THE GARDENER

 

 

“An anonymous text from the Tradition says that, in life, each person can take one of two attitudes: to build or to plant. The builders might take years over their tasks, but one day they finish what they are doing. Then they find they’re hemmed in by their own walls. Life loses its meaning when the building stops.

“Then there are those who plant. They endure storms and all the many vicissitudes of the seasons, and they rarely rest. But, unlike a building, a garden never stops growing. And while it requires the gardener’s constant attention, it also allows life for the gardener to be a great adventure. Gardeners always recognize each other because they know that in the history of each plant lies the growth of the whole World.”

-        Paulo Coelho, “Brida”

My daughter is a florist. She gives me bouquets of exquisite blooms. I have them in my bedroom where I can see them the most. My bedroom is where I spend most of my time. This is where I study and write.

I am not a gardener but I love the flowers that grace my bedroom and I often wonder what it takes to grow the dahlias that I constantly admire. I cannot imagine how barren this world would be without flowers.

How clever God must have been to grace this planet with beauty. I think of Him as the ultimate gardener but with a difference. I think of Him as the Gardener of each soul who has ever lived because we, like plants, have within us the growth of the whole world.

God makes out of some of us a rose, and some a daffodil, and some a geranium. I am amazed how some of us are sturdy flowers who survive the harshest weather and some die out during the first frost of the season. And then some of us, as delicate as we appear, push through the clumps of snow to herald the start of spring.

I like to think I am one of the sturdy flowers because He has pruned me and nurtured me through the harshest storms….but deep down I want to be a beautiful flower in the end that can bring not only growth but also beauty to the world. He knows this is my desire and so He keeps pruning….

I think of that every time I look at the dahlias in my bedroom.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: The Divine Gardener by Greg Collins)