Rootsome.

I'm rootsome these days-- on many levels.

Roots, as in one's own roots, the place from which you come, geographically or genetically. We just moved back to an old hometown of ours-- my parents' town-- after 14 years or so of sowing our geographical oats. We're near much of our extended family. This feels right on so many levels. (More, I'm sure, on this later.)

Roots, as in "digging around for truffles." I'm a rooter. I love to discover new knowledge, play with the ideas for new projects, scheme and search and dream and diagram. You'll see me do this about our houses, our future, sustainability issues, and whatever kitchen appliance we're about to buy. It sounds a bit piggish, but I love to get my nose into something and go hunting for more of it.

Roots, as in those things that hang down beneath plants. I find great joy and great wisdom in gardening-- I love and live the garden as a metaphor for life. God communicates with me best when I'm all covered with dirt and compost. I'm all about those planty spiritual metaphors.

Roots are vital, but hidden. Most people don't know much about them or bother to appreciate them properly. Without them, though, the trees and plants of my garden and my beloved mountains would topple, and the earth would erode away.

Without the roots that tethered me to my sources over the past few years-- my family, my Ozark hills, my Christ-- I too could have been eroded away. I survived, but just, and now I want to strengthening those strands that held me in place. They're absolutely vital.

I'm trying to pay more attention to matters of rootedness these days. It's making life richer and more lovely than it's been in a long, long time.

And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love.

And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it.

Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God

(Ephesians 3:17-19 New Living Translation).