The landowner in the story Jesus told about the unfruitful fig tree makes a very harsh assessment about this tree: It is wasting the soil. The response of his gardener is to deal not with the tree, but with the soil:
"So he said to the gardener, 'See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?' He replied, 'Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig round it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'"
This gardener is a believer in second chances, in improving the conditions in which something (or someone…) can thrive. He does not blame the tree; he does not think it is squandering the very soil in which it sits. He thinks the soil needs some improvement, some aerating, so water and carbon can get to the roots of the tree. And he thinks it needs fertilizing, to add nutrients and catalyze growth.
I am not a biologist, but I am fascinated by the efficiency of eco-systems, whether within the human body or in the natural world. The way limbs and leaves fall and decay, generating nutrients which help bring about new growth in the next season is but one example of organic economy. Nothing is wasted – even waste products.
The same can be true of our lives. In what ways has the “manure” generated in your life functioned to fertilize new growth? Often we don’t want to look at our emotional waste – it’s ugly and smelly and dark, like the biological kind. We’d rather flush it away. But what if we invited God to help us use that matter for growth? What if we asked what use that failed relationship or thwarted professional venture could possibly be for our future fruitfulness?
Here I’m venturing into icky territory, but I am fascinated by the uses which medicine is finding for human waste. The careful reintroduction of “cleaned” excrement back into someone’s system can restore the balance of gut biomes, resolve ailments like C.diff and celiac disease, and possibly even cure conditions such as MS. (Here is a compelling and easy to read New Yorker article from a few years back about medical uses of excrement.) I think there is a spiritual analogy here.
This is one purpose for repentance – not to wallow in our “manure,” but to bring into the light things of which we are not proud, to bring healing and redemption into our failures – and just maybe render them useful to us in the future. Left alone, they just accumulate and decay, building up noxious gases in our psyches. But when we aerate our soil, inviting in light and air, that which seems most useless can become the ground of new growth. We can do this in therapy, in the confessional, or both.
This is true of societal detritus as well as personal. Our attempts to flush away cultural sins such as racism and poverty have not brought healing. We need to reckon with the effects, address the horrors, feel the feelings if we hope to move through the trauma to a new way of being. This is the approach Restorative Justice takes – it can break cycles of vengeance and lead to freedom and new relationships. Maybe learning how to repurpose our waste – composting our failures – can result in the fruit of justice and peace.
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