the project of life, we all must try. We must try with all the tenacity of every living thing that God brought forth into this world. We are filled with God’s plan. If nothing else, we are filled with one, basic imperative from our Creator: go to seed. Germinate. Reproduce.
We must, must find a way to go to seed, or else die barren and cursed as that wretched fig tree that failed to give fruit when Jesus commanded it. This is what we don’t always like to hear. Catholics ought to know it, but more often these days, we don’t. We think like the world. We spend our lives accumulating prestige and comfort. We doubt the teachings of the Church; we convince ourselves we are within the bounds of the law. We withhold our fruit.
[The Penitent Magdalen and Christ as Gardener]
Be fruitful. At all costs and by all means, be fruitful and multiply. Plunge deep into the soil and find the water. Stretch up, and around and out—push through the obstructions, towards the light. You must.
I urge you not to make some of the same mistakes I did. Don’t leave our Lord with His hand outstretched and empty. Make the sacrifice. Don’t have the abortion; go back to your family and ask for help. Don’t just hang around cohabitating with that woman; marry her and set things right. Don’t drift through life looking for the next distraction; find a way to serve and sink yourself into that vocation. Don’t just hang around single—or deliberately, selfishly childless with your spouse, accumulating money and possessions to please yourself ; bear children—conceive, adopt or foster them—and pass on what you have to give. Don’t give up on God; search your own conscience, confess your sins, and try again. Don’t wallow in your heartbreak and disappointment; lighten your burden and ride the wind. Get yourself quickly to a better place where you may find soil enough to take root—you don’t have time to waste.
Sooner or later, we must all “go to seed.” That’s farmer lingo for reproduce. I guess I learned it from my dad, who grew up pretty poor, farming and raising animals for sustenance with his parents in rural Washington. When you see a plant making fruit, it’s going to seed. It knows it’s going to die soon, actually, and now it’s putting forth its greatest effort.
When I look up at the wall above our family table, I see a large crucifix hanging there. Thus, when I look at my own life, I can easily say: the end is near. Memento mori: remember your death. This sounds morbid, but it isn’t really. It’s the gospel: repent, for the The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
Haven’t we had enough of our selfish, self-seeking selves already? Haven’t we been injured enough from our self-centered attempts to control every outcome? To win every argument? Sooner or later we must let go of our selfishness. We must repent, die to self, and let that rotting, dead matter become fertilizer for the LIFE that God wants to germinate in us. Thus, what is really true and lasting in us—what is of God, can be reborn.
It’s critical in this mysterious process of surrender (that’s what this is all about really), that we identify with the part of ourselves that comes from God—the eternal, true, living part; not the passing away, rotting, dead part. If we cling to the dead part, we will be cut away, along with the dead things, and thrown to the burn-pile. That’s the way of the Gardener. He brings order to the wilderness in this way. He plants, prunes, nurtures, grafts, harvests, separates, and burns the trash. Take heed. Whichever part we cling to the most will determine where we end up. Cling to the true Vine. Let go of the dead things in yourself. Let God prune those away so you can live.
This all may seem rather esoteric and abstract. There will be more practical advice and input coming soon, I promise. But for now, let these images begin to prepare and fertilize the soil of your heart. Perhaps I am mixing too many metaphors here—I’m not as brilliant a poet as our Lord. Yet, maybe this eclectic, messy mixture will yield something good as we think together about what it may actually take, in your case, to “grow up and marry.”
Grow Up and Marry! 