Digging Potatoes

Hope Garden is now in full production! This morning I joined Bob, Laura and Chris, our new garden intern, for a few hours.  We harvested, cleaned, and packed tomatoes, cucumbers, egg plants, zucchini squash, peppers, and finished by digging a row of Kennebec potatoes.   

I love digging potatoes...for a couple of reasons.  One is that it takes me back to a childhood experience picking potatoes.  My father served as pastor of a rural congregation.  Many of the members were farmers who raised potatoes as a cash crop.  He introduced them to the Lord's Acre movement popular in rural churches in the late 1940s and 50s.  That congregation tried it for a couple of years.  A farm family dedicated an acre of land to the Lord's work.  The next year a different family dedicated an acre. The Lord's Acre was planted with potatoes.  When ready to harvest, the farmer would unearth the potatoes with a machine pulled by a tractor.  Then the church community gathered and picked the potatoes; put them in wire baskets; dump the baskets into burlap sacks; and loaded the sacks into a truck.  The money from the sale of the potatoes was then given to support an international mission project.  I was only four and five years old at the time, but I remember helping.  Even a four year old can pick potatoes!  It was my first experience of fully participating in the life of the church's mission, serving in a real way.  My parents were firm believers in tithing and the gift of stewardship. I remember it as my first stewardship experience. 

Another reason I love digging potatoes is you never know what you've got until you dig and turn the soil.  Most other crops you can see growing on the plant or vine.  You can see when it's time to harvest.  Even root crops like beets and carrots you can see how thick the root is at the top.  But you can't see potatoes.  So you wonder, will they be big or little, many or a few, healthy firm or rotten.  You never know until you dig and as Bob Poel describes, "sift through the soil like panning for gold."  

Life is like digging potatoes.  When you meet someone, or begin a new job, or join a church or  ministry of a different faith community, or call a new pastor, one never knows what one will find in that new relationship.  Sometimes the risk is the beginning of a beautiful story.  Sometimes risks end in tragedy.  More and more news stories have come out about clergy sexual abuse, and how bishops and judicatory leaders like I once was, who have turned a blind eye to the crimes committed.  These stories have rocked the soul of the church and need to do so for its correction.  Sadly, so much trust has been lost.  No wonder the number of those who say they are spiritual but not religious grows, and people shy away from congregational life.  As a former church bureaucrat serving at the presbytery level, I can say much has been done to set boundaries.  Boundary training is required of clergy and lay leaders who work with people, particularly children and youth.  Moving wayward ministers along to other congregations and presbyteries is now an unethical anathema!  Healing for victims and rebuilding trust in traumatized congregations is hard work.  In the P.C.(U.S.A.) the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance Program now sends trained teams into congregations which have been affected.  

Back in 1990, in my second call, I followed a temporary pastor who was quite dynamic.  After a long term pastor, he brought a freshness to worship and was much loved.  But sadly he was a financial and sexual predator.  When a couple of members raised concerns with elders about his behavior with their teenage children, they were brushed aside.  Things were going too well at church.  They didn't want to mess it up...  But by not investigating and confronting the behavior, it soon got really messy.  The Session finally acted when they were confronted by a non church neighbor, "do something or else..."  He was dismissed with no charge filed, or investigation as his year contract was up.  The pastor nominating committee was interviewing me.  They were holding group meetings with members as I interviewed, explaining why they had held a going away party where he was much praised.  When I arrived, they just wanted to put it all behind them and move on.  Back then, there were few resources to assist. We finally brought in a psychologist to facilitate some conversation.  One parent said, "the longer time goes by, the angrier I get."  Not only were they traumatized by the perpetrating pastor, church friends they knew and loved had dismissed their appeal.  That conversation was a small beginning on a long road to recovery.  Sadly however, this congregation and I never bonded as a congregation and pastor.  

Once trust is violated, new relationships come hard.   After being hurt in a marriage or job (in the church we call it a call), like digging for potatoes you never know what you have until you take the risk and enter into a relationship.  But God calls us into relationship.  Jesus gave his disciples only one command, that we love one another as he has loved us.  And to do that, we have to risk sticking our necks out, make ourselves vulnerable and venture forward.  

I've been blessed this year at the Pine Island Church I've served this past year.  You've appreciated  trying some new things.  You welcome the stranger.  You are a church of doers.  You have strong lay leadership.  You take responsibility.  And this past Sunday, you made a difficult decision to move forward, to work toward a merger with our neighbor First Presbyterian Church.  Right now, you don't know just what that will fully entail.  What that congregational decision means is that you will court, get to know, and begin working on a new relationship.  It's exciting.  It's also scary.  But it is as normal as building any relationship.  And it's maybe a little like digging potatoes.  You don't know until you go for it and risk.  And that is exacting what God calls us to do.   

This morning, I dug a row of potatoes with Chris, our new garden intern.  It was my first time meeting him.  He started a week ago while I was on vacation.  He is young, strong, enthusiastic, full of energy.  He is also homeless and unemployed.  Our internship program is for clients of Ministry with Community, our partner, who need a hand up, who have an interest in learning about gardening, and who need an employment track record.  The Harold and Grace Upjohn Foundation took a risk in giving us a grant to employ, nurture a couple of interns. They don't know, and we don't know what will come of these internships.  Nickie, our first intern, was a great weeder, but was unable to continue when on her own time she was attacked by a dog and broke a couple of bones.  I began getting to know Chris today while digging potatoes.  I didn't ask about his past.  Maybe someday I'll learn his story.  But today, I learned he has a sense of humor and a joy of life.  

I love digging potatoes.  If you would like to join the garden team of volunteers, garden work hours are Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.