Category Archives: In the Garden

Rich Man Poor Man

20 Monday Apr 2009

Posted by in In the Garden, Soul Care

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“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.

We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955)

 

These mystical words of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a visionary French Jesuit priest and scientist, feel true to my experience.  Yet they beg the question – to what end?  Why would a human experience be essential to our development as spiritual beings?

 

The answer comes out of the death  of a loved one and out of every important relationship we treasure.  If my mother’s life and death taught me anything, it’s that our human existence is about love, from beginning to end–how to grow it, how to share it and how to gracefully receive it.  Only love is eternal.  Only love is essential.  Only love survives the grave.  Didn’t the Beatles say the same thing –“love is the only thing” – in their song, “All You Need is Love?”  

 

Love grows out of humility, like a garden grows out of the rich dirt of humus.  Neither just happens.  Both take a whole lot of work.  In the gardening realm, especially here in Oklahoma where red clay lays just under the earth’s surface, dirt must be amended in order to create the proper environment for growth.  When preparing the soil of my new backyard garden last fall, I dug up a small dump truck of red clay and stones and replaced it with cotton burr compost and spagham peat moss, mixing both together with the remaining soil.  Digging up the red clay was back breaking work.  But, in comparison to the amending spiritual practice of humility, it was easy.

 

Humility requires us to empty ourselves of pride and the desire for honor and riches, which have no currency in the spiritual realm.  Like Jesus, we are called to travel the road of life lightly, without a lot of baggage, so that honor, possessions and pride do not insulate us from others and ourselves.   Cultivating a humble spirit in which to grow love takes more than a truck load of apologies, forgiveness, and putting others before our own needs.   And over the course of our human experience, we keep from strangling on humility by taking many, many deep swallows of pride.  As hard as all of this sounds, it’s actually harder in practice.  

 

With age, I’ve come to believe environmental influences like family & friends have less to do with who we are and who we become than the unique and personal blueprint given us on the day of our creation.  All of us have God’s eternal love buried deep within us to grow and share in a way that we alone can express it.  Our life’s work is to make visible this divine love –this image of God created and hidden within us.  We do this through our daily actions and life choices, punctuated by time-outs for reassessment of life purpose and direction. 

 

So what does this divine spiritual image of God look like in you?  Click here to go to The Upper Room, where you can begin to answer this question by taking a short test to learn more about your own spirituality type. 

Mountaintop Experience

10 Friday Apr 2009

Posted by in Far Away Places, In the Garden, Life at Home

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We’re spending Easter weekend at a lovely B&B in Eureka Springs.  It’s one of many located on the town’s “historic loop”, a ribbon of road that winds around the mountain top, a steep city block above the quaint collection of old Victorian shops and spas that make up the town’s historic center.  It’s an appropriate place to spend Easter – the ornamental trees and tulips are in bloom and the grass is a lush spring green – the old colorful Victorian homes that nestle in the grass and dot the mountain look like a bunch of colorfully decorated Easter Eggs.   

 

We’re staying at Mt. Victoria Inn, a vestal white virgin three story in the midst of a crowd of ‘Painted Ladies’.  We’re told these old Victorian homes cannot change their paint color without a lot of government red tape.  How long this house has been painted white I do not know.  But I do know that the home was built in 1902 as a home for nuns; so it would not surprise me if it were born white, the same color as the church that sits across the street.

 

This is my second visit to the inn in less than a year.  My first was with Kara when we came blueberry picking last July.  We stayed just one night, but I so enjoyed my visit that I wanted to come back to share it with my husband.  It rained that July and it rained yesterday and today.  All this rain makes for gorgeous gardens.  And for good sleep.   

 

Chris and Lisa are our innkeepers, a down-to-earth couple who take seriously the comfort of their guests.  They’ve done a good job based on all the awards heaped on their little inn.  Even Oprah Winfrey has given them her seal of approval.  But what I most appreciate about Chris and Lisa is that they playfully spat and spit at each other in front of their guests just like they were one of their four cats.  But the way they do this is so comfortable, you’re made to feel like family.  

 

The house is beautifully decorated, filled with Lisa’s family heirlooms.  And the breakfasts prepared by Chris are divine; they are so filling, they allow me to get through my day on two meals.  And yes, in case you’re wondering, I confess to breaking my Lenten fast two days early….  But who’s counting?

  

I remember writing a little bit in my journal when I was here last July.  And now, here I sit again, writing a few words for my blog.  Most of the time I’ve no idea what words will come when I sit down to my keyboard.  Writing mimics life in this way.  Two weeks ago I had no idea I would be sleeping in Eureka Springs tonight.  But writing is the thread that binds together my stays at this B&B, as it binds all the days of my everyday life.  And no matter where I am, writing my life can often become a mountaintop experience.      

  

The Hope Desk

06 Monday Apr 2009

Posted by in In the Garden, The Great Outdoors

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It will freeze tonight.  How will my garden fare, all those tender shoots of green with swollen buds?  I will not have my answer until tomorrow.  We gardeners do what we can and hope for the best. 

 

At the master gardener’s help desk this afternoon, I advised callers to water their soil, as darker soil will attract more sun to warm the ground.  I also advised them to cover the plants they wished to protect with a tarp, heavy plastic or old bed linens.

 

Today the help desk was more of a hope desk.  I almost felt like a garden doctor dispensing a long-shot cure:  give plenty of fluids, put them to bed and call me in the morning.  But even with medical doctors, dispensing hope helps.   As long as there is hope, pateints have a fighting chance. 

 

One of Kara’s friends recently received a death sentence from her team of doctors.  She has been told there is no hope, that she has no fighting chance.  If she does chemotherapy; she might have 12 months – if she does not, 3 to 6 months.  She has opted to go through chemotherapy.  I don’t know what I would do in her same situation. 

 

But I’ve taken a fighting stance with my garden.  I sent my plants to bed without anything to drink, though I did cover a few with some old burlap.  I hope it helps.  But, if it doesn’t, I’ll lose no sleep over it.  I have done what I can and the rest is up to nature. 

 

Freezes happen, and plants will die tonight.  Cancer happens, and people will die tonight.  We can’t prepare for death, no matter how much help we’re given.  So we prepare for life, even if it means 12 months… and even if it means only a few hours, because burlap was insufficient to ward off death from a spring freeze. 

 

We do what we can.  And hope for the best.  Even for the scary parts like death that no one can help with.  We still hope for the best.