Probably not many people noticed the unnatural disaster that rolled through my little corner of the world a couple of weeks ago.

My human tornado neighbor, armed with a few friends and a chainsaw, obliterated the green wall of 10-foot-high bushes growing between his and my backyards.

Not more than two days earlier, I had paused for a few moments during a weed-pulling session to soak in the beauty of the garden, marvelling at how nice it was this year to have had so much less than usual to do. Two tomato plants, a few green beans, a dozen strawberry plants, the usual amount of impatiens and a dozen fill-in annuals were all I brought into my long, narrow garden this year, planting them amidst the perennials and other things that survived the winter or decided on their own to grow up from seed.

But that afternoon, within a mere three hours, the shade for the regular and miniature hostas, the perches and shelter for the birds that come to my feeder, the elevated getaway for the squirrels and the screen of privacy for me all disappeared.

After the initial shock to my eyes and brain, something amazing happened: I felt an unexpected ... thrill.

That jolt of enthusiasm for changing things up seems to me to be a direct grace from God. Considering my usual low energy level, no other explanation suffices for the determination to use this unsought opportunity to address the long-overgrown hostas, the obnoxious weeds finally within reach, the rather-inconvenient location of the windmill and a long-held idea to plant an arborvitae windbreak for the bird feeder.

Reality, of course, is setting in as I begin this long slog of unanticipated work. But I do like the look of the sort-of-privacy fence my neighbor has mostly completed, and I am hopeful that the garden redesign will be better.

Truth be told, I secretly believe I needed this kick in the rear to get out of the minimalist approach I’ve been taking the last few years of gardening. Once upon a time, I used to embrace the wonderful definition of a garden as being an adult sandbox, — a place to experiment and mess around in. I need to get back to that sense of playing in the dirt.

I am grateful to God for the kick, and I’m wondering if that’s the only part of my life that needs one.

As we enter in and go through midlife, things often have a way of settling down, which is fine unless we settle to the point where we seem to be cemented into place.

That is not a big deal in some aspects of life, like gardening, other than perhaps to limit our exercise of God’s gift of creativity. It’s a bigger problem if we allow ourselves to so burrow into a routine that we miss God’s invitations for growth.

I’m thinking of three of our priests who were open to His out-of-the-blue direction: Father Michael Fuller is heading to D.C. and a new job; Father Chuck Fitzpatrick responded to God’s call to the priesthood, starting that process in his late 50s; and some years after he retired, Msgr. Bill McDonnell agreed to fulfill the amazing request to work in Rome.

They inspire me, and I hope they encourage you to listen for God’s direction as well. These three are priests, but lay men and women I’ve known took on new, God-directed projects after having reached a stage of being settled in.

It isn’t easy, but in all of our decades, we can be open to our Lord’s new ideas. He may encourage us to some new work — volunteer or paid. He may call us to a deeper prayer life, providing directions and inspiring us along the way.

We are asked at every stage to stretch out past ourselves and our usual boundaries, figuratively or literally, to serve God in generosity, using our minds, hearts and bodies to do His will.

Let’s try to be open to His dreams for us, even when they shake things up a bit. The final result will be worth it!