Wednesday, June 22, 2016

            I am thinking about writing a gardening book: “The Retired Man’s 12 Step Guide to Successful Gardening.”  It won’t be a long book, just a page.

            Step 1:  Garden for 20 minutes.

            Step 2:  Rest for 5 minutes.
            Step 3:  Garden for 15 minutes.
            Step 4:  Rest for 10 minutes.
            Step 5:  Garden for 10 minutes.
            Step 6:  Stop for a cold drink.
            Step 7:  Garden for 5 minutes.
            Step 8:  Stop to go to the bathroom after all that drinking.
            Step 9:  Garden for 5 minutes.
            Step 10:  Stop and gaze appreciatively at all that you have accomplished.
            Step 101  Garden for 5 minutes.
By then it surely must be lunch time. What do you mean it is only 10:30 a.m.? Close enough.
            Step 12:  Stop for lunch.
            Repeat as necessary -  maybe tomorrow, or next week or whenever.

             If God is supposed to make the lilies of the field so beautiful, how come I have to do all the work? I am finding that my huffing is outpacing my puffing.

            All this toiling and tilling, I figure is Adam’s fault, when God punished the human race to work the land by the sweat of our brows, (Genesis 3:17 – 19). He and Eve had it pretty good, living in a garden of plenty, eating the best of fruits, enjoying an occasional walk in the garden with God. Why would anyone mess with that? Just one thing – not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil – that’s all they had to do.  But oh no, it was all or nothing. And so here I am, a son of Adam, with thorns and thistles aplenty, working up a sweat of my own.

            It is thought-provoking to ponder how often our lives change because of one decision that we have made.  Thankfully, some of those decisions turn out wonderfully well. Marriage. Children. Careers. Opportunities. Becoming a Christian.

            But it is also true that making one, even small, bad decision can affect our lives in such a way that we seem to live with the results forever.  A moment’s inattention can turn into tragedy.  A wrong turn, morally speaking, turns into calamity. A foolish action results in costly repercussions. A careless or meanly-spoken word results in broken relationships. We sometimes have to sweat it out because of the one decision we made and can’t take back.

            Being human, we never stop making choices. They are a part of life. The guidelines that always have helped me in making my choices have come largely from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 to 7.  I am far from being an expert in following them, but I am always inspired by them to do better, to strive for the kind of life that Jesus sets out in them, to cultivate a lifestyle that honours both God and me and others.

            Jesus’ words in sermon take us right back to the Garden: “In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit… Thus you will them [meaning you and me] by their fruit,” (Matthew 7:17, 20).

 

Dale