The Fruit is in the Process: Soil, Spirit, and Small Things (March 30, 2025)

There’s something about getting your hands in the dirt — literally and metaphorically — that will humble you. That’s a truth I’ve come to know, not just from books or sermons, but through living, failing, and trying again. When I got the deed to my home, the home I grew up in as a child, with my mom and grandparents — I was about 26. I was Grateful, but also young enough to not fully grasp the responsibility, the symbolism, or the blessing that was being planted right then and there.

It wasn’t until years later that I started to see the real metaphor. My home has always been more than four walls and a roof — it’s been a mirror. A mirror reflecting back to me the conditions of my life, my spirit, and most importantly, my heart.

Dr. Anita Phillips' work — connecting biology, scripture, and spirit — gave language to something I was already feeling but hadn't really tapped in to understand. I had been doing some of this heart-work without even knowing it. But when I heard her speak about the heart as both a physical and spiritual organ, it clicked for me. The depth of it all. The interconnectedness. The way your external world can so easily mirror the condition of your internal one.

And for me, the garden was proof.

In 2017, I tried my hand at farming. Trial and error was the theme. Some crops struggled, but some held on, and I got the hang of it. By the next season, I had life booming out of a humble little raised bed. Tomatoes, lettuce — you name it. My granddaddy even came by and told me how healthy my crops looked. I felt proud. I had worked the soil, nurtured it, tended to it. But just as quickly as it bloomed, it was gone.

I came home to find the box destroyed. Beaten in. And no, I wasn’t out here beefing with anybody — at least not knowingly. Could’ve been raccoons. Could’ve been life. Either way, it hurt. I sat with that loss. I took it as a sign and stepped away from gardening altogether.

Instead, I turned inward. I started caring for houseplants. It wasn’t farming, but it was something. And now, years later, as I repot plants on the floor of my home, I realize I never really left the garden. I just shifted it.

Yesterday, I looked around and saw it clearly. This house — my house — has grown up with me. The details, the cracks, the quirks, the beauty — all of it telling a story of patience, presence, and process. I realized how much I had underestimated the small things. The tiny roots that take hold slowly beneath the surface. The unnoticed days where nothing seems to change, but somehow everything does.

We live in a world obsessed with spectacle — the next big thing, the glow-up, the highlight reel. But it’s the small, deliberate, consistent acts that matter. The daily good mornings to Ziya, the quiet repotting of plants, the way a house becomes a home simply because you keep showing up to tend to it.

My garden — whether outside or inside — is my life. My home is my heart. Both require nurturing, patience, and protection from the wild things that will, inevitably, try to break them down. And just like I learned when I first grew that little raised bed in the middle of the hood, you have to plant anyway. You have to tend anyway. You have to believe that even if it gets destroyed, you’ll have the courage to start again.

This is your PSA: Tend to what matters. Water the little things. Notice the roots you’ve already planted. And remember, the best fruit comes from the garden you didn’t give up on.

#SundaySpirit