I'm on my knees again, with a ceramic bowl beside me.

In front of me are neat rows of lettuce, onions, and spinach. While my kids clamor for dinner, I'm out in my garden fixing the nightly salad.

We sit down to a global dinner — the deep dish Chicago pizza prepared and packaged in Wisconsin, the grapes from Venezuela, the oranges grown in Miami and squeezed in Ohio. Then I place the lettuce on the table and say with pride, “This is my contribution, grown in my own yard.”

My kids don't quite appreciate this yet: salad is salad is salad. Pass the pizza please. But someday I hope they'll appreciate my way of “going green.”

I once asked my 4-year-old what he thought his parents did all day. His reply: “Daddy goes to school and Mommy plants seeds.” I don't play favorites, but that almost sealed the deal.

I hope my obituary someday describes me as, “Wife, mother, and planter of seeds.” I want to be remembered as one who prepared the soil, pushed seeds into soft earth, and helped bring forth miracles.

There is a deep spirituality in connecting with the Earth, literally cleaning it out from under my fingernails at the end of the day. Alma recognized this. Christ wove it into his parables. Mary Magdelene wasn't mistaken when she called the risen Lord the Gardener. We hear the Master cry: What more could I have done for my vineyard? These are my thoughts as I tend my small plot of soil.

The moments I spend in my garden are moments when the day slows down. I check the leaves for pests and pull a few weeds. If the soil is dry, I pull out the hose. My garden teaches me patience, the kind that has grown thin with the internet at my fingertips and well-stocked stores just minutes away.

When I drop a seed in the ground, I know I'll have to wait 60 to 90 days to literally pick the fruits of my labor. I could cruise around the world faster than that, or fly down to Peru and pick an entire crop of lettuce. It's the process that keeps me hooked. I am still delighted by the gift that each seed brings. I watch the first leaves come up, then the second leaves sprout and … ping! Dill! Swiss chard, neon yellow! Sunflowers six feet tall! I am a child with an ever-changing jack-in-the-box. Crank the handle and listen to the music. What will pop up next?

I planted broccoli with no idea what would happen. I thought maybe there would be flowers first, until I realized sheepishly that what we eat is the flower. I waited with anticipation until the morning I pulled back the center leaves, and there, nestled inside like Thumbelina on her rose, was a thumbnail-sized broccoli floret. I had to show the entire family. In a day and age when we want to be whizzed and banged from one excitement to the next, there are still miracles hidden among the broccoli leaves.

Having a garden also means bringing nature right to our table. We've munched our way through more than a few innocent spiders and caterpillars. My husband has learned to inspect every bite if it comes from the garden. But when meat comes packaged on rectangle Styrofoam slabs and we eat bullet-shaped carrots from a plastic bag, this real and living garden is a reminder that we are not all that's out there, the big Kahuna on the block.

In our ease, we draw an invisible line around ourselves and say: “No other living creature may enter!” In reality we are coexisting with nature, and that means there are spiders in the lettuce and stink bugs on the tomatoes. Underneath our feet are miles and piles of earthworms and grubs and hibernating wasps. And there's enough world, and enough garden, for all of us.

Gardening for me is part spiritual and part child's play. I never grew out of playing in the mud. My favorite time to garden is in the pouring rain, with the water running rivers down my face as I yank weeds from the yielding soil. I like to get good and messy, gardening without gloves. I demand a certain standard of cleanliness in the house, but outside, the world is a giant mud pie just waiting to be made. The amount of dirt I scrape off my kids at the end of the day is how I measure their happiness in the world.

These are gifts, beyond what sits on my plate, that my garden has given to me. When I pull a radish from the ground I am connected to earth and heaven in a reminder that all good things, even those we tend and cultivate ourselves, come from God.

I'm on my knees again, harvesting my thanks.