Seed starter

This time of year I long for a garden -- anything from micro to macro. I always start with seeds.

The first time, it was because Matt and I were getting through the summer on the tail end of one graduate stipend. We needed a vegetable garden to eat the way I like to eat. Seeds were cheaper!

Now, I go and pull out the seed packets and the tiny expanding peat pots by choice. I love seeds because they want to live so bad. When you sprinkle those dry grains onto the squishy soil pods and see tiny white shoots flying out the next morning -- even from those hopeless seeds that fell into the bottom of the tray where there's no soil -- you realize the power of the gospel metaphor.

"Unless a grain of wheat should fall to the ground and die, it will remain a single grain..."

The only thing they need to live is water. I get to provide that -- a privilege indeed.