Humility and Hugelkultur
Hugelkultur.
It’s a fun word to say even if I don’t really know how to pronounce it! There’s supposed to be an umlaut somewhere in that word.
I am attempting my first hugelkultur pit or mound.
For several years, one of my garden beds has been a brush pile…Yup, a big, ugly, disorderly pile of branches, twigs, and vines…stuff that was too big to go into the compost pile, that I didn’t want to take it to the landfill. Why add it to the methane load on the environment, when I might be able to recycle it back into the ground? So there it sat. Big, ugly, messy, hopeless and unfruitful.
Kind of like some places in my life and heart.
You know…the kind of places we avoid talking about, until the burden of the crud that’s there gets too big, then it bursts out in unruly language and tortured feelings. Stuff that you’re too proud to face, that’s too ugly to acknowledge. If you leave something alone long enough, it will go away by itself, right?
(Around here, if you leave something alone long enough, black widow spiders start to consider it home! So far, no spiders in the brush pile, but I always wear gloves, just in case.)
So a hugelkultur pit is built out of all that old lumber, decaying stumps and branches, layered with leaves, grass clippings, manure, compost and good old dirt. It’s a brush pile brought into submission to the gardener’s will. The expected outcome is a piece of fertile ground that holds and then slowly releases moisture to the plants that grow on top of it.
There is a lot of junk in my heart and life, old dead things and rotting leftovers from pain and disobedience that I can’t take to the dump. (It’s hazardous waste, trust me.) But if I humbly, helplessly acknowledge it and give God access to it, He will reorder it into a pleasant, fruitful place. I can’t do it, but He can.
Okay, Papa. Go for it. Turn my “valley of destruction into a door of hope.” (See Hosea 2:15)
Personally, I’m hoping for berries.
Following Jesus every day in the everyday,
Christi
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