[SB] Sabbath Blessing

[Molly Wolf]

Gardens

Now that the heat and glare of high summer are ending, I'm getting out for 
walks as much as I can -- at least once a day, preferably twice. It's a 
perfect time of year for walking; the colours are still vibrant, but the 
slight shadowing as the light's intensity dwindles only makes them 
richer.  The air's mild and tender on my face. I never have a sense of 
mourning summer, perhaps because I see early fall as the real New Year -- 
the effect of all those years of schooling, I suppose, a time of 
beginnings. Late August is a long, slow pause before the action starts.

I look at others' gardens as I walk. I am not a gardener; I can't take much 
sun, for starters, and I haven't the patience to weed (which, I admit, is 
weird because I do have the patience to spin). I tried to run a garden back 
at the old house, which had lots of gardens when we first moved there, but 
I rapidly got overwhelmed and defeated. There's a small strip out in front 
of my house with a few things that I've planted, but it's really pretty 
pathetic. As for the side and back yard -- let's not go there. Literally. I 
feel guilty about this, but not enough to do more than keep the grass and 
weeds reasonably short, lest the city get shirty about the state of my lot.

But I can admire others' gardens. I most admire the gardens that manage a 
balance between order and wildness; they're clearly tended and loved, but 
there's a liveliness about them. Their creators have a plan, but the plants 
themselves co-create the beauty by the way they grow and blossom. 
Perennials make a framework for the brilliance of annuals. Shrubs become 
landmarks and add touches of shade, enriching the brightness. A tree ailed 
and had to be taken down; new shoots come up from the still-living roots, 
and the gardener regards them and decides how they might be worked in or 
not. It could be that one's stronger and the others should be cut back to 
foster that one's growth and give it space. This isn't a case of the 
gardener imposing a top-down order or pruning shrubs into unnatural shapes 
or punishing plants for being in the wrong place -- which is what a weed 
is, really -- but of working lovingly with what emerges.

A sermon by a wise priest (hi Perren!) reminded me of how this is God's way 
of working with creation. God isn't the clockmaker, pre-planning our lives 
and making things happen.  Destiny does not exist, only possibility.  I 
have to believe this, or I have to believe that God is a sadist, given the 
depth and extent of human suffering. But God works with what there is, 
seeing possibilities I never could imagine, coaxing what's best out of 
what's least, if we'll only allow him. God might very well put two souls 
together, experimentally, as a gardener sets out lilies along the western 
wall, but whether or not those two souls make a holy union or a travesty is 
very much up to them. It depends on whether they can jointly work towards 
God's long-term loving purposes or whether one or both of them has other 
ends in mind.  God might present a person with a vocation, but the person 
might refuse the vocation, or fail to fulfil it for whatever reason -- and 
God knows, far better than we ever do, what underlies these failures.

We aren't lilies or lupines, after all; they have no choice in how they 
grow. Given decent conditions, they'll flourish. But we're such complex 
creatures, formed with definite temperaments (anyone who thinks that babies 
are blank slates hasn't had one) and talents and nurtured (or not) by 
parents who are good, bad, or indifferent at the job of parenting.  We rub 
up against the world and it can be a bruising place. Our gifts get fostered 
or slapped down; we find a place in the world or we wander in the 
wilderness. Our experience shapes us towards confidence or lack of it, 
towards trust or fearfulness, towards flexibility or rigour. We can't often 
see what our assumptions are, much less question them, because our vision's 
so limited -- and because we choose not to look too closely.

Paradoxically, we are creatures of compulsion who also exercise free will 
-- but our wills are only really free if we understand what compels 
us.  The more we turn away from self-understanding, the less likely we are 
to be able to turn our wills in the way God hopes for and the more likely 
we are to frustrate God's desires for us. There are, I know, people out 
there for whom acting Godward seems to be purely natural, but I don't know 
too many. The rest of us are sinners, after all, never wholly aligned with 
the Creator's purpose -- but through that knowledge lies liberation. If I 
can see where I'm failing to become all the person I'm meant to be, then 
perhaps I can consciously turn my will in a more fruitful direction and try 
to be a better creature of my Creator.

It's mostly a matter of trusting the God *will* work things out and being 
willing to do my own part -- which means having the humility and common 
sense to examine my own soul and to ask for God's help. I know that God's 
love for me is boundless and hopeful, and that God wants only my best 
flowering, nothing more. This knowledge gives me the courage and energy I 
need to get on with becoming wjp I'm meant to be.

Maybe in time I'll be able to break through my own laziness and resistance 
and make better use of the bit of garden I've been granted to work with. 
Two new perennials next year, at least, and maybe I'll set out a few 
annuals as well.

******************


I'm about to hit some sacred cows, and they moo so badly. -- Phyllis 
Tickle, aka The Divine Miz T.