If you have started plants from seed, you will know that sometimes you end up with two plants side by side. There is a careful balancing act that you have to manage to take them apart successfully. You have to wait until they are mature enough to have strong enough roots to survive, but you also do not want to wait too long because the more roots they have, the more intertwined they become, and the more likely there will be irreparable damage. Untangling these delicate and tender roots from one another is like disarming a bomb. You need speed and precision and yet a light and tender touch, or else you’ll lose everything.
Here is the process:
Roots don’t like air.
Move quickly, or the plants go into shock and die.
There is great care that goes into this process. It can place a tremendous strain on the plants and look a bit sad for the next day. If you have done well and not stressed the plant too much, it will bounce back with a greater resiliency! We will talk about this more next blog post.
The point I want to make here is that, if we do not take the time to prepare ourselves and the plants for this process correctly, then it ends in calamity. You need to know what you are doing, have a clear plan, the necessary tools, and the emotional capacity to be decisive and quick to be successful.
I want to highlight here the point of emotional capacity. There are many hours, some sweat (maybe blood and tears too) that go into nurturing and caring for these tiny little seeds. They require daily care and check-ups. They are sensitive to heat, light, moisture, and soil composition. They need to be rotated. They need to take trips outside, but not too long and not if it is too cold, windy, or sunny. They need a fan to blow on them, but not too much, and then that dries out the soil, so you need to adjust your watering schedule. You must be attentive to their needs and, they have a lot of them. There is a real back-and-forth and awareness or dialogue that happens through this process. This whole process causes you to become emotionally invested.
Listen, I know that some seeds will not germinate; some will germinate three weeks after the first seed sprouts. Some will grow fast, some too fast, and like Icarus, end up perishing. I know that some will get shocked after transplanting and die. I know all this, and it still causes grief, maybe a few of those tears mentioned above. I want these plants to live, be fruitful, and multiply. I feel that there is an obligation to do everything I can to make sure that as many of them as possible can reach their greatest potential. Maybe you have something in your life where you feel the same. Perhaps you have caught on that these plants, though very real, serve as a metaphor for people.
When we have something difficult that we need to do, something hard to tell someone we love, we need to be tender. We should have a plan so that we can mitigate stress, shock, and pain. If we have an eye forward towards building resiliency, this can be a significant step forward in growing (pun intended) your relationship with each other.
If I never took the chance to lose a seedling during a transplant, I would lose all my plants. None of them could grow big and strong enough to bear fruit, the roots would quickly consume all the nutrients, and they’d starve to death. You have to take that chance to lose something great in this moment, for something even better in the future. It is an investment, and there are tremendous rewards but also some risks. I am writing this blog on the 28th anniversary of my father’s death. This morning I asked my mom a question that was recently posed to me. Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? Tears filled my mother’s eyes, and she gave a resounding yes.
Love is better!
Love is what we were created to be. God is Love. When we love, in any capacity, we are participating in the Divine plan for our lives. Love does not negate challenging others or making tough decisions, but it does mean that how we do these things is essential. We ought to be tender. We need to allow our hearts to feel the joys and pains of the world and to respond with love to all of God’s creatures. Showing tenderness to those in most need of it is a healing balm our world is in desperate need of.
This May-Long weekend, Saturday, May 22nd, 2021, I will be selling these plants as a fundraiser for the Archbishop’s Annual Appeal. If you are interested in pre-ordering, pictures and suggested donations are posted on the website. You can email me to let me know you are interested.
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