Right before the pandemic, in the church I was pastoring, there was a pruning of plants in the building. The pruning was not to throw the plants out, but to send them home with some parishioners to be rehabilitated if possible.
You have to understand that this church was filled with green thumbs. Even the self-professing amateur green thumbs were far ahead of any of us millennial plant parents. They were miracle workers.
I grabbed an ivy from the take-home pile because I was sure one of the green thumb church ladies could help me revive it. She came to my office and helped me cut it down, and then she told me she would take it to the nursery to re-pot it and bring it back.
When she did, it was like a brand new plant. It had been cut down to a tiny little green sprout surrounded by soft, firm soil in an ordinary terracotta pot. I poured a little water on it and set it right by the window, hoping for its sprouting leaves to give me sermon inspiration over the coming months.
The next week, the world shut down.
After it became clear that we would not be returning to work in our normal capacity any time soon, I took my plant home.
For two years, the ivy grew. I came to think of it was a measure of how long the pandemic had been going on.
First, it sat in the window seat of my kitchen until my toddler honed in on it and became determined to overturn the pot, at which she eventually succeeded. Yet it survived the frantic re-potting and lived on.
Then I moved it with its growing arm to the dresser in my room, but that quickly became impractical with our homes turning into home offices. I need the space for commentaries.
The plant’s final spot in our house was on the fireplace mantel. It hung over the side of the white mantle and stretched toward the floor, inch by inch.
The ivy became a sign of life in a world of death lurking around every corner and cough.
I said goodbye to both of my grandmothers while the ivy grew in my house. COVID took them both in their own way. When my maternal grandmother died, my mom gave me pieces of an ivy she had in her house from her mother’s funeral (my great grandmother). I propagated them.
I became ordained while the ivy grew. A little Southern Baptist girl grew up to be a Disciples of Christ pastor and sang along to “Crowded Table” by The Highwomen during her ordination service. The day I was ordained, November 7, 2020, the country found out that we were going to have our first female vice president. It was a day of rejoicing, despite the presence of masks and the absence of people at my service.
I became senior minister as it grew. Becoming a lead pastor in a pandemic deserves chapters upon chapters about ethics, grief, fear, death, and community. I saw the best and the worst of people. I was impressed and deeply disappointed. I blessed pandemic babies and buried congregants who were casualties of COVID.
In many ways, the ivy’s growth represented my own. It was slow and unassuming. It moved from spot to spot and adapted to wherever it found itself.
I spoke little words of encouragement to it as I watered it: “You’re doing great. Thank you for growing.” Needless to say, they were words I needed to hear, too.
When it was time for me to move back into the church building, I buckled the ivy into the backseat, singing, “Today’s the day, Ivy! You’re going back home!” It was early February 2022.
The day came and went without fanfare, and the next morning, as I packed up my car for another day at the office, I realized that I had left the ivy in the car overnight.
I had forgotten to bring it into the office. I had forgotten about it altogether.
The night before was cold—freezing temperatures—and the ivy had wilted and turned brown. In my forgetfulness, I had inadvertently killed it.
I don’t believe in signs so much as I believe in stories.
I tend to latch on to a birds’ nest, a construction site, a plant, and identify with it. Our stories become intertwined.
So when the ivy died—a plant I had come to associate with my endurance during the pandemic—I wondered what that could mean. Its tendrils had wrapped around me, and I wasn’t sure how to extricate myself from them.
And the ivy died on my watch. I had forgotten to take it out of the car not only at the church, but also when I came back home. I had left it in the car to freeze, and it made its resentment known through its curling leaves.
I sheepishly called my plant-whispering parishioner and told her what had happened, and asked if there was anything to be done. She showed up at my office minutes after I called and helped me cut it back again.
We cut the long tendrils off, all the way down to the initial sprouts. It had just two sprouts. We cut one off and put it in a bottle of water to propagate, and we left the other in the pot to give it a shot at new life where it was.
A year and a half later and I am no longer the pastor at that church. I work at a children’s hospital as a chaplain, among other things (like this newsletter).
But the ivy and its long tendrils are at my house. Because of the extreme Texas heat, it does not sit in the library with the big windows full of sun, but rather off on a cabinet tucked further back.
It grew again with some nurturing and attention (and profuse apologies on my part).
I left the propagating ivy at the church.
It has grown a lot since I nearly killed it. Longer than its first pandemic growth.
If our stories are intertwined, then I should note that I have grown a lot, too.
If it feels like you’ve been left out in the cold by those who were supposed to care for you, it doesn’t have to be the end.
You can grow again.
You may have lost so much of yourself that you no longer feel recognizable, but it doesn’t have to be the end.
You can live again.
You may have to be completely removed from that which grew you up and put in a new place, in new waters, in new environments, but it doesn’t have to be the end.
You can be who you were supposed to be. Who you were created to be in love and delight.
You have been through so much. You have been so faithful.
This doesn’t have to be the end.
I post once a week about questions, stories, and faithiness. The weekly post goes out to everyone, for free, always.
By becoming a paid subscriber, you also receive a weekly links post filled with the best stuff I read/listened to/watched, as well as the occasional audio recording of posts. You also have the ability to leave comments.
And of course, by being a paid subscriber, your generosity allows me to continue to do this work, and to do it better each week.