Dear Friends,
The day after Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death, my daughter telephoned. Like many of us, she was struggling to find hope and needed to just be heard. After a bit, she asked, "How are you? What are you doing right now?" I answered, "Well, I'm digging potatoes, and listening to the lessons from them." We both laughed, knowing this was no exaggeration.
My mom, the matriarch of the family, has always glowed when talking about digging potatoes. "Every other crop provides evidence that they exist at harvest time," she has always reminded us. "You literally wait for every bit of green showing to have died down before you harvest potatoes, until it looks like there is nothing there. But they're there!"
Because it's too easy to unknowingly pierce them with a spade or fork, I kneel and work with my hands. Feeling rather than seeing, i scoop with my fingers, searching for lovely round shapes too soft to be rocks. As I bring them to the surface, I am amazed and grateful—every time. They really are down there. It is always miraculous.
I'm trying to live this fall with the faith of a farmer (one who is blessed with adequate water, sun, good soil, cool nights, and a reasonably decent back), believing that there are potatoes of holiness even in these very difficult times. It is a season to reach out, to bring them into the light and share them with others hungering for hope, healing, and justice. It's not much different from trying to sense the Inner Light in worship. "Do not be fooled, Gretchen," I am telling myself. "There is more goodness and hope than meets the eye. Get down on your knees and dig."
As I do, I easily find potatoes of holiness—glimmers of Light, hope, compassion—around me. You, dear Friends, are some of them, striving to live into transformation, into wholeness, into right relationships with each other and this beautiful planet. I'm grateful for all the ways you nourish your communities and the wider world—spiritually, physically, emotionally and justly. Don't lose hope. Take good care of yourselves and each other—but keep going. There's work yet to do and hope yet to be shared. I'm grateful we can do it together.
With love,
Gretchen