Making Room

The whiskey stink of rot has settled / in the garden, and a burst of fruit flies rises
when I touch the dying tomato plants.
Still, the claws of tiny yellow blossoms / flail in the air as I pull the vines up by the roots
and toss them in the compost.
It feels cruel. Something in me isn’t ready / to let go of summer so easily. To destroy
what I’ve carefully cultivated all these months./ Those pale flowers might still have time to fruit.
My great-grandmother sang with the girls of her village / as they pulled the flax. Songs so old
and so tied to the season that the very sound / seemed to turn the weather.
―”September Tomatoes” by Karina Borowitz 

With the turning of the season, the Loveless-Newton household has taken its cues from the garden and started clearing out all that is faded and spent.  We’ve been pulling weeds and uprooting annuals, cleaning up long-neglected messes, giving away outgrown baby toys and too-small car seats, decluttering our closets, reorganizing our living space, and generally making room for the fresh winds of transformation.  Maybe it was Clivie starting preschool that brought on this sudden inspiration to get things in order.  Maybe it was the clarion call of the church’s indoor yard sale.  Maybe I just needed a change.  But whatever it is, it awakens me to the gifts and challenges that want to find their way into my life.  When I am less anchored to the past, I make room for the future.
Now, this doesn’t mean it is easy.  Sometimes, I don’t want to let go.  I want to cling to the way I’ve “always done it,” the way “it’s always been.”  After all, maybe I’ll find some use for that broken glass container I’ve held on to for the past 3 years. . . .  But when we let go of unnecessary things, we make room for blessings to find us and take root in our lives.  We release the possibilities of newness.  We open up our world.  We welcome new outlets for our creativity, our passions, our ministry. 
And this call to let go and open up is a call to the entire church.  Not just to us as individuals.  When we get bogged down maintaining what is faded and spent, we have missed our calling.  The fresh winds of transformation are blowing in our direction.  Can you feel it?
                   
See you in church,

Christy