“Mary, Mary, quite contrary — how does your garden grow?”
My grandmother (named Mary!) LOVED tending her flowers. When I was a little girl, I watched her as she gently cared for them and was thrilled when she let me pick bouquets. Sitting in her comfortable lap, I would listen intently as she read that old nursery rhyme to me... I wonder if she realized that she was planting the seeds of my own passion for gardening today?
So, how DOES a garden grow?
Answer: WITH A LOT OF T.L.C.
The seed packet said:
“Sprinkle seeds in the Spring and you will reap a meadow full of amazing blossoms!!“
Didn’t happen.
Got a few plants, but experts told me that some seeds need to be cold, some need to be soaked, some need to be nicked, some like light, some like darkness… Aaaagh!
Not as easy as it looks!!
A gardener cannot simply scatter and ignore and wait for blooming….
It requires work, nurturing and paying lots of loving attention to the needs of each individual plant.
So it is with our lives as well — right?
Ask any parent, raising a child… Ask any teacher, encouraging children to learn and to think… It takes EFFORT…
“Seeds Grow To Plants” (click here to listen) is a choral anthem composed by John Rutter (b. 1945) based upon a poem written by David Grant; it reflects similarly on this train of thought… As you listen, follow the text:
Seeds grow to plants if you add a little water,
Boys grow to men if you add a little time;
Trails grow to tracks if you add a little enterprise.
Each to each — and everything will be all right.
Plants grow to trees if you add a little sunlight;
Men grow to nations if you add a little hope;
Tracks grow to roads if you add a little know-how…
Each to each — and everything will be all right.
Like grows to love if you add a little fellowship;
Hope grows to faith if you add a little trust.
We want to make this land of ours the promised land:
Will it to be so — and faith will make it work out right.
We want to grow in the spirit of our forebears;
We want to live in this land our parents made.
We want to spread in the wide open spaces…
Give us what we need and we will make the world all right.
Despite the fact that I would use more inclusive language and change the word “a little” to “A LOT OF!” — this text expresses the truth that good things usually don’t “just happen.” They take careful, intentional, purposeful and mindful attentiveness and nurture.
If we want a beautiful garden — we water, deadhead and fertilize…
If we want to raise capable, honest, responsible, thoughtful and loving children —
we invest our time, energy and love in them, all the time…
If we want to make our land the “Promised Land,” we also need to invest time, energy
and love to discern how BEST to make that happen.
We read garden books and parenting books and attend workshops to improve
our skills in those areas. HOW to create our “ promised land?“
In this critical election year, I am hoping that each of us feels called during these next few months before November, to devote our energies — in whatever ways we are able — to elect the President who will help build a country based on truth, goodness and love.
Please, God…
“Give us what we need
(courage, energy, perseverance,)
and we will
(promise to do whatever we can to)
make the world all right.”
Amen!
Love l