| | I'm a bit stiffer and achier than usual tonight, after three hours in the garden today. The cool overcast weather--it was sprinkling some of the time--was perfect for heavy lifting and shifting, things I'd never attempt once the temperatures are over 80.
My older son watched me lifting bricks from a pathway, putting paver base and landscape fabric underneath, re-setting the bricks, and mulching around them. (And no, he didn't offer to help.) "Why didn't you do this in the first place?" he asked. Smart aleck.
"Trial and error," I replied. There's been a whole lot of trial in my gardening career, and a large percentage turned out to be error. Like sinking the bricks into the grass, forming a quaint pathway around the west side of the house. I think at the time I was going for the whimsical cottage look, as if the path had always been there, waiting to be discovered.
Of course the bricks became so overgrown that I forgot they were there. Now they're in the midst of a very large expanse of mulch, which was why I had the raise their level--so the mulch wouldn't bury them, too.
Shoveling barrow after barrow of mulch from the pile (four cubic yards) sitting next to the garage, I think: "This is worth it. Everything will be easier after this. And I'll never let the garden get so out of control again." It's basic maintenance, something I should do every year, and in some parts of the garden it's probably been at least three years since there's been any mulch at all. So the gardens have become a playground for all those perennials which I should have been dead-heading faithfully and didn't: they seemed lovely until now when they threaten to choke out every other plant I love. Then there are all those invasive weeds I should have dug up by the roots while they were young but snapped off at the base instead. What I gained in a quick fix for appearance's sake, I lost in a stronger root which supports a bigger, tougher weed now.
Does any of this sound like an allegory for spiritual discipline and the results of not tending one's spiritual condition? It's certainly seemed that way to me as I strain my back to undo several years of neglect. Regaining spiritual ground may not be so physically painful...but it's hard work that doesn't get easier the longer it's ignored. The danger, with gardens and souls, is that if one waits too long, there's nothing left but weeds. I imagine this is something akin to the ones in I Corinthians who are saved, but all their works are burnt up--wood, hay and stubble. Instead of bountiful fruit, there is only useless vegetation to be plowed under or dug up and burned.
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| | Posted 6/10/2009 7:53 PM - 6 Views - 2 eProps - 1 Comment
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