Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

beauty

When she writes, I pay attention: Review of The Ministry of Ordinary Places by Shannan Martin

Shannan Martin has a unique way of making you feel right at home with her words while also dropping some deep truths in the middle and changing everything you thought you knew.

When I read her first book Falling Free two years ago, I was scared about the impact it would have on my life. This time around, when I had the chance to read an advance copy of her second book, I was excited to apply whatever teaching she had to offer to my life.

I was drawn to The Ministry of Ordinary Places: Waking Up to God’s Goodness Around You because of its appeal to the everyday. I no longer believe “ministry” is something reserved for a special few and I wholeheartedly believe that some of the most ordinary things we do can be glimpses of the Kingdom. I underlined so many words in this book, but I don’t just want to collect quotes and share statements: I want to live them out. This is a book of right-where-you-are making a difference and I dare you to be uninspired by her stories.

I will share a few snippets, though, just to give you a sense of what this book is all about.

On what it means to live sacrificially:

“But I had seen enough to understand that growth often requires death, and sometimes death looks like losing that extra fifteen minutes of sleep. Sometimes it asks us to surrender our softest pajama pants and lace up our walking shoes for the greater good, even if we’re not quite sure why it matters.”

This stunning sentence: “The world would not feel so impossible if each of us committed to truly knowing five of our nearest neighbors.”

And this, a sort of benediction for the daily work:

“This is my prayer, that as we look around and locate pain, widening our scope when necessary, we’ll have the guts to take swift action. I pray that we’ll all go down together, arms linked, hoarse from shouting on behalf of those found at the short end of justice. I pray that down at street level, we’ll feel the tremor of God’s power and decide, once and for all, that our feet were made for low places and worthy battles. We’ll hang a scarlet cord from the window as our promise to keep meddling for the sake of the kingdom.”

I think this would be a good choice for a church or neighborhood book club. Lots of discussion potential and practical application.

Disclosure: I received an Advance Reader Copy from Harper Collins Christian Publishers.

The tending

These summer days are both too long and too short.

Day breaks before I’m ready to get out of bed, and yet there is something about the light that calls me to wake.

Some days, I answer, shuffling to the coffee pot, glancing across the lawn to the garden in all its green goodness. As the machine perks the beans, I survey the world. What has changed while I’ve slept? 

Usually, little.

Other days, I ignore, silencing the alarm, pulling the sheets tighter and closer, enjoying the respite the air-conditioned bedroom provides from the blistering heat of summer days. I will close my eyes to grab a few more minutes of sleep or reach for a book to open the day with words. Some days, I reach for my phone and survey the virtual world. What has changed while I’ve slept?

Usually, little.

—

On the hottest of these summer days, I have taken great care with the plants. While the children play their make-believe games all throughout the house, I am carrying water in the teapot-shaped vessel from the sink to the porch and back again. Sometimes this is a morning activity and sometimes a nighttime one. Some days, it has been both.

I am no green thumb, but I am managing to keep seven pots of herbs thriving as well as six potted flowers, one hanging plant and four succulents. This is in addition to the garden in the back yard, the watermelon seeds the kids started at a science open house that have now become vines, and a patch of petunias my husband brought home from work.

A few of the plants on my porch

So much of this is ridiculous to me. I used to joke that I had a black thumb, that I could not keep plants alive because they couldn’t speak to me. Give me a cat that meows when it’s hungry or a baby who cries when she needs something, then I can respond. 

Plants take a special kind of care—a noticing and paying attention that I didn’t have the energy for until recently. And, if I’m honest, they do speak in their own way. Dry soil. Droopy leaves. If I look closely enough I can tell when a plant is healthy and when it is not.

When we decided to start gardening for ourselves a few years ago, I was afraid of failing at it. I didn’t want to waste time or money trying to grow something that I could easily buy from someone else. Mostly, I was afraid of my own inadequacies. What if I didn’t water enough? What if I watered too much? What if these plants died on my watch?

I’m no longer afraid of these questions. There is an element of mystery to tending these plants. My part is so minimal. Not unimportant but only part of something bigger. Knowing my role has given me freedom.

—

A month or so ago, after our garden was planted, my husband brought home a bunch of daisies that were destined for the garbage at work. (He is employed by farmers who run two farm stands in our county.) They were wilted some and a few of the buds were brown, but he was convinced that with a little care, they would perk back up.

The kids and I gave each plant its own pot and surrounded it with soil. Then I watered and watered and watered some more, each day wondering if I was performing an impossible task. The leaves were a healthy green and only an up-close examination revealed some flower potential within. These seemingly dead plants eventually bloomed, adorning our porch with pink and yellow daisies. 

Even now, after weeks of hot temperatures and insufficient watering, they persist. I keep watering and wondering. Will they bloom more or am I watering for nothing?

—

A week or so ago, my husband brought home a flat of petunias that were going to be discarded. Having seen the success with the daisies, he was certain I could bring them back to life. As I prepared a plot for them, I shook my head in disbelief. Me? Bring dead things to life?

The day I transplanted the petunias

It is nothing short of a miracle.

The same petunias three days later

That same night, he brought three more plants for our garden. I made room for them as best I could, but it’s getting a bit crowded back there. We seem to be in a phase of rescuing plants that need a good home, and while it means more work, it also means potentially more beauty, more fruit.

How did I become this kind of person? Maybe I always was but fear got in the way.

These long summer days find me tending plants in the morning and watering the garden at night, preserving herbs, and harvesting vegetables as they come. I hover in the garden, keeping watch daily because the changes happen so quickly. What has changed in the night? A lot.

It is hard, holy work, this tending of plants. My hands bear hard callouses. My feet are constantly covered in dirt. My body reeks of sweat. And I never feel closer to God than when I’m close to the earth. Bare feet on dirt or sand or dipped in the ocean. Hands digging in the soil. The sounds of birds singing or leaves rustling in the wind. The colors of flowers. The green of grass.

Even in the rhythm of the near-nightly ritual of watering the garden, I can feel something of the Divine as I drag the hoses—one across the driveway, the other across the lawn—to meet in the yard so water can flow freely from the faucet by the house to the sprinkler in the garden.

I watch where the water falls, adjusting the sprinkler as necessary, never getting it quite right but hoping that the drops fall where they are needed most. I walk away for 30 minutes or so, leaving it be until puddles form in the dirt.

On the nights it rains, I celebrate the natural soaking our plants receive knowing it is far more thorough than my evening attempts to give the plants what they need.

I cannot keep up with removing the weeds but somehow life emerges. Already, we have eaten okra, eggplant and zucchini from our garden. Our first jar of pickles is in the fridge. (We still have to wait a week before they’re ready.)

The heat, the weeds—they almost made me lose faith that our garden would produce this year.

But the little signs of life help me believe.

—

I give up too easily on the seemingly dead areas of my life—dreams that dry up and plans that face too much heat, the place where I’m planted that seems overrun with weeds.

These wilted flowers and almost-discarded plants remind me that what looks to be dead isn’t always over and done. Maybe my dreams need a little watering. Maybe they need more room to grow. Maybe I can’t keep the heat away, but I can nurture my plans in another way. Maybe I need to get rid of some weeds.

Maybe I can’t give up on things just because of what I see. Maybe I need to trust the natural rhythms, the ordinary work to produce something surprising and unexpected.

And maybe the God who can bring the dead back to life can resurrect something in me.