So what does my iris bed, newly worked this spring, have to do with the theological concept of justification? I hadn't thought about justification for a long time, but the iris bed dug that word right out of my brain.
Those of us who learned how to type on a typewriter (and do word processing in MS Word or other programs) know what it is to align the type on a piece of printed paper. We call it "justifying the margins" when we arrange the lines in a certain way, usually straight.
The iris bed had become unruly. The river stones were encroaching on the iris; the iris were moving into the stones. Ed hauled some field stone for me to place as a border. I got down on my knees and got to justifying the margins. That's what I did.
I thought about that old catechism word "justification" all the time that I worked in the stubborn weeds and cakey mud and iris rhizomes. The theologian's justification is probably a tad more complex than stones and mud. Nevertheless, it was good for me to think about cleaning up the margins in life by taking crooked stuff and making it straight.
Too deep? Probably.
Back to the garden. It's time to haul more stones.
Copyright 2013
Wanda Hayes Eichler
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