Photo and Commentary ©2024 by Shelley Schurch
Sunday, September 29, 2024
I laughed, and then I took this photo. I was delighted by this miniature set of gardening tools, splayed out on the ground next to a big seashell. I’m not sure of the shell’s significance, and I’m not sure who the small gardener is.
What I do know is that I first saw these gardening tools a week ago, on our daily walk traversing neighborhood sidewalks and trail. It was officially the first day of fall.
And that, I think, is what made me laugh. It wasn’t just the small size of the tools, but how it looked as if the young gardener had immediately said, “Season’s over! That’s it! I’m done!”
I’ve heard of “throwing in the towel” as a phrase for acknowledging defeat, but this “throwing in the trowel” seems to signal a sigh of relief.
A “real” gardener might say, “Not so fast! It may be fall, but there’s still work to be done!” It’s time to cut back plants as they start to fade, divide and relocate any crowded perennials, plant bulbs like daffodils and tulips for spring bloom, protect fragile plants from frost, harvest and preserve veggies, take a good look at the garden and dream and plan on improvements for next year. Perhaps then you can throw down your tools!
However, some gardeners, perhaps those with two green thumbs and eight green fingers (and an encouraging climate), like to maintain a multi-season garden that brings them and others happiness 365 days a year, regardless of the season. They dream and scheme and research and find ways to make it happen.
I’m an enthusiastic gardener with little to show for it. I consider myself a beginner with more dreams than results. My annual cry, along with Seattle Mariner baseball fans, is, “Wait till next year!” (Sigh.)
Much of my enjoyment when I’m working in our garden comes from memories of childhood, working side by side with my father, who was the gardener in our family.
He earned his paycheck as a policeman, but gardening was one of his hobbies. I loved going to the greenhouse with him in the spring. If I pause and mentally sniff the air, I can immediately transport myself back to the fragrance of warm, moist air and dirt and growing things. It smelled like hope, and anticipation. I picture all the pansies we would buy, plus bleeding heart plants especially for my mother.
Here are the other flowers I remember, tended tenderly by my father: rows of tall tiger lilies, golden globe plants on either side of our front gate, violets, snapdragons, a Sitka rose bush, bachelor buttons, a trellis he built for our climbing nasturtiums, lilies-of-the-valley beside our front steps, fireweed, iris, chocolate lilies, columbine, shooting stars, two lilac bushes, and the Alaska state flower, forget-me-nots. I’m probably forgetting a bloom or two, but my memory’s eye has moved back and forth over my childhood home’s flower beds, enjoying the view.
When I’m working in my garden I think not only of my father, but also my Father. Early in His Book we read about the garden home He created for our earth’s first couple to enjoy. Many pages and hundreds of years later we come to another garden, Gethsemane. And tortuous hours later, our lifeless Lord is buried in a garden tomb.
But it was from that garden that our Saviour strode forth, as Victor, not victim. It was here that the angel (perhaps with the widest of smiles) told the astonished women, “ . . . I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here, he has risen, just as he said.” (Matthew 28:5-6a NIV)
Stories of gardens and growing things – and things that don’t grow so well — abound in the Bible. I’m thinking of the man sowing seeds that landed on four kinds of soil; and the tiny yet ultimately mighty mustard seed; and the enemy sowing weeds at night in a man’s wheat field, with the owner telling his servants to let them grow together until the harvest, lest any earlier intervention rip out wheat along with the weeds.
And John 15, where Jesus tells us He and we are what’s green and growing:
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener . . . . I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:1, 5 NIV)
There are so many other Bible passages that come to mind. Maybe, as I tuck away my gardening tools next month, I’ll pick up a pen and notebook in their place, and jot down all the gardening/agricultural type passages and what they’re saying to me. This winter I can be the good soil that receives the seed of God’s Word, and let Him nourish growth in me.
As we step into this brand-new week, and a brand-new season, may the assurance of our Gardener’s tender care warm your days and encourage your heart.