resident gifting

"We arrive in this world with birthright gifts -- then we spend the first half of our lives abandoning them or letting others disabuse us of them. As young people, we are surrounded by expectations that may have little to do with who we really are, expectations held by people who are not trying to discern our selfhood but to fit us into slots. In families, schools, workplaces, and religious communities, we are trained away from true self toward images of acceptability; under social pressures like racism and sexism our original shape is deformed beyond recognition; and we ourselves, driven by fear, too often betray true self to gain the approval of others.

We are disabused of original giftedness in the first half of our lives. Then -- if we are awake, aware, and able to admit our loss -- we spend the second half trying to recover and reclaim the gift we once possessed."


Parker J. Palmer
"Let Your Life Speak"

Lawn and Garden Care

An ideal lawn is completely uniform. The grass is one height, one texture, and one shade of green. Needless to say, weeds, moss, and wildflowers have no business there. It would never be confused with the wild; it is set apart from nature. It covers a clearly defined area like a cool, green carpet.

A garden, on the other hand, celebrates variety. It is home to an assortment of plants, each with its own needs and qualities. Deciduous, evergreen, creeping, climbing, twiggy, bushy, leafy, shade-loving, sun-craving, drought-resistant, frost-sensitive, hardy, showy, modest, etc… It is a place for wildly diverse expressions of planthood.

The ideal garden is a seamless, living truce between the tame and the wild – between humans and nature. Lawns, on the other hand, are human creations; nature has only a limited role with them. A proper lawn can’t exist without a lawnmower. Conversely, the thought of mowing a garden is as ludicrous as it is disturbing!

Is the church more like a lawn or a garden? It’s easier to manage a large group of people if their maintenance can be standardized. The same watering regimen, the same fertilizer and the same dose of weed-killer work for everyone. Measuring progress is far less complicated if the target is conformity to one standard.

Sameness isn’t holiness, though. Our challenge is to bring ourselves into alignment with Christ’s image, not conform to someone’s notion of the ideal Christian. It will require a host of believers, each reflecting Christ’s image according to their own unique styles, to even begin to express the vast loveliness of Jesus.

In my opinion, the Creator wants a garden. Jesus interacted with people in all sorts of ways; his approaches were as diverse as the people themselves were. The only group he tended to address in broad, generalized terms was the group that wanted to mow humanity: the religious elite. But it is obvious that his true passion was for individuals. He engaged people creatively and uniquely; he delighted in discovering and illuminating each person’s interior.

A lawn church is fertilized and weeded with a toxic concoction of religion and subculture. Legalism is its lawnmower. It is artificially sustained, separate from both God’s kingdom and the world.

Conversely, the garden church celebrates variety. It is home to assorted humans with assorted needs and qualities. Some are colorful, some muted – some kinetic, some reserved – some produce spiritual fruit continually, while some require seasons of rest after harvests. Some are as fussy as roses; some are as hardy (and occasionally as invasive…) as weeds. Some are as strong as trees, and some cling like vines. Some announce their yield of fruit with showy blossoms, and others bear their fruit invisibly underground. The garden church is a place for wildly diverse expressions of the human faith-journey.