My garden, if I may say so, is doing great this year. I added many native perennials to my flower beds, but my pride and joy is the food I am growing. My peaches, apples and grapes are bounteous, my pumpkins are unstoppable, carrots are coming in strong, my sweet corn is putting out tassels ahead of schedule, and my various basils, eggplants, garlic, cucumbers and dill are doing yeoman’s work. Even my rhubarb, strawberries and asparagus are still producing a bit, well past their allotted season. 

But for a real thrill, I go and gaze at my potato plants, which are dying. This is good. This is what you want to see at this time of year. A few weeks ago, the stems were sturdy, and the leaves were thick and lush, and when I watered them, they danced and bounced under the shower. But after briefly flowering, the blossoms are now gone, and the leaves are taking on a dusty look, drooping and tired. Soon the leaves will start to fray and dry up, and then they will go brown. That’s how I will know it is time to harvest.

And getting to the point where it is time to harvest is the whole point of growing potatoes. The trick is not to get overly attached to the intermediary stages.

The other trick is understanding that all stages are intermediary stages. 

Oh no, she’s going to draw a parallel between a garden and human life! Well, deal with it, dear readers. I learned this trick from the Gospels, and Jesus has not been shy lately about making parables out of growing things. Throughout the readings of the last several weeks, he has been practically shouting at his disciples: Pay attention to your garden! Listen to what it says, my foolish little plants, before the growing season is over.

He has told us that we should try to be the kind of soil where the word of God can flourish and bear fruit; that we can expect to live our lives alongside evil, and the goal is to be the kind of harvest the God desires, rather than the kind that is only good for burning. He says the kingdom of God is tiny but can flourish and become huge if it is given half a chance. 

When we first bought our house and had our own land, almost 20 years ago, I did pay attention to the lessons of the garden, and I struggled with what I thought I was hearing. I saw up close for the first time what it means to “go to seed.” I remember explaining to one of my kids that a flower has a time to be bright and beautiful, and then it was supposed to turn its energy into producing the next generation, and that is when it faded and wilted away because the flower’s time was past, and now it was the seeds’ turn. To the horror of both of us, I started to cry, because I was talking about myself. I was very glad, of course, to be surrounded by all the bright new children God saw fit to bless me with, but pretty distraught to be nothing but seedy old coffin fodder now. 

I was 30 years old. It turns out I was being a little dramatic. I wasn’t actually over; I was just really tired. I needed a break, and I needed more help, and I got them both, eventually. Now, watching the cycle of the flowers does not hurt my feelings so much. Yes, it is still true that eventually I will die. And it is certainly true that, more than 20 years later, I am considerably less flowerlike. It is also true that I am not a flower. I am more; and, more importantly, God is so much more than a farmer who knows how to grow a decent crop. 

The parables that Jesus gives us are often tough to hear, and they are designed to be that way. The Bible is full of dire warnings and lessons: Human life is fleeting; beauty and strength fade away; our strength either goes into making something good or else it is wasted, but either way, it will pass. And you don’t even have to read the Bible to learn these things. All you have to do is spend some time paying close attention to growing things, and the lesson is pretty loud. 

But here is where the word of God edges out the word of the garden. We do have a lot of things in common with, well, anything that grows, and we can learn a lot from tending living things through all their phases of life. But the Lord, as he tends and cares for all living things, has something that has no place in a literal garden: Mercy. 

Parables are very powerful, and we ignore them at our peril. But once we have heard them, God also often gently reminds us, if we’re willing to hear it, that these stories are just a starting point. They are a way to get our attention, but they are not reductive. “You are worth more than many sparrows,” he says, with what I read as a very Jewish comic understatement.

I thought of this when I heard the first reading that accompanied the parable of the sower. The writer of the Book of Wisdom says: 

For your might is the source of justice;
your mastery over all things makes you lenient to all.
For you show your might when the perfection of your power is disbelieved;
and in those who know you, you rebuke temerity.
But though you are master of might, you judge with clemency,
and with much lenience you govern us;
for power, whenever you will, attends you.
And you taught your people, by these deeds,
that those who are just must be kind;
and you gave your children good ground for hope
that you would permit repentance for their sins.

In other words: You are worth more than many potatoes. The Lord gives us these tough lessons about what life is like, and then he says: But also, and even more so: I love you. 

God loves you and always will love you, in all your stages, no matter how productive you are, and his mercy falls from the sky and comes up from the ground and shines on our faces and is the warmth and the cold and is the force that through the green fuse drives the flower. Tough lessons are everywhere, but God’s mercy is more than everywhere: It is everything. 

Simcha Fisher is a speaker, freelance writer, regular contributor to The Catholic Weekly and author of The Sinner’s Guide to Natural Family Planning. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and 10 children.