Transplanted Roots!

When I say "we transplanted", it's because this time when we moved it's because I have "matured" as my friend Urlene would say and grown and well maybe bloomed a little! This thought process all started when in our last move we were abruptly loading plants to go ahead of us to our new home with the son who was now leaving earlier than expected.  I have a house full of plants that have been named and taken care of in the name of all the dead family members! Yes I say Dead, not deceased, not passed, Dead.  It has been the way I have looked at it, I guess, the way I have dealt with the rudeness of them leaving me here going on without me and well leaving me - Dead.  Anyway that is another blog prbly so today I am striving to work out the TRANSPLANT! the fact that I need ROOTS and that maybe this is the issue in my life that leaves me with walls, without a glow, not Happy, empty yep we are back to DEAD! Well I'm pretty tired of it too and so is the fam so I'm striving as I said, to work it out ... redeem my place in this world and make good use of it ... or otherwise what is the point of being here, still having the blessing of being here, still living longer than my brother and even creeping up on the age of the siblings too!  anyway blah blah blah!  so... where did I leave off????

Oh, where were we?  We are moving again from the attempted roots of heaven and Mom just died!  We are now moving the plants.  I have this one plant that is huge long, we call her Aunt EL!  I start to prune her, so that she will fit and travel well!  The daughter we'll call her AJ went (as she does) ballistic, I sat down to explain that they need to travel they might need a little pruning.  She was distressed that we would just cut off the family and throw them out!  So we made a plan ... I kept the pruned pieces in water to transplant when we got to the new place.  Have you ever heard the story in the Bible about The Parable of the Sower?  You can find it in a few different places (Matthew 13:17-24 Mark 4, and Luke 8:5-8)  This is my vision.  Our talk, that day back in Washington turned into a lingering tale that has both haunted me and given me joy over the last few months since AJ and I had this talk as we talked of plants, roots, seeds, dirt, heritage, missionary work, belief, traditions well keep in mind PEOPLE not merely plants.

When Aunt EL died (the acutal one not the plant!) and  I brought home a plant and I gave the another to my daughter. I'm not sure how she took care of it. But when she moved it did not come with, just an empty pot.  When My sister died I brought home a flower it has since dried up and is in a cedar box in my Kitchen with me. When my brother died I also brought home a flower a yellow one that was so Tom!  It was alive, bright yet rugged and handsome. When Apryl Ann was married I was afraid to use flowers that lived, for they would some day die too, so I have some of her plastic flowers place in a wase to greet me each morning as I wash my face and put on my make-up!!!

When we actually did move AJ and I put into the works a network plan, a missionary heritage, family roots type experiment just to see how it would play out!  We planted the pieces of the plants at my sons house in new pots (which was kinda dumb in retro spec since he wasn't home, nor would he be for a month! to take care of them). We bought soil and tried to strategically space them towards the light in the rooms they were left in.  Then we went away.  Two months later when I returned, the pots with their plants were outside looking abit limp and weakened, BUT still hanging on.  Then...(forgive me but for the sake of my story!) an outsider came in threw the plants to the trash and the soil to the garden.  It was a wind that shook the earth.  Some plants were replaced, some plants were not, pots were left empty, and others were left with pieces of plant and soil...to me they looked so sad!   Some were left with a tiny root to hang on to, some were not allowed a root or a connection to the past.  The picture in the previous blog is the sprout of a Christmas cactus my mom watered each week, the limbs here in this picture are from a plant that I've had since my Dad died.  The plants at home that we call JA and T were NOT even rooted.  And the one named Oats was not even shared! Is that life? REALLY? What is the story of the ancestors? The descendants? What will I leave?

If you can imagine with me, our families spread out all over the world, how do we nourish them?  Are we rooted in something good.  What are the traditions of our fathers? Are they good or evil? If they are not of Jesus Christ then what? I pray we can then be the link that strenghtens and break that chain that isn't goodness.  We are going to be responsible for that which is planted in unrighteousness.  I am grateful for my knowledge in the scriptures and the parable of the Sower and hope to break the chains of ugliness around the home and weld links of happiness transplanted for our future.

I get it this is very wordy and I need to work on that ... how to tell the thought without being so wordy!!!! But let me sum it up in away I hope that you can feel what I have felt in this experiment of needing roots to be transplanted.

This time (our move) I have not been rooted up, but transplanted.  My sadness and lack of luster is that I indeed have not found roots yet, but I will (now that I know what i'm looking for).  Over the month that I was at my sons I watched that little sprout come back to life in a pot in the back yard, she grew out of the soil and start to bloom.  If we are left to ourselves we can survive if we look upward to the light.  But if we have roots how much more blessed are we and how much more advantage do we have in this life. 
dig in and bloom.