I was washing dishes and I saw a truck drive by with the words, Deep Roots, written on it. Deep Roots. I like the sound of it. Stable. Immovable. Secure. Wind worthy.
I married Deep Roots. Before when people would ask me where I was from I would hesitate. How could I begin to answer the question? The answer demanded a certain basic understanding of world geography, it required a little time and a little thought. Sometimes I changed the answer (not exactly lying, just modifying the truth slightly) depending on who was asking the question, how interested they seemed, how much they knew.
But then I married Lowell.
Lowell has roots. He’s connected to this land. He was born in Michigan and when he was in 1st grade his family moved south to Kansas. They first landed in Wichita but five years later they moved north and settled outside Junction City on Humboldt Creek Road. It’s where they’ve been ever since. Lowell attended Junction City junior high school and high school. He worked at the Junction City Newspaper. He got his first job at the Apothecary Shop on 6th street. Their family attended Highland Baptist Church at the top of the hill.
I married roots. Deep roots.
Lowell is decidedly from Kansas. When I married Lowell, I married Kansas. I married Humboldt Creek Road, I married the Flint hills, the Konza Prairie, Kansas State University. I married roots, community, belonging.
The truth is I don’t have deep roots – but I have now seen and vicariously experienced Deep Roots; I married an answer to the question.
I married Lowell and can attach to his roots, resting in the security of his love, his family, his place. More so, I now have a metaphor to better understand what roots look like. For in my faith tradition I am called to Deep Roots – I am called to be rooted in Christ and grow deeper into those roots.
Roots that go far beyond prairies and creeks, hills and universities, far beyond Kansas.
Now I know where I’m from.
I’m from Kansas. Because Lowell’s from Kansas.
Because I married Deep Roots.
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**As you might have guessed, Deep Roots, it turns out, is a landscape management company. They pride themselves on being “Your one stop landscape installation and maintenance provider”. Apparently their “…work is excellent, (their) price fair, and (their) service is the best around”! Now you know where to get Deep Roots if you need them!
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- Deep roots are to be treasured (catchjohnfischer.wordpress.com)
Marilyn R. Gardner 
Deep Roots – yes, Robynn, we all need them. Both Ralph and I grew up with deep family roots in a place. We can each go back to the place where we were born, visit the cemeteries where grandparents, aunts, uncles, and family friends are buried. But we each pulled up those roots to follow God’s call to the other side of the planet. Now in both those towns we have only the weakest of connections – no family, except in the cemeteries! And very few we even consider friends. I’m thankful for a stable secure childhood, for those roots in a place, in family and in community. The strongest relationships that remain to this day are in the churches where we continue to have connections. But we weren’t able to give our children any deep roots in a place. What we did give them were roots in family, making the effort when in the USA to connect with their cousins, aunts, uncles, and their only grandparent, my Mom. And in Pakistan, roots in community: the family of “aunties” and “uncles” in the mission community. But the grounding that matters above all is what you say in your last paragraph, we are “called to be rooted in Christ, and to grow deeper into those roots.”
Marilyn embroidered a piece for me years ago that says: “There are two things we can give our children: the first is roots, the other is wings.” Roots for stability, Wings to fly!
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I’m sorry I’m so late to respond to this Aunt Polly. I appreciate what you wrote about roots in the context of community. I love that. When I think about roots that way I can recognize how very deep mine were. Thank you for helping me see that!
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Interesting article. Were there more space, I would tell about how my wife and I left our deep roots in Georgia and traveled the world for 50 years. We raised our three children overseas,and they felt no allegiance to their parents’ roots. They went to college in various other states. And guess what! To retire, we came back to our deep Georgia roots. Our children have settled here too and have put down roots. What does that tell you?
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Do you know – I thought of you all as I first read this article. I remember when Nancy and I would talk about all the Addletons on Ben Hill Drive in Macon – and I longed for something like that. We tended to go to a couple different placed during furloughs. But so interesting that you now have your Ben Hill Drive address yet your home holds memories and precious things from your 50 years of traveling the world….
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Marilyn, Hu forgot to say that our street, a cul de sac, is named after his father! When Hu grew up here it was in the country but now after being annexed into the city, we got a street name and a fire hydrant near our house. And, the luxury of trees growing around us that also have deep roots. There are a lot of lessons in Robynn’s deep roots blog and both of you are so insightful.
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