Five Minute Friday :: Root

• Five Minute Friday :: Root Linkup

"… that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love … you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." Ephesians 3:17-19

The apostle Paul's successor or colleague who wrote to the Ephesus church prayed intently for that community to possess the essential of love.

In September 2003, I wrote about radishes—that grows up from the ground, pull up from the ground root vegetable whose name is about root. Whether idea, action, hope, or outcome, anything radical relates to the root, the ground level (or lower!) basis of whatever it is. Root veggies such as beets, potatoes, carrots, turnips, and onions are excellent winter keepers. However chilly – or maybe not – winters become where you live, root vegetables can be prepared near-countless ways as they nourish and sustain us through the cold, take us into the spring.

We talk about radical ideas, radical Christianity. People have a habit of separating out styles of Christianity into categories like conservative, progressive, liberal, radical… but all Christians live rooted and grounded in love, and love is a radical reality anywhere. Besides, God created humans out of the ground—rooted us in the land. Just as for planet earth, water is the womb of our creation. As we enjoy an aquascape's plants rooted in water, let's imagine human parallels.

Different church traditions may have interpretive, sacramental, and liturgical histories and preferences; they may read various styles of polity or church governance out of scripture. Those of us in the mainline have public theology in our DNA; others tend to emphasize individual holiness more, yet each person, each community needs some of everything, and all of it creates a mosaic with all of us together grounded and rooted in Jesus Christ.

I couldn't quickly find any pictures I'd taken of onions, potatoes, carrots, beets, parsnips, or turnips, but I had radish captures from the Farmers Market. On my header photo I especially love how the veggie vendors left a lovely patina of just plain dirt, and, of course, the green tops that cook up nicely and season well.

I happily recall tenant and friend Mary in A Former City where I managed rental properties reminding me as I dug up front lawn dandelions, "That's hard work! You need to get to the tap root!"

It's not unusual for us to desire a return to our roots, whether that means home town, original cuisine, First Church Small Town (or Large City), or simply a simpler lifestyle anyone can rock anywhere. For many humans in this world where few stay in a single city, dwelling place, or employment center very long, going back to our roots literally can mean tap roots that support all the other roots that grow outward from it.

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