To grow, to survive, you need food – fuel for the system. Plants grow where they can access the resources they need to germinate, grow, leaf, flower, and fruit. We are no different. You can make a go of it anywhere but the relative success you have, the depth of your roots, the fruitfulness of your endeavors, has a lot to do with whether or not you are in a place with access to the resources you need to support your life.

This is in some ways the idea behind support services. We are not all born in places that create opportunities to thrive, and so we try to provide the basic conditions that will allow someone the chance to grow. The fact that some find themselves in places with richer soil, more resources, better climate, well it isn’t fair, that’s true. The world is diverse, not fair. The idea, I think, is to enrich not equalize, and it is hard to accept that we don’t all have the same chance.

In Deuteronomy 15:11 God says, “Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.” The first part of the verse explains, ‘Since there will be never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you.’ This is a non-optional activity because of the conditions of being human, some will always need a boost, if you have the boost they need, share it.

I started thinking about this quite literally because of my plants. I have a lot of house plants, partially due to covid habits, partially to make the indoor cats feel like they are outdoors, mostly because I like living in a garden. The thing with houseplants is that you have brought them in from somewhere and they are now totally dependent on you for the resources they need. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, the majority of the plants in my home are tropical, we already have a disconnect. And so I have to water and mist and feed and arrange in the light to create an environment that feels like where they would normally thrive.

You can buy chemical fertilizer or you can buy organic fertilizer, that latter of which means it was something else or it came out of something else. I’m currently using something that smells a lot like what you would expect on the ‘coming out’ of spectrum. The dogs love it, though there is a lot more rooting around in plants than previously. My office is probably the highest concentration of plants to square footage to windows and so, if I’m being really honest, it smells a little poopy. I tried to sell it as verdant and loamy when my husband said, ‘what happened in here?’ It’s not great for the nose, but the plants love it.

I have flowers and new leaves and shoots of new growth. That poopiness on the nose is being turned into something beautiful and astonishing. Which got me thinking about my own life and that resource unfairness of the world. I’ve gone through some hard things, not as hard as some, harder than others. I was born in a time and place with a lot of natural resources, I was raised in a space that was depleting, not so unusual. But some of that hard stuff, some of the very worst of it, the poopy stuff if you will, was the very stuff that I could convert into nutrients to help me grow. A work ethic (sometimes too much), a resilience, creativity in the face of social ‘no’s’ – the things I survived are what made me strong enough to thrive.

I’m not justifying pain or cruelty as a strengthening tool, I am noticing that those things we turn our noses up at, perhaps those things we don’t want to confront or that feel unfair are the very things that when composted and converted become food that helps us to do astonishing things right where we are, for ourselves and others.

Peace Lillies are native to tropical rain forests; if they live where they are supposed to and get what they need in that place they are huge, prolifically blooming, creating leaf homes and habitats for countless creatures. My house is not a tropical rain forest; mostly cool and fairly dry I do my best to give the plants what they need to survive. It probably isn’t fair to them, they did nothing to deserve generations of uprootedness and forced life in harsh lands. But I’m taking something a little poopy and letting it transform existence.

That’s the opportunity for all of us; to take those things that started out not so good in our own lives and to transform them into a strength that we can share. The resilience I learned when I was told over and over what I couldn’t do or be or dream I have composted. It’s not perfect now, it hasn’t entirely lost that hurt in my heart (or that yucky smell if we stay with the metaphor), but it has become something that helps me to keep trying when I am working with others who keep hearing ‘no’ to their own dreams.

So the question I leave you with today is this: what is the fertilizer in your own life that needs a review? Maybe it isn’t quite ready to be shared, maybe right now you are so depleted you need something from someone else, maybe you don’t even know what you have or what you need because you are still an unknown species to yourself. Reach out your hand friends – there will always be the needy in our land, that is heartbreaking and true, sometimes it will be me and sometimes it will be you.