Garden Blessings

Saturday it was time for the annual blessing of the Fourth Street Gardens.  These gardens are the result of  a collaboration between a private owner, neighborhood churches, the families in the neighborhood and other organizations that donate money and resources for tools and seeds.

Most of the families who garden these plots are refugees from Burma.

These families have escaped war and persecution to come to the Midwest.  The bravery they display in learning a new language, a new culture a new place inspires me.

Despite all of the obstacles, these families cling tight to each other with multiple generations living and gardening together.

I can't imagine the desperate circumstances that drive whole families from the communities they love into the void of the larger world. They leave what they've known their whole lives, the people and community that have supported them; not knowing what the future will hold.

We are a country of immigrants, a melting pot of cultures and religions. The immigrants I know come here to secure their family's future for the economic, religious and cultural freedoms the United States offers.  Sometimes our ideas about "how things should be" clash with the newcomers.  These tensions have ever been with the United States. They are not new, not different, just the process of growing.

Here in the Midwest as our small towns and mid-size cities shrink we need more families who will sink down roots, invest in our community, make it a community that thrives.

These are the hopeful, industrious members of our community who are taking a vacant lot in a neighborhood where gun violence is not uncommon, turning the soil,

digging deep, planting roots

and building a better community and future for all of our children.

These newest members of our community are getting a good start as the folks who are already here make investments in our newest residents.

Councilman Steve Schmitt, on the far right, who works hard every year to secure donations to make sure the garden is tilled, everyone has tools, seeds and plants to launch their gardens. Dave O'Malley, center who along with his wife, Liz, donates the lot each year.

Carol Luce, center, from Blessed Maria Assunta Pallata Middle School 7th Grade Service Learning class, who asks her students how they want to change the world.

 Two of Carol's Burmese students, Sie Se Lia an Nae Meh inspired their classmates to raise money to provide shovels and rakes for the gardens.

In spite of the harsh rhetoric that's been coming from some of in our political class, this simple task of standing together and reminding ourselves that we are all God's children, put here to take care of each other and the planet because after all it's in all of our best interest for everyone to have shelter, food, security.

As Pastor Nate, seen here in pink shorts, says all of the world is God's garden.

Build houses and live in them; and plant gardens and eat their produce.

Jeremiah 29:5

Thank you to all of those who make these gardens possible every year:

Church Row Neighborhood Gardens Thank You to:

Dave and Liz O’Malley (4 th Street) and Habitat for Humanity (Sunnyside Ave) for the land for the gardens

Blessed Maria Assunta Pallata Middle School 7 th Grade Service Learning class and Carol Luce

Iowa State Extension and Justin Edwards

PDCM Insurance

Hawkeye Community College and Dan Lichty

Black Hawk County and Supervisor John Miller

City of Waterloo Leisure Services and Paul Huting

Blue Zones Project

Cole Photography

UNI Center for Energy, Environment and Education

Fareway Grocery store on San Marnan

Cedar Valley Good Foods Network

Lowe’s Home Improvement Center

Father Ken and Father Luigi from Sacred Heart Church

Pastor Nate from First United Methodist Church

Grace Notes and Metamorphosis

This week has been filled with grace notes. The Universe is conspiring to bring a big juicy smack of love and good wishes to me and I can hardly take it all in.

I'm about to set off on the adventure of a lifetime.

When I was a little girl on the farm, feeding pigs and chickens, milking cows, walking endless rows of bean fields in the hot summer sun, I would see jet contrails and imagine the swanky life of the folks drinking martini's in the posh silver tube overhead.  I was a well read little girl on the farm and I knew that there was life beyond the fields that I saw every day.

And now the Universe and Prince Charming are conspiring together to give me the adventure I've dreamed about.

But first I have to pack. Oh no! I have nothing to wear for this life of swanky adventure.
Here's a sample from my closet.

This will not do! Here's how I imagine my traveling wardrobe

Coco Channel, my idea of fashion perfection

And so the Universe comes to the rescue in the form of friends. I spent a cold, rainy Saturday shopping, my very least favorite thing to do with one of my most favorite people in the world, Melynda.

First to prepare me for the traumas that waited in the dressing room, we had a glass (or two) of wine

Then it was off to the torture chamber, I mean dressing room, in which predictably nothing fit. Everything was too long, too big, too tight......not right! I was Goldilocks

without finding just right.

Melynda whisked me away back to her house and her closet and there we happily giggled and slipped in and out of pants and tops until wa-la!

A decent traveling wardrobe emerged.

Wednesday the Universe continued it's joyful outpouring. Joanie invited our lunch bunch over to her house for lunch.  It was a gorgeous spring day, everything in bloom.

My to-do list and everyone else's was as long as usual.  But we collectively decided to ignore the urgent in favor of the necessary--time spent with girlfriends laughing and sharing stories.

Some days are like that, occasionally we get weeks where the stars align, the weather is perfect, the flowers are all blooming and the Universe fills us up with laughter, friendship, love and adventure.

On Thursday, there was a knock at the door.  It was Marijo bearing these!

A bouquet of Lilly of the Valley. I'd forgotten how wonderfully fragrant they are.  Marijo's been away so we spent time catching up, another lovely gift from the Universe.

Joanie and Marijo added to my list of necessary equipment for adventure travel:

a Kindle and a travel purse.  Now I'm all set. My ruby slippers are packed and I'm ready to go!

But before I go, I want to share the adventures of the Butterfly Lady.

For several years now Ann has been teaching children at the local elementary school about the metamorphose process caterpillars go through to become butterflies.

This year she ordered over 100 caterpillars.  Most of them are in the classroom, but she had such an abundance that she's keeping a few at home.

The caterpillars are getting ready to spin their cocoons.  When I popped over to take these pictures, Ann was fighting with the saran wrap.  She was on her way to the classroom to wrap a child in saran wrap as a visual aid to explain what the cocooning process was like for the caterpillar. This is part of the life of adventure the Universe brings to us every day. The caterpillar spinning it's cocoon to transform into

butterflies.  

We are all on our way to becoming something brand new and magnificent.  I'm so excited to be climbing into the cocoon of a jet plane and a few hours later to find myself on a different continent where people speak a different language and see the world differently than I do.  I expect I'll come back changed, hopefully with a bigger, more expansive and beautiful understanding of the world. When I was young I thought once I reached 50, I'd understand life and the world. I'm so delighted to find that isn't true.  There is so much more to learn and see and do. I wonder how this prairie caterpillar will emerge from this new experience? I can't wait to find out.

Ann walks through the universe covered in butterflies 

to help our children see the world they walk in everyday as a magical transforming place.

The big and the small, the every day and the exotic the world is always pushing us to see wonder and delight.

Because I expect my first international travel experience to be challenging enough without trying to figure out how to make a computer work on a different electrical and wifi grid, I'll be taking a few weeks off blogging.  

Until I return, may you all experience your own butterfly moments and may the Universe bless you with the abundance of love and friendship!