Playing in the Dirt

One year ago this Sunday, August 17, 2024, my 97-year-old father died. Hector D. Acevedo was the embodiment of the American dream. Shortly after the end of World War 2, dad joined the Army Air Corp, the precursor to the United States Air Force and left a life of relative poverty in Puerto Rico to serve our country. With him came my mother, Carmen and later three children, Hector, Jorge and Sylvia were born to them. We spent our lives living on or near Air Force Bases all over the country. In the first 12 years of my life, we lived in South Carolina, California, Puerto Rico and then back to South Carolina before dad retired after 25 years of service. Orlando, Florida became our new home where I lived until leaving for college in Kentucky at age 20.

Since dad’s death last year, my mom has come to live with us in our North Fort Myers home. Along with my sweet mother-in-law, Nancy Montgomery, and my wife, Cheryl, our home has become a special place of loving care for each other. In 2023 when I retired from being a pastor at Grace Church and began a new coaching ministry with pastors, seminary students and missionaries, I thought my emerging calling was primarily to new and emerging spiritual leaders with a few preaching gigs sprinkled in. What I could not have known then is that our moms would move into our home and that my other calling was to be their primary caregiver. I coach leaders most days during the week and between my coaching calls, I get the holy privilege of fixing meals, making phone calls, tending to finances and helping with doctor’s appointments. It’s an honor to care for my mom’s.

One of the unexpected gifts of our time together is hearing the moms tell us about their many memories. We have talked about childhood experiences, being newlyweds, and raising kids around our kitchen table or while watching HGTV or the Food Network together. Recently, my mom reminded us how much I loved playing in the dirt as a little boy. And it was true. Living on Air Force Bases in the 60’s and 70’s was a very pleasant and safe experience for me. The security of living in a cloistered community must have given mom peace of mind to let me wander the yet uncharted spaces of the Air Base for lots of dirty fun. At Charleston Air Force Base with its big open fields, dotted with clusters of trees and brush, I became a master explorer with my fellow neighborhood pioneers.

Recently at dinner, I commented to my girls (my term of endearment for the three women in our home) about my bad habit of eating too quickly. Mom retorted, “When you were a little boy and I called you into eat, you’d eat your food very fast while keeping your eye on the front window where your friends were out front playing without you.” Anticipating a reunion with my posse led me to shovel my food into my mouth so I could get out and play in the dirt with my friends again.

Just yesterday, I came in from a 50-minute bike ride in the hot Southwest Florida morning sun and walked past my mom. She pinched her nose and said to me, “Don’t get close to me! You’re stinky!” We chuckled and I said, “Yeah, just like when I was a little boy and I’d come in covered in dirt head to toe.” We chuckled again and I went back to shower for my day’s work.

I do vividly remember when I was a child running all over the Air Base. My buddies and I would dig in the rich South Carolina dirt and build underground forts or make traps for unsuspecting people to fall in when they walked the woods. At the end of the day, from the top of my head to the soles of my feet, I was painted with the rich, dark Carolina soil.

Last week, I was reading these words from John 15:1 (NIV). I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. I felt a nudge from the Holy Spirit to stop and linger on these words from my Rabbi Jesus. Buried in the recesses of my mind was something about the word “Father” in this text. It was connected to my name. A quick look on a Greek Bible website reminded me that the Greek word for “Father” is the word “georgos” and is the root word for my name “Jorge” in Spanish or “George” in English.

Throughout the Bible, a person’s name was often connected to their character and their life mission. For example, Jacob’s (whose story is told from Genesis 25 to 50) name means “heel-grabber.” This is because he literally grabbed his twin brother’s heel as he was born. It can also be translated to mean “deceiver” or “supplanter.” And if you read the colorful saga of Jacob, he lived into his namesake. He deceived his father, brother and uncle in spectacular ways. Ironically, a wrestling match with God (Genesis 32:22-32) led to his name change from Jacob to Israel. Genesis 32:28 (NIV) announces his new name. “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”

So, last week after I read John 15:1, I began to write the whispers I heard from the Spirit in my journal. First, I wrote that I was humbled that my name is connected with my heavenly Father, the Gardener, the keeper of the vineyard. Jesus was revolutionary in calling God “Abba,” the Hebrew word for “Father,” especially given the first century religious culture. Remember that our Jewish friends honored the holiness of God. Abba or Father was too familiar a term for God.

Second, I wrote in my journal that “gardener” is an appropriate metaphor for the work that I have done for 39 years as a local church pastor and the last 2 years as a leadership coach. My name has become my mission. Gardeners get their hands dirty in the soil for the purpose of making plants flourish. This has been and continues to be my sacred calling. My call to ministry from God in 1980 was to find joy in joining Jesus in helping people discover the love of God and continue to flourish as an apprentice of Jesus. In my calling I was given the responsibility to “till the soil” of people’s lives through my teaching, preaching and guidance so that they may bear the fruit and gifts of the Spirit. This farming work is my sacred work and calling then and now. I am a gardener.

Several years ago, as I cracked the sixth decade of my life and as my hair turned gray, several of the younger leaders that I mentor started calling me “Papi.” They did not know that this was the name all of my father’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren called him. The honor of being called “Papi” was a double honor. First and foremost, it is an honor because it is connected to my heavenly Father. Second, it is an honor to be called “Papi” because it reflects what my earthly father was called by the people who loved him most.

So at 65, I’m still playing in the dirt; joining my heavenly Papi in his gardening work; tilling the soil of people’s lives. Someday when I get to heaven, I hope to hear my Abba say to me, “Jorge, you are covered head to toe in dirt. Well done!”