Nuggets at hand

July 21, 2026

Beloved,
          It’s time to give my basil plants a deep pruning and make some pesto before they bolt much more.  I’ll get another crop or two before I let it go for the season.  Tomatoes are on the vine but none are even close to ripe.  I’ll pick jalapeños soon, and my zinnias are gorgeous.
          Gardening and sewing are the two things quieting my mind this summer.  Only as I leave that quiet zone do I realize how busy my brain stays nearly all the time, even when I’m sleeping.  I regularly wake up from dreams in which I’m trying madly to finish a project or meet some people’s expectations.  I don’t like waking up relieved to be relieved of the busyness of sleep.
          I like working too, writing, reading, meetings, corresponding, planning, and my visitation rounds.  I just don’t like how much mental space and energy even joyful work consumes.  Which I suppose is why touching dirt and growing things, or stitching hundreds of tiny pieces of fabric together is so restorative.  What’s happening at my fingertips requires my concentration but the stakes are very low; starvation doesn’t drive my gardening and no one dies because my quilt blocks are crooked.  I’m in it for the process and the gifts therein.
          If only I brought this nugget in from the garden and out of my sewing room.  If only I imagined myself, in this time and place, here for the process and for the gifts therein, less than the expected, hoped-for outcomes I attach to all this labor.  If only I was as willing to work as methodically and patiently at everything as I am in the garden and the sewing room.
          What is it about being in a hurry that suggests to me I’m working harder or doing a better job, especially when that pace exhausts me so and leaves me dodging the work rather than returning to it joyfully?  Who is whispering such nonsense in my ear, so persistently that it takes root in my thoughts?  Habit, I suppose, a long habit of believing work always comes before fun, before joy, that the two are naturally antonymous.  A hard lesson to unlearn for sure, but in the practice I feel it softening.  For that I am grateful.
          It smells like a put-out campfire inside my house this morning.*  I hope you & yours are safe & well.

​~peace and prayers, 
pastor annette

*Canadian campfires, I assume, as nothing in my neighborhood is burning.