TENDING LIFE IN WATER
Hydroponics. Hope. Holy Resistance.
For the past five years, I’ve cultivated life in water—hydroponics not merely as a growing method, but as a sacred practice. What began as a practical way to grow kale and cucumbers in my apartment has deepened into a theology of care, resistance, and political imagination.
Tending Life in Water is a limited blog series that explores the intersections of gardening, faith, and justice in an age of political upheaval and spiritual compromise. It is a reflection on what it means to prune with discernment and to tend faithfully in systems overrun by rot.
In the quiet, daily rhythms of checking pH levels, nurturing root systems, and trimming back overgrowth, a sacred metaphor has unfolded beneath the surface. My garden is becoming sacrament. Each plant, a parable. Each root system, a reminder. Each pruning cut, a call.
A call to imagine forward, resisting from the heart the strangling forces gripping our democracy: a divisive politicking and a nationalist church draped in Christian language but emptied of Christ’s compassion. It is a nourishing hope—not a devouring, retributive power—rooted in a faith that is liberatory and mutual, uncompromising in its compassion, and committed to the flourishing of all.
Article #1, Roots in Water: Gardening as Resistance, explores gardening as resistance. Yes—hydroponic gardening is science, but for me, it has become faith work. It is spiritual practice. It is protest. It is resistance.