Digging Up God

When Squirrels Steal Your Dreams, Dig Deeper

I love bulbs, especially tulips and hyacinths. Before I moved from Arizona to Oregon, I’d only seen tulip photos—the desert’s not cold enough to cultivate them. From lilies to crocuses, bulbs fill me with renewal and hope. But bulbs also make you work for their beauty. To get flowers next spring or summer, you have to dig—a lot.

As sweat trickles down my forehead, I also think about the whole belief in God thing. Doesn’t everyone? A friend asked, in the face of the Clare family’s struggles, how do I still have faith?

This friend was once part of the 70s’ Jesus Movement and even lived in a commune. Now, she’s not sure about any of it. And sometimes, neither am I.

My friend rejected her former evangelical self. I never really embraced evangelicalism, save for a few years when I tried. I was always afraid that someone would uncover the real me—humanist, rule-breaker, too quick with swear words. I even refused to homeschool my children. But I still longed to find that personal relationship.

I thought “personal” might involve Jesus saving me a choice parking spot or helping me choose the right door on The Price is Right. With The Dude advising me, I’d never make another bad decision or accidentally forget to turn off the lawn sprinkler. If I told a joke, booming laughter would ripple through the clouds. Imagine my disappointment when a pastor said that God only speaks through the Bible. While raising four kids and working a day job, my bible reading habits were miserable too.

Back in Evangelicaland, scriptures were either taken literally or interpreted by one’s male pastor. When I read the verse where Jesus says to be perfect, I threw myself into becoming a perfectly excellent woman. This also backfired.

For one thing, my kids had serious problems with school, substances and mental illness. My husband had trouble keeping a job. I was diagnosed with Post-polio Syndrome, which causes fatigue and pain. I prayed hard, but I was so not excellent. And this “personal relationship” thing felt as personal as one of those sweepstakes letters with your name inserted in all the spaces where they ask for money.

I failed. With my arm’s paralysis, I couldn’t even lift both hands during worship songs on the overhead projector screen. I hoped that my habit of saying Ah-men instead of A-men didn’t prove I was a heretic. I needed a new pastime. Gardening sounded fun, so I invested in a camp shovel.

I’ve since wandered back to church, but this time I’m embraced by people who are mostly interested in stuff Jesus really liked: helping the poor, the widows, the oppressed. Even ex-evangelicals and mediocre gardeners.

I have one of those tools that show you how deep to make each bulb hole. They never work. Instead, I use the camp shovel. It’s as if God is saying that after I have blisters on my palms from so much digging, I’ll be able to withstand all kinds of trouble—rocks, roots and bushels of peanuts that the neighborhood squirrels bury.

Regular shovels are too heavy for me. In my backyard, hand spades are no match for the rocky, river-bottom clay. My camp shovel with the purple handle seems light enough to excavate, heavy enough to bonk any peanut-packing squirrel.

Digging in the dirt feels therapeutic and helps me cope. I’ve learned the names of a bunch of plants I’d never seen in the desert. With enough Miracle Gro, my flowers actually bloom. I’ve stopped being afraid of bees and wasps and spiders, counting all of it as a walk in God’s garden. I’m still at war with the squirrels, though. They bury their damn peanuts everywhere and unearth my hard-won bulb plantings.

Even so, when I garden, I’m surprised. Somehow, the deeper I dig, the more I belong instead of only believing. I rediscover that somewhere way, way down, every sunbeam, leaf, bead of water or dirt clod is bigger and wider and more than a way to grow stuff. That, all along the One who is love has waited for me.

Indeed, God speaks.

Planting bulbs gives me a new way to God.  Mud sticks to my soles and love clings to my soul as I follow this path to the holy. Scripture now only backs up what I know on that deepest of levels: that God is love.

My purple-handled spade hits a big river stone, ringing out with the melody I’ve been chasing all my life. I could let it stop me from going deeper, but then the flowers would never bloom.

I lean on the shovel until my bones stop rattling. I can’t let a few rocks keep me from a springtime blast of tulips and hyacinths. A breeze flings my hair across my eyes. I look up. Somehow, I belong to the earth’s chorus that promises resurrection. After a long winter’s sleep, blooms of red and yellow and hyacinth blue will rise again.

All of creation hums along in the same key. I swear that’s Jesus in the back row, belting out love. Keep digging up God, the chorus urges. Through sweat and blisters and jagged stones, keep digging up God. Dig until you reach the deep end of your heart. And then give it all away.