Garden Story
The life of a garden starts in the soil. My soil is filled with nutrients, from years of collecting diverse bacteria and organisms enough to fill cities. It is mixed and churned by all kinds of creepy crawly critters traveling to and fro. Every year new layers are added and built upon. Beneath the surface, deep underground where no human eye can see is the soul of a garden. The history of the land is told in its many layers. Each layer telling a story of drought or abundance, of neglect or care.
I give everything I can out of my soil to those tiny oval pods. O the thrill I get when the little green shoot springs out and makes its way toward to warm sun, lighting warming, energizing all the life in the garden. The tall trees give just enough shade for the dew to refresh the small plants and grass during that early hour.
All the growing things have their purpose, their place and all give everything they have to help the garden flourish. Not one holds anything back to store up excess for itself, but gives freely and is given back in return. A strand of beans winds its way along the tall corn stalk using it as support and attracting insects that protect the corn from pests. The roots of the bean add needed nitrogen to the soil. The lacy tomato leaves shade the lowly carrot and in turn the thick roots of the carrot help break up the soil around the tomatoes helping the tomatoes build a stronger root structure. The nearby lovely nasturtium repels the carrot flies and lures away the aphids from the tomatoes.
A crop of just one or two varieties of plants will deplete the nutrients in my soil quickly, but with the hundreds of varieties living and working together they give and put back all that is needed to sustain, from what they take another gives and what that takes 10’s more replete. The diversity is what allows us to thrive and flourish.
The smell of mint and oak float on the breeze. The songs of the birds, the buzz of the busy bees, the sound of laughter and children singing are all around me. The pulse of children feet running to and fro are felt by all the colonies underground.
But, I am still just an empty piece of ground, dreaming of what could be. Until then I will continue to prepare my soul, I mean soil.
Like the garden our most valuable asset is our soul, our character. It’s hidden underneath the surface, not something the human eye can see. Its developed over years of hardship and blessings, wins and losses. We can chose how our soil/character is developed and what nutrients we want to keep. Everything we have comes from outside of ourselves, like the garden. Nutrients from plants and bugs, energy from the sun, water from the rain. We cannot obtain these things from inside of us. we are grown and sustained by the love, kindness, blessings of God and those around us. The more we receive, the more we give, the more it comes back to us, in greater abundance than what we first gave. These are natural laws sustained in the garden as well as in our spiritual and physical lives.
Proverbs 11:24
