Watching Things Grow
FROM CERTIFICATE IN SPIRITUAL FORMATION GRADUATE, JUDY KUZMAN
I love summer. Not because I’m an “in the water” person anymore—if that’s what you were picturing—but because I love the sun on my face and being near the water, especially the Maine coastline. I’ve been fortunate to live in Maine for the past 29 years. Within 18 minutes I can drive to my favorite rocky beach, set up my chair, and open a book.
Summer for me is about slow mornings on my back deck, wearing sundresses and drinking iced beverages. And, as my sister-in-law declared in the late ’80s when she was a color analysis specialist, I’m a “SUMMER”—so it’s official.
I tend to value the idea of naming in general and to title my summers in particular. There was The Soul-Sucking Summer of Sadness and another called God and I Have Found Our Place. This summer’s working title? Watching Things Grow.
In early June while my husband was traveling for work, my two sisters—my favorite friends—came to visit. One, a master gardener, helped me plant a small perennial garden surrounding a massive rock we’d half uncovered in our backyard. It borders a tiny wild meadow on our property and has the feel of something out of an English cottage scene. It has chairs for quiet morning and evening sits, and yes, it has a name (because naming is important):
Meadowgate Garden
where silence leads to light
And yes again—I already have an Etsy sign hanging on the little gate.
Recently, I received official confirmation in the mail that I’d completed the Certificate Training in Christian Spiritual Formation. It was a gilded paper and a meaningful marker of the season I’d just come through—a fall and winter of deep inner and practical growth—which is now flowing right into this sun-drenched season of watching things grow outside and in me, too. Perfectly timed with my new garden.
On the PAX website, Rama Ziegenhals shares a bit of the story behind the Center. One part especially stood out to me: that PAX would be “a place of ongoing spiritual nourishment within the context of a supportive Christian community.” Spiritual nourishment is exactly what it’s been.
I remember vividly: sitting in my car in a Trader Joe’s parking lot last year on a call with Rama for my entry interview. She shared her passion for combining theology and formation and her desire to make her experiences accessible to others through her teaching. I remember feeling drawn in and hopeful.
Over the course of the year, I watched myself grow. The readings, reflections, practices, small group conversations, and teaching—all of it stretched me in the best ways. And as a bonus, each month we were asked to create a teaching template based on what we were learning. That monthly rhythm pushed me to integrate and apply the material in real ways. Getting feedback from Rama on those templates was invaluable. I’ve already started using many of them in my own ministry context and in my work as a spiritual director.
Beneath everything we did—whether assignments, cohort meetings, or quiet reflection—was a steady reminder: You are God’s beloved. God nourishes you in ongoing ways. This soaked through every assignment, every time we gathered as a cohort, and each helpful morsel of input I received directly.
So much of my own growth came from the way Rama asked questions—whether she was helping me reframe a thought on a template I had created, or explore a deeper meaning in what God was revealing in me. Her kind, clarifying, thoughtful questions helped me see new layers of what I was saying, experiencing, or really asking myself and others.
Back to the garden. Honestly, I know next to nothing about plants. I just like beautiful spaces and flowers I can cut and bring into the house. I don’t like yard work. I don’t remember the last time I raked a leaf or contributed during Kuzman Family Spring Clean-Up other than delivering water to the worker(s).
I’m also a dreamer and a starter, not a plodder. So, as my older sister did the back-breaking work of digging out soil, I mostly watched. When I realized I’d have to maintain this garden, drag out the hose every morning, when the weeds showed up and the dirt got under my nails (ew), part of me wanted to abandon it.
I could draw lots of parallels here between my love for summer, naming things, creating a garden, my love for watching others’ spiritual lives grow, and the PAX program. That huge rock in my yard—the one now surrounded by beauty— feels like it wants to be a metaphor but I’ll leave it right there.
Watching things grow really does matter. Helping things grow—doing the quiet work of tending– through the winter months… matters too.
I feel even more prepared now to walk alongside others as they notice God in their everyday lives. I now secretly include Rama in my “favorite sisters” category. I’ve developed new ways to keep growing myself—through these warm summer months that are easy to love, and through the colder seasons that call for faithful plodding.
God’s nourishing presence is in all of it.
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