This morning, as I walked past my lavender bushes, I noticed they were a little wild. The butterflies and honeybees had flown away, and now the untamed growth was due for pruning before the harshness of winter arrived. So, I sat down on the sidewalk in the sun, trimmers in hand, cutting away the dead branches. The breeze caressed my shoulders, the scent of lavender rose around me, and I felt deeply present.

As I worked, I remembered Jesus’ words in John 15:

“He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.” (John 15:2, NRSV)

I began to wonder: where in my own life do I need pruning?

• Negative thoughts
• Fear of the unknown
• Anxiety about the state of the world
• Emotional eating
• Escaping through sleep, books, or TV
• Procrastination
• Forgetting to rest

That quiet moment in the garden became a sacred moment. Just as the lavender needed tending, so do our souls. I realized I had created a spiritual reflection I needed to write down.

Then, later today, I read where a student from Wisdom Tree Collective shared a poet she’d recently discovered, Chelan Harkin. Her poem The Worst Thing stirred something in me, and I wanted to share it with you.

The Worst Thing

The worst thing we ever did

was put God in the sky

out of reach pulling the divinity

from the leaf,

Sifting out the holy from our bones,

insisting God isn’t bursting dazzlement

through everything we’ve made

a hard commitment to see as ordinary,

stripping the sacred from everywhere

to put in a cloud man elsewhere,

prying closeness from your heart.

The worst thing we ever did

was take the dance and the song

out of prayer

made it sit up straight

and cross its legs

removed it of rejoicing wiped clean its hip sway,

its questions,

its ecstatic yowl,

its tears.

The worst thing we ever did is pretend

God isn’t the easiest thing

in this Universe

available to every soul

in every breath.

– Chelan Harkin

Harkin laments how we’ve distanced God, placing divinity “in the sky / out of reach,” stripping the sacred from our bones, our breath, our ordinary moments. She names the tragedy of removing dance and song from prayer, of making it sit up straight and cross its legs. She reminds us that God is not distant, but “the easiest thing / in this Universe,” available to every soul in every breath.

Some people imagine God as a clockmaker who winds up the universe and steps away. However, I believe, and Harkin affirms, that God can be more intimate and personal. Bursting dazzlement through everything. Present in lavender and pruning shears. In the garden we tend, the house we clean, the people we love. In our cries and even in our tears.

Take a moment to read the poem again, slowly. Let it speak to you. I will wait.

What words or phrases resonate most?

For me, “bursting dazzlement” is a revelation. It invites us to reclaim a spirituality that invites all of our emotions. I want to be dazzled. I desire to see beauty in a loved one’s laughter and in the smell of lavender. In the flowering blooms that dance in the breeze, and the call of one songbird to another. I want to be someone who finds holiness in the mundane and refuses to strip the sacred from the world around us.

May we prune what no longer bears fruit. May we dance our prayers again. May we remember: God is here. In every breath.

A newsletter by Katie Rea.