The Five-minute Seed

“If all you can do is to be kind to yourself for five minutes, even one minute, a day, do it. Rejoice in those five minutes.” My counselor sat across from me in her small office with the soft yellow light. I thought about her curly hair and about her baby on the way.

“I’ll try,” I said, standing. “But what the heck does that actually look like?”

I went home to my little house in Villa Heights. Despite its elegant name, my hood knows only two dances: down-home two-step, or the fast-foot-shuffle-from-the-fuzz. Grabbing a shovel, I walked out into the yard, inhaled the warm air, and stared at the evidence of someone else’s neglect: the azaleas overtaken by ivy; the back-broken, barbed-wire fence; the trees with dislocated limbs. I cannot do this by myself, I thought, feeling small and alone, not knowing where to start.

The Apostle Paul wrote a letter to some Romans (chapter 8, verses 22–27) who believed that Jesus was just the man for such jobs. He compared the earth to a woman groaning in labor. What does a mother want when she is in labor? Deliverance from pain—and the joy and relief that comes when the anticipated one finally arrives.

Paul said our souls groan in the same way. We ache for secret longings; for someone to deliver us from pain; for joy, for relief. Jesus lived and conquered death for one reason: that we would believe that he is real and that he will do what he said he will do … rescue us.

So we work, and we wait.

In this in-between time, Paul said that Jesus’ spirit translates our groaning and desperation into words we can’t express on our own. As I sliced the earth in my front yard with the shovel blade, I thought about how five minutes of kindness might be a similar kind of prayer. Why uproot lies and replant kindness? Why clear ivy, mend fences, or reset bones? This blog is an invitation to take up the task of tending to your soul—even if for five minutes of beauty a day—until the anticipated one finally arrives. This is a place where you can start replanting.