A Slow, Unstoppable Rebellion

On flourishing right where they expect you to wither

I often wonder when it struck Abuela that she would never return to her island—when that reality of exile set in, the realization that her feet would never again press into Cuban soil. Did the weight of it settle on her chest when she buried her husband across the Atlantic, the vast ocean a reminder of everything she had left behind? As she sprinkled the dirt over his casket, did she imagine it was the same earth that once gave life to her aguacates?

Jeremiah’s words to those living under empire come to me as I think of her: build houses, plant gardens, seek peace and wellbeing, pray (Jer. 29:5-7).

There’s a kind of holy defiance in pressing seeds into soil, watering them with a gentle, patient hand. Caring for a thing with tenderness in a world that seeks to crush, to suppress, to exploit—is resistance. A quiet, rooted kind that refuses to be uprooted by the violence of empire. It’s choosing to flourish right where they expect you to wither.

Abuela’s calloused hands bore this truth, worn from years of planting and sowing in her backyard. She grew up in a world that sought to confine her, to tell her who she could be, and how far she was allowed to dream. And yet, there she was, every morning, pulling weeds, watering roots, nurturing her garden with a ferocity that felt sacred to me even back then. Abuela’s garden was not just a retreat; it was a rebellion.

I once asked her why she cared so much about that little plot of earth. She looked at me with a steady fierceness and said, “Porque nadie me lo puede quitar.” Because no one can take it from me. These blooms, this food—they were ours. They were a claim to dignity in a world that tried to steal it.

As a child, we’d spend hours together, plucking ripe fruit for our afternoon snacks while I heard stories of life en el campo. Her love for her island refused to wane. “Cuba es la isla más bella del mundo (Cuba is the most beautiful island in the world),” she’d remind me often. Seeds were planted in that yard not just to nourish but to keep the memories of her homeland alive. Those trees held stories—of exile, survival, and dreams she refused to surrender.

Jeremiah’s exhortation speaks to this. His call to build and plant isn’t about submission but about survival. Not bending to empire, but growing in spite of it. Because building a home, planting food to feed yourself and your children, is to say that I will flourish even here, even while I long for liberation. It’s a decision to stay human in a world that tries to make you feel anything but.

This kind of resistance isn’t loud or flashy. Instead, it sinks deep into the soil, whispering hope into our homes, into the very fabric of our lives. To “seek the peace of a city” is to look at the brokenness of the place where you are planted and say, “I will not turn away. I will not give up.” It is to see its wounds and choose to stay with them, to pray for healing while quietly sowing something better right in its midst.

To live this way is to believe that while empires rise and fall, gardens can take root in their ruins.

In Abuela’s garden, I felt the weight of this truth. She didn’t tend for herself alone. This land became a little ecosystem of care in a community that needed it; a sanctuary where scarcity gave way to abundance.

I remember the last time I walked with Abuela in her garden before her body grew too frail to hold her up. She clutched my arm as we shuffled across the yard to check the mangoes. Her face lit up as she recounted stories, blending memories of Cuba with those of Little Havana. The distinctions didn’t matter to her; they were part of the same tapestry.

“¿Sabes que Cuba es la isla más bella del mundo?”

“Sí, yo lo sé.” (Yes, I know.)

When we reached the tree, she asked me to fetch her old broom to knock down a fruit. I held her steady as she swung with all her might. We laughed when one finally fell, and she picked it up, holding it gently, as though it carried the weight of her story.

We paused by the chain-link fence, and I asked to take her picture. She stood with her mango in hand, a smile soft but radiant. That moment was something holy, as though the earth and her spirit were in perfect communion.

“Vamos a comer” (Let’s eat), she said.

Abuela’s garden taught me that flourishing doesn’t always look like victory. Sometimes, it looks like tending a patch of earth, loving it fiercely, and believing in its potential to give life. It’s an act of defiance in a world that seeks to commodify and control. Gardens, after all, resist empire in their very being. They nourish without demanding, heal without exploitation, and persist beyond the structures that seek to suppress them.

In the dirt of her garden, I see the truth of Jeremiah’s words: to plant, to build, to seek peace is not resignation but resistance. It’s declaring that we are not defined by the forces that seek to destroy us. And in the act of tending—soil, relationships, memory—we resist the empire’s attempts to sever us from the sacred.

So we plant. We build. We tend to one another, believing this living, this rootedness, is resistance too. It’s small, but profound. It’s slow, but unstoppable. Our work to love and heal, even in exile, bears witness to a truth bigger than any empire could ever comprehend: that we are made for flourishing. No system can strip away our humanity. In Abuela’s garden, I lived this. In Jeremiah’s words, I feel it still.