Root-Bound, or Thriving?

And Other Notes from Home . . .

It’s hard to beat marigolds for practicality. They take the heat, they’ll survive a bit of drought, and they bloom and bloom without asking for much. They come in different sizes, with a color range from sunny yellow to deep orange.

Last week we had a few spots in the front flower border that needed a bit of bright bloom, and we decided marigolds would work brilliantly.

But the Garden Center around the corner was flat out of marigolds.

Instead, we brought home two four-packs of bedraggled yellow petunias.

“If we get these planted right away, I think they’ll do OK,” said The Drummer. “I’ve got some compost that should help them perk up.”

While he went to get the compost, I started wrestling the petunias out of their four-packs.

It wasn’t easy. The petunias’ roots were a mess of delicate individual roots, massed and tangled so densely that separating the plants was hardly possible, and yet necessary if the plants were to survive and thrive.

I went to work untangling the roots, a process that reminded me of untangling a toddler’s shoelaces. By the time The Drummer showed up with the compost, the petunias were ready to plant.

Being root-bound doesn’t happen only to plants.

We’re all getting older with every passing moment. It’s a Do-Not-Pass-Go, Do-Not-Collect-$200 deal; no one living has a monopoly on perpetual youth.

We have choices, though: we can get older and thrive, or we can just get old and root-bound.

To be root-bound is, in a sense, a giving up on growth. Just as our petunias were limited by the plastic packaging they’d been planted in, so we, too, are limited sometimes by the restrictions around us. Those restrictions may be circumstantial, or they may be self-imposed, but they are not final unless we allow them to be.

Thriving can look a lot like focusing, that is, untangling our attention from the things that distract us—weeding out commitments and habits that keep us from growing and thriving. It’s all too easy to look around at all the things we might do, might be, might invest ourselves in – but how do we know where to put our effort and attention?

Sooner or later, we have to choose; if we don’t, we risk dribbling away our effort and attention on possibilities that may or may not bear fruit.

But what if I choose the wrong things, you may ask. Good question.

If we follow Jesus, we can trust that He will correct us when we wander off the path He intends for us. It becomes a matter of learning to be in conversation with Him, trusting He is leading us the way He wants us to go.

Once we sense His clear direction, we have to be willing to change course if necessary. We can’t stay in the plastic four-pack and hope to thrive.

Here are three places to focus our effort and attention as we strive to thrive:

When we keep learning new things, that is, when we nurture a holy curiosity about people, events, the world around us – when that kind of curiosity engages us—we find it more difficult to comfort ourselves with a recliner and a remote control. This is not a gossipy curiosity that indulges in what my grandma might have called “tittle-tattle;” it’s a learning-and-growing kind of curiosity.

When we are alert for opprtunities to serve others, even in the midst of our everyday lives, we ourselves are more likely to thrive. When we cultivate a willingness to stay involved, our service to others requires a kind of alert humility that keeps our hands and minds busy, and our hearts growing.

Cultivating wisdom helps us to know when to move into the next season. We don’t thrive when we try to keep living in a season that is over. We need wisdom to say “not here, not now, not this,” and let some things go. As we move through life, the opportunities we have to express our love for one another change. A new season offers new opportunities to learn, to serve, to grow and thrive.

And thriving is ever so much better than being root-bound . . .

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We saw the movie Pressure one afternoon this week-end, and then that evening we enjoyed a live band concert in the park across the street.

The movie was riveting, and if it doesn’t inspire someone somewhere to choose meteorology as a career, I would be surprised. Pressure covers the “go/no-go” decision for D-Day that centered on the role weather would play as the Allies prepared to invade France. Storms and heavy seas would spell disaster for the Allies, but waiting too long would dissipate the element of surprise, and spell disaster as well.

And suddenly everything hung on what the meteorologist forecast.

We came away reminded of two things: the incredible daring, bravery, and sacrifices of those who fought to end the Nazi threat in Europe, and the blessing of the freedom they won and the example of discipline and courage they set for all of us.

The concert in the park was a lovely way to end the day. Families sat in lawn chairs and on blankets. The Women’s Club sold cake and ice cream at intermission. The band played a selection of theme-songs from familiar cartoons—when’s the last time you heard Popeye The Sailor Man from a concert band? And everyone stood for The Star Spangled Banner, and God Bless America.

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I’ve been reading I Really Should Be Practicing by Gary Graffman, a concert pianist who died in 2025 at the age of 97, after a long career as both a performer and a teacher.

I borrowed the book from the local library on Inter-Library Loan. The last time this book was checked out was in 2009, and that is a shame; Graffman is both hilarious and insightful about music, and about people.

And here is the delightful thing: as I’m reading, I’m listening to recordings of his concerts on YouTube. We live in amazing times.

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Finally, for a reader who has not yet met a kohlrabi, may I introduce you to this delicious, nutritious little vegetable?

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Thanks for stopping in to read these Notes from Home. After a cloudy week-end, the sun is out and birds are chirping away. I wish you could hear them, or that we could share a glass of lemonade on the porch. Please stop back in for Fiction Friday later this week; Josie and Big Al have some choices to make. Until then . . .