Midday Meditation: "What is commonly called a weed" by Jeremy Gadd What is commonly called a weed has pushed, wriggled and writhed through a fissure in the concrete pavement, seeking sunshine, photosynthesis, survival. The tendril is weak, fragile, vulnerable, its very being tenuous but, that stem extruding from where its seed was blown, accidently washed or lodged, proclaims nature will one day reclaim its own. Its roots will create cracks that, in turn, will receive other migrant seeds or spores. Organisms that will grow and expand, crumbling the concrete around it into sand. What is it like to flip the script a bit on weeds? We usually think of them as negative, including in metaphors about the spiritual life. But what if they are instead things *you* may not have intended to grow, but *Someone* might have? What (in you) do you consider a nuisance, or do others look at with disdain—but just might be that piece of vulnerable tenacity that will mean real change in the world and in your own life? What has “accidentally” washed up into the cracks in your hard places, something that is growing there despite your not-tending of it? What if there is something God is doing in that? What would it be to not immediately pull out anything you see that you didn’t mean to be there in the garden that is your soul? What unexpected new life might be pushing through the concrete?

Posted by Jamie Bonilla at 2023-04-27 18:20:11 UTC