CARING FOR
It’s Maundy Thursday today, and we are getting ready for a Spring Celebration on Sunday. Rebirth is on my mind, and in this broken world right now, caring for others as I would wish to be cared for. It’s not easy to find ways to do that. Everything and everyone is feeling so fragile.
I purchased a little kumquat seedling for my husband at Christmas this year. It came packed tightly in paper and protective bubble wrap. I have followed the directions to care for it until it was ready to be transplanted to a larger container. I watered it according to instructions, and purchased a grow light with a timer for it to live under. It did grow taller, and added some leaves, but it wasn’t thriving. At all. It was so unhappy, I decided to move it to a window where it would get some real light, and it picked up right away. But I must have moved it too soon, for it began to droop again, and lose some of the leaves. I put it back again under the grow light where I could keep a better eye on it.
It has not thrived. I have played music for it, talked to it, cheering it on. I told it last night that if it wasn’t looking any better by today I would put it in a larger pot with appropriate soil for citrus. And today it looked so bad, I did just that. I have carefully but firmly tucked it into a real garden pot, blessing it with moist, warm planting mix. It’s a gray day here. And I’ve moved it outside under a patio umbrella with a few other plants to cheer it on. Now I will have to wait and see.
Doing what you can for other living things is a good thing. Knowing exactly what that needs to be is a hard thing. Same for people. We can care too much, and that’s not helpful. We can only care a little, and that may not be helpful either. All we can do is our best, with as much love as we can give, and not be upset if it is rejected.
If the little kumquat cannot thrive here, then perhaps I will need to let it go. Maybe it will return to the earth to nurture something else, as we all do in the end. But I am hopeful that by Sunday there will be some improvement, some sign that it has been given a new chance, a better home, and will thrive.
I think I’ll plant some sunflower seeds today, too. Small things. But what a difference they will make, in their own time!
May this spring bring many blessings to your life. May the little things you do to make a difference have great power, as they of course will, to bring good into this complicated and conflicted time.