Putting up with the smell of fertilizer

I'll crinkle the corners of my eyes and grimace my whole face because the memory tastes bad, and admit to these words : "I just don't understand. I try to take care of my things, be a good steward, be kind and good, treat people well...why is life hard? Why don't things just work out?"


A recent bout of this whining landed me in a pew at a Saturday morning Mass in my wooded neighborhood. The sanctuary is always shadowed, and the cool stone walls catch me looking for a tiny spring leaking through the cracks in the wall, as if the church were underground. The priest looks like Barack Obama and enunciates like a Shakespearean actor. He read:


"Jesus said to his disciples:

'If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first.

If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own;

but because you do not belong to the world,

and I have chosen you out of the world,

the world hates you.

Remember the word I spoke to you,

‘No slave is greater than his master.’

If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.

If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.

And they will do all these things to you on account of my name,

because they do not know the one who sent me.'” 
- John 15:18-21


Recover from your shock, Tala, quitcherbellyachin (I would like that to be Russian for "move on, grown-up"). Now turn to the question of how to turn this situation into fertilizer for something beautiful to grow.