I’ve been waiting a long time to feel like I’m home
I was broken so early my young heart grew old
I was chasing the cold lie the memories of ghosts
You’re the hope of the morning in my midnight storm

Can you feel my love?
Can you feel my love?

"Feel My Love," Vian Izak

Right now. In this moment. What are you rooted in? What is anchoring you, feeding you, keeping you from wilting? I am a bit of a plant nut, always having a jar of this or that rooting somewhere. I love taking a smidge of something that has been knocked off, life being a bit too rough, and popping it in water. If everything works out, pretty soon, little rootlets will sprout from a leaf or stem—parts of the plant that had only heard of roots through the grapevine. But, given the right conditions, a previously unrooted twig will grow roots. I heard on the internet that a group of students, to end an argument with their professor, dug up and tree and planted it upside down. Leaves in the dirt.

And it lives. You can look.

Plants have the ability to grow roots from just about any part of themselves because roots are shockingly important.

And, so, I ask again, what are you rooted in? What surrounds you, nourishes you, helps you withstand the floods?

"Rootedness is perhaps the most important and least known human spiritual need." S. Weil,The Need for Roots, 33

The month of May is Pilgrimage theology month for the Missional Wisdom Foundation. Through our practice of pilgrimage, we have become aware of five important aspects of pilgrimage: preparation, journey, arrival, return, re-entry. It isn't a magic recipe or a five-step program guaranteed to ensure that you transcend this mortal coil, but it seems to be the pilgrimage rhythm. Of the five parts, preparation is the longest, it can stretch on for months or years, but it also feels the most mundane. Preparation includes breaking in your walking shoes, planning your travel, arranging to be gone, trying to find your favorite rain jacket, but it is also about noticing who you are, at this moment. What, besides your socks, are you bringing with you? Hope? Joy? Anxiety? Exhaustion? Fear?

Returning to the metaphor of rootedness, what part of rootedness aligns with preparation? Well, that, as the old saying goes, depends.

Preparation might be noticing that you are root-bound and need to be repotted into spaciousness. Perhaps you have had a run-in with a zoomie-laden Golden Retriever tail and you are a broken bit in need of an out of the way jar of water. Maybe, even, you have been excavated by life and face-planted. Wherever you are, whatever shape you are in or out of, preparation is learning to accept that you aren't where you would like to be. You can feel the tug of...something: longing, expectation, the pressing need for growth, and preparation is turning your attention to the state of your roots.

Or, and this is quite possible as well, you are a lightning struck tree, exploded by forces so far out of your control you can't begin to decide where to start explaining your shards. Perhaps you feel beyond repair. Uprooted. Desiccated. A heart grown old. Preparation might be realizing this whole pilgrimage process is going to feel a lot more like breaking off dead branches than blossoming. Pilgrimage might just be hoping for resurrection. A sprouting stump. The distant hope of the compost heap. The frailty of a pressed flower.

What are you rooted in? If nothing else, know that I believe you are rooted in love.

Growing Roots