Now that it’s finally the season for planting in northern Nevada, I’ve been transplanting and clearing out some old plants and making room for new ones. It’s astounding how strong and tenacious roots can be, extending far beyond what I thought possible, and refusing to give up their hold until dug out inch by inch. As a gardener, I find that both impressive and annoying.

In the year and a half since my last move, I’ve used the phrase often: “putting down roots.” I came to Reno with the determination to do just that. I still intend to make this my home for some time, but I’m not so sure anymore about that phrase. I question whether I really want the kind of bonds that require wrestling and wrenching and endless digging to release. I’m wondering whether I want to make any kind of connection, anywhere, that would be so agonizing to unravel.

So far I’m in no danger of that. As an adult, I haven’t had much time to “root” anywhere. In all the times I’ve moved, I’ve done okay at “blooming where I’m planted,” as the saying goes, whether that’s the jungle heat of Hong Kong or small-town New England or the desert of northern Nevada. And yet, I’ve wondered what I was missing by moving on from places within a few years, as I completed jobs or degree programs. What nourishment was I missing, by my lack of strong, extensive, relentless roots?

Someone with that kind of roots is far better equipped to answer that question than I. However, in gardening I noticed something else as I wrangled the roots out of the hard clay soil: those must have been some hardy, determined plants to make themselves at home in such an unwelcoming place.

Some places are like that. As in Jesus’ “Parable of the Sower,” sometimes we encounter ground which is rocky, or shallow, or thorny (Matthew 13:3-7). Maybe it’s a job where our gifts are not accepted as we’d hoped, or a relationship which begins to feel disconnected, or a city in which it’s difficult to make connections. In those situations, we encounter soil like that of northern Nevada, which practically requires a pickax to dig up. Not an easy place to find sustenance.

How on earth do you find the strength to grow in those situations? Like my daylilies in the front yard, can you wring nourishment out of even unfriendly soil? Even more than I want relentless roots, I want the ability to do that. I want the ability to bloom and to root: to be hardy and determined, and to seek out and discover what nourishment can be found.

Usually that happens by noticing God’s work in a new place, in the landscape, the community, and the history. Paul tells the Philippians, “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things” (Phil. 4:8). Seeking out this kind of potential nourishment really helps while putting down roots. (More often than not, it finds us instead.) Though I confess to referring to certain places as “God-forsaken” on occasion, on the whole I’ve been fortunate; in every place I’ve lived, God has been revealed in true, noble, lovely, and admirable ways.

Soils are different; sometimes the rooting process takes longer than others. But in any place, signs of God help alleviate the “transplant shock.” Noticing them is an attention we can practice and cultivate over time. Even better, that practice of receiving God’s nourishment is a transplantable skill which allows us to bloom in some of the unlikeliest places.


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Rev. Rebecca Schlatter is an ordained minister in the Lutheran Church (ELCA) in Reno, Nevada. You can contact her at newhousesfromoldbricks@hotmail.com. © copyright 2008 by Rebecca Schlatter