Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Garden (09/07/06)
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TITLE: A Wanna-be's Lament | Previous Challenge Entry
By Darryl Nicholson
09/13/06 -
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ADD TO MY FAVORITES
Take fly fishing for instance. I have tried it and, although planning the fishing trip and buying equipment can be very enjoyable, I find very little satisfaction in standing in a river, swatting gnats and struggling with a rat’s nest, the main ingredient of which is a hundred dollar fly line.
Golf seems like a nice relaxing sport but after my ball has corkscrewed into oblivion for the fifth time in as many holes, my stress level is at least double what it is in rush hour traffic.
Then there’s gardening. I know you avid gardeners will probably gasp that I would list your most beloved pastime among the great frustrations of my life but I can’t help it. Believe me, it grieves me deeply to admit it. I would dearly love to spend endless happy hours on my knees, lovingly sewing new seed, cradling seedlings in my calloused hands, and sifting the good earth through my fingers. Every spring the urge seizes me afresh. I have, with time, learned to resist but it has been a hard lesson.
When I was a boy, my grandparents had a garden and so did my parents. The two gardens were planted side by side. My job was to water them. Unfortunately, every year the sprouting of the garden coincided perfectly with the well going dry. That didn’t bother my employers since there was a pond across the street from my house. The problem, mine not theirs, was getting the water from the pond to the gardens, in buckets, one in each hand, knees wobbling, hundreds of trips. I would climb the stairs to bed each night with my knuckles rapping each tread as I went.
However, I was not deterred. When I got married and built a fine new house for my bride and myself, the first order of business after the construction was completed was to put in a garden. All that was needed was to pull the stumps, plow the ground, plant and await nature’s bounty. Oh, the optimism of youth!
Turns out I needed a few things, like fertilizer, five, ten, five or ten, ten, ten, or five, five, five. The advice was contradictory. I never did get it straight. Some said I needed vermiculite, some said humus, lime, or potash. All agreed I needed compost. I don’t know how one gets that much compost. I calculated that if we composted all our spoiled fruits and vegetables, egg shells, potato peels and stale bread it would take approximately three hundred and sixty-eight years to produce the five tons of compost necessary to turn our little patch of forest floor into the next Findhorn. That’s only if I turned it over twice a week with a pitchfork. If I didn’t, it would take much longer.
We occasionally managed to coax a few anemic vegetable plants to maturity. One year we got a pretty good crop of brussel sprouts. I figure they only set me back about fifty bucks each. Overall my gardening efforts have been less than satisfying.
I still dream of a nice garden though. Maybe next year I’ll try raised beds or maybe I’ll build a little greenhouse.
Why have I not been able to give up on gardening like I have on golfing or fly fishing? Perhaps the desire to tend a garden is something that our Lord put in each of our hearts at the Creation. Did you ever notice that in Genesis: one, everything that God created, He spoke into being but in Genesis: two, eight, “God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden.” Man’s first occupation was that of a gardener. Sadly, Adam lost his job and we have been putting up with thorns and thistles ever since.
The Good news is that the second Adam, The Lord Jesus Christ is coming to restore the earth. No more curse. No more decay. No more compost.
There’s an old song entitled, “I have a mansion, just over the hilltop”. I bet there’s a real nice garden out back too. I can hardly wait.
All glory and honor and thanks to Him who lives forever and ever. Amen.
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