Constant gardener

“Might I,” quavered Mary, might I have a bit of earth?... To plant seeds in–to make things grow–to see them come alive,” Mary faltered...

“Do you–care about gardens so much,” he said slowly....  “A bit of earth,” he said to himself, and Mary thought that somehow she must have reminded him of something. When he stopped and spoke to her his dark eyes looked almost soft and kind.

“You can have as much earth as you want,” he said. “You remind me of some one else who loved the earth and things that grow. When you see a bit of earth you want," with something like a smile, “take it, child, and make it come alive.”

“May I take it from anywhere–if it’s not wanted?”

In my growing-up years, Dad was the gardener in our family and there was always a rhythm to the seasons... in late fall bulbs of tulips-, crocuses-, daffodils-to-be planted and covered with wire mesh to protect from the scavenging black, gray, brown squirrels... a chilly early Saturday morning spring trip to the Eastern Market, a place of color and life in a drab downtown of boarded up houses-once-homes... countering offers and prices as any true Scotsman, yet only considering purchase of those buds with promise... flats of white impatiens to line the front-yard bushes, colored pink and peach and purple for the back-yard gardens, on the driveway for a respite before finding their seasonal home in the earth... 

And a Saturday a week later, kneeling in dirt and digging and planting these flowers in rows and clumps, one and another and another…   Dad was the planter and us girls - my mom, my sister, and I - the tend-ers, the waterers-between-summer-showers sent

by the Father who truly knows and gives and is Life. 

 

In summers of sunshine, the impatiens would nearly hide the stone bird bath, towering flowers and thriving to midwest eyes not having yet seen the growing season of southern blooms.  Not just impatiens but snapdragons, coneflowers, black-eyed-susans, hostas, tiger lilies, petunias, roses, marigolds, hydrangeas, geraniums, gerbera daises... with a basket and a pair of scissors I would gather them in the morning and bring the life of the outdoors in, drawn to the still-so-much-that-goes-so-right-and-beauty-abounds in this world.

And so now having a home of my own, I desired as the girl in a favorite childhood novel to have a bit of earth, to make things grow, to see them come alive in porch-garden earth, contained in ceramic pots with only so much depth but life-giving earth nonetheless.  I planted fall-loving flowers, colorful mums and pansies, and in the lonely leftover pot a dear friend gave me one of her uprooted hostas to surround with soil anew.  "Plant it in dirt, and it will grow in season," she said, "and if not, we'll try another next year."

The leaves of the hosta already yellow-splotchy, brown-tinged, barely-green, and I doubted but planted.  I even tended at the beginning, but the leaves all-yellowed and brown-encroaching and brittling showed not much sign of life-promise.  Mild southern winter months passed, and I watered contained parcels of shallow earth faithfully… more faithfully though those which displayed life clearly with greenery and bloom.  Spring came, and I thought it was as I had always thought it to be and that not daring hoping was right and leaves brown and brittle and seldom-watered but to drain the watering can were remnants of life that was and is no longer. 

And then, in a morning I had in mind to uproot and cast aside, there was life.

Green leaves among the brown, roots deep enough in shallow earth, watered enough to spring forth shoots, to unfurl life from death, color from drab, and there was a picture of God's grace who is the Constant Gardener, who sees the roots deeply planted, who tends more faithfully than I, who roots and establishes in love, who compels us to grasp

how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ

...who takes us from anywhere, even when we feel as earth unwanted.



As if not enough, there was one more gift.  In fall’s beginning a sprouting of leaves smaller, none quite as fresh, innocent, newly spring green, moreso a picture of wornness and restoration, brokenness and redemption than merely innocence, new life giving life as God has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

He is the Constant Gardener, who in my life-seasons of spring-green leaves and brittle-brown leaves and yellowing leaves alike knows my thirst, knows my need, plants in life-giving earth, and tends with water without cost from the spring of the water of life.

Give me life, in the rocky mountain cleft, on the hinds' feet heights, in You, always resting.

The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett; Thank someone for this, Andrew Peterson; Matthew 13:1-23, Ephesians 3:17-18, 2 Corinthians 3:6, Revelation 21:6, God