I went to visit the Vinedresser to learn to tend the grapes.

She was old and bent, but her smile was soft and bright.

Her hands were gnarled, but they held everything with great tenderness in their strength.

Throughout that year, we walked the morning-wet fields between rows of vines. She told me everything I needed to know about the secret world of the vines.

This, I am now passing on to you, in case you ever tend a vine of your own.

To be a beginner is humbling. Everything seems so overwhelming and confusing. If there are others already doing it, it can be even more threatening as we compare ourselves to them and fear their judgment or ridicule. We feel watched, awkward, helpless, afraid, stupid-and any number of other feelings.

Sometimes we're asked, or told, to do things we've never done before. It may not be something we would have wanted to do or imagined doing or believed we could be good at doing. We never want to appear ignorant or incompetent—but if we act from our fear of seeming ignorant, we will never begin anything new.

When I first started vinedressing I was given some things to read. I read the extension bulletins and some gardening books and learned some general things about pruning and possible problems and such. Of course, books are useful companions when one embarks on something new (and in the spiritual life, they are useful companions all the way through). But as I read my way into vinedressing, I began to realize how much had to come from hands-on work and a good flesh-and-blood teacher. I really came to appreciate being with someone who had more experience and knowledge. Even more important than what is learned is making the deep connection with a person who actually cares about you, listens to you, and answers your questions.

In the spiritual realm, it seems to be especially important not to trust ourselves—to seek the insights of another who might be more experienced than we and who might look at us with both love and distance. Whether we call them spiritual directors, gurus, confessors, masters, or whatever, there are wise and holy people in all faith traditions to whom others are drawn. They draw others not as much by their preaching as by the sanctity of their own lives, the goodness that comes through them and by which others are touched and transformed.

When many early Christian people went to the desert to seek holiness, the tradition was that every person would find an abba or amma (spiritual father or mother) who would help him or her find the path for his or her life. In many faith traditions, one seeks wisdom from the word given by a person believed to have greater wisdom and insight than that which the seeker currently possesses. The Zen master, the amma, the rabbi, or whoever, often tells a story rather than gives a lecture. These stories take us beyond gathering mere information and show us how to live. They shape our experience into a quiet teaching.

Because of the way my mentor saw everything as a metaphor and all life as reflective of the same truths, I learned to see the plants the way she did. We were never just looking at vines. When she spoke about them, she sounded as if they were friends, and she cared for them that way. That alertness and caring taught me to pay attention to more than the basic techniques I got from the books and helped me to turn the techniques into something personal and instinctive. I started really looking at them and listening to what they were trying to tell me. When I saw something I didn't understand or hadn't seen before, she was always there to pass on what she knew from her many years with them (or suspected from a broader base of reference). Everyone needs a teacher, someone who knows the landscape and can take him or her into the vineyard at first.

"Vines live a very long time," she said, "always sending out new shoots. Each plant is unique," she continued. "Pay attention to what it tells you."

Your responsibility is to establish each young plant, helping it to thrive.

It takes a long time to get old and thick and gnarled. In the process, many things happen and each event leaves its mark. Some of what we see is a result of growth; some is damage. This external appearance is only part of the story that the plant or the person carries. With trees, there are growth rings that can only be seen when the plant is laid open and examined in cross section. The growth rings make up a living record of each year's ups and downs: cold, heat, drought, injury. In some way, the new shoots carry those effects as well. If there have been too many dry years or wet years or hard-weather years, it will affect the growth for years to come. Damage to an area may mean no shoots there for a long time or perhaps ever.

Like trees, people are marked by the formative events in their lives too. When we meet someone, we encounter what that person has become as a result of all that has come before. We can't see the growth rings inside, see how they mark the rich and the lean years, or know what each season did to him or her.

Sometimes with people, as with a vine, we can see the scars where something has been cut off, where there has been a pruning. All we can see, however, is the scar. We don't know how they were damaged or what the missing parts looked like or why they had to be cut away. Fears and insecurities, losses and pain, and the behaviors that do not serve us well—all of these are signs of our past wounds.

Such wounds become permanent parts of us, and they may become the most obvious things about us. The plants in our vineyard are old and thus have very weathered trunks with many stumps. I cannot know what nourished them, how many shoots they've had, or how much fruit has gone forth. I see them only as they are at this time, and thus I have a very incomplete picture. Some plants, perhaps, were once vigorous and productive but have diminished. Other plants may look strong, but I have no idea whether they have actually borne much fruit. Some may have weathered extraordinary difficulties.

As a Benedictine, I am instructed by St. Benedict's rule to "welcome everyone as Christ." Since we see such a limited view of a person, that can be a very tall order. Appearances can be quite deceiving, so I have to assume that there is much more to a person than meets the eye. I have to assume, too, that the parts of you that I do not see have value and goodness and potential.

We had a sister who was a very demanding teacher, a stern personality rarely satisfied with others. Hers was not a warm personality; consequently, most people knew her only from their superficial interactions with her, and those were often strained. When she died, another sister made some remark that she would not grieve or miss her much. I asked her if she was aware of the sister's background.

For whatever reasons, in her later years, that usually reserved sister had opened up to me, telling me stories about her childhood that were filled with pain. She had been harshly treated by the relatives who raised her after the loss of her own parents. Her aunt and uncle were demanding and punishing; nothing she did was ever good enough. As I told this story, the angry sister fell silent, then thanked me. On the day of the funeral there...