I came home to wilt. One sad basil plant, suffering on my all-too-sunny kitchen counter. It looked exhausted. And rather pathetic. I mentally added basil to my shopping list as I equally pathetically showered the shrivelled remains under the tap. I confess I did it with no hope at all. I even thought, as I was doing it, that it might ruin the dried leaves, which I might have been able to save for later use.
I set the now-soggy pot back on its saucer to drip and looked around the house, looking for more damage and neglect. We’d been gone most of the week. We’d rented a car and driven north to Edinburgh to take a look at the life we’re planning for September. Home-hunting was top priority – I can’t say house -hunting because, with the Spouse as a PhD student, that would be overstating things. But we were definitely looking for a home. And it looks like we’ve found one. Just a student flat, but one suitable for our small family. Ground floor entrance, so no trudging up miles of staircases with stubborn kids and groceries. A decent kitchen with decent storage. A huge living room. A bathtub. (You’d be surprised how many bathrooms just… aren’t.) And a sunny spot outside for scooters and potted plants.
Which brings me back to my sad, sad basil. Which recovered. I was astonished. A few minutes after the initial shower, it actually looked alive. So I gave it some more water, and it wasn’t long until it looked lush. It was one of those moments when you can’t quite believe your eyes. It had looked so dead, and then recovered to a wonderous, edible green.
As a parent, it was amazing to see. This tangible example of the second chance. A friend of mine had recently used this image of wilting plants and try-it-again parenting in her blog, “and on this farm…”
She wrote: “when you are exploring the ways to discipline and raise your children, you will have many occasions to try and fail and return to try something different.”
When I read that, I was struck by the idea of room to make mistakes. That’s grace, isn’t it? You’ve messed up, and yet somehow the tap gets turned on and there’s a surprising opportunity for newness. We experience it all the time when parenting little ones. The extreme mood swings of toddlers which open the doors to fantastically blunt discussions about forgiveness and love. And the sheer daily work of being together that means of course you are going to have another squabble about play dough* and the carpet, and maybe it will be a different kind of squabble next time. Parenting is a good time for trying out this business of forgiveness that we profess as Christians. There’s always a lot to forgive – children’s mistakes, but most crucially our own. Parenting involves inhabiting the room we have to make mistakes, and trying to extend that room so that others can also feel at home there.
And speaking of lived experiments, those lentil cookies I mentioned a couple of weeks ago were fantastic. A definite hit at home, and a real boon on the road trip. Portable protein. Take a look. They are delicious.
*more on play dough next week…
