I had an interesting train of thought this morning in the …
er… Library.
I have some plants and some starts that will go into the
garden when the weather stabilizes (around here, that’s traditionally Mother’s Day).
I had already brought many of those out of the greenhouse into what may actually
be sunshine at some point in the day; it’s a good idea (in my view) to get
plants ready for their new environment before I plant them there permanently.
I’m really looking forward to the growing season. I’ve got a
fair number of plants ready to go, the garden beds are ready to go. The soil
has been turned and amended with fresh compost. The weeds are gone (except for
one: I want to know what it will turn into), and I know where each plant will
be going. I have a few seeds in the ground (mostly salad things), and I know
where more will be going.
And Father ambushed me on that topic. “You keep your garden
up-to-date, don’t you?” and he reminded me how I try to keep it weed free all
year, how I add plants and fertilize plants and how I water it regularly.
“Yeah, I do. It is a better garden if I take care of it.” I’ve
had gardens in the past that I haven’t taken care of very well. They had been
overtaken by weeds and grass and their produce was small and scarce.
Then he shifted gears on me; he reminded me of the
investment I make in my marriage. “A good marriage takes the same kind of work
that a good garden does, doesn’t it?” He reminded me that a marriage needs
fertilizer and needs weeds removed just as much as a garden does.
I am (we are) pretty intentional about keeping the
relationship healthy. We talk things out, we regularly express our love with
words and touches and time together and such. We have maintained a delightful
discipline of taking date nights, just for our relationship, every week (or
more often) for more than 30 years.
I reflected on the different joys that my marriage and my garden
bring me.
“A relationship with me takes similar investment, you know.
And it will bring you similar joy.”
He’s right, you know. (I say that kind of a lot. I’m not going
to change that. He is. :) ) A relationship with another person – a marriage
relationship, a friendship, a family relationship, a relationship with my
creator – takes maintenance. Since we’d started with the metaphor of the
garden, I’ll stick with it: it takes adding things (seeds, young plants,
fertilizer, water) and taking things away (weeds, birds who want to dig up the
seeds and eat the young fruits, cats who are thankful for a clean sandbox) to
make the relationship thrive.
I think I’ll be meditating on this for a bit. How can I best invest into my relations with God and with the people around me?
