“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
recognise each other because they know that in the history of each plant lies
the growth of the whole world.” (Paulo
Coelho, Brida)
For
centuries men have been found on scaffolds of buildings but women were found in
gardens. With their inherent qualities women have put into motion chains of
goodness that outlast generations. They did this primarily through giving birth
and raising children but mostly through those qualities that befit only their
gender, the sensitivities that men do not possess.
Unfortunately,
in our world today many of us women have lost the desire to garden. We are too
busy climbing the scaffolds to prove ourselves capable and invincible. When the
mother of King Lemuel asked that famous question: ”Who can find a virtuous
woman? For her price is far above rubies” (Proverbs 31:1, 10), women were very
much valued. They were valued for their virtue and their gardening skills…..their
willingness to bear future generations was their crowning glory. They produced
kings, leaders, philosophers, educators, conquerors, inventors, and more
gardeners who sow plants that multiply, adapt, and give back more than they
take. Today women kill their children before they can even draw breath, they
neglect, abuse and destroy.
Now
here is something interesting about rubies: Even though they vary in colour,
the most valued rubies are bright red....The Mogok Valley in Upper Burma
was for centuries the world's main source for rubies and has produced some of
the finest rubies ever mined. However, in recent years very few good rubies
have been found there…..…. just as a virtuous woman, as valued as a bright
red ruby, is fast becoming a rare possession in today's world.
The
dictionary defines virtue as: moral excellence, goodness, righteousness,
uprightness, effective force, power or potency. Instead of becoming a force for
good that can change the course of this world through this one meaning of the
word, we have made it all about us. We have become dissatisfied with our inherent gardening skills and we have
acquired an insatiable need for want of power, recognition, praise, wealth and
prominence.
The
freedoms we enjoy today as women have no precedence. We have, however, abused
our rights to these freedoms. Instead of building upon our true natures to
yield an influence in the world that would combat evil and change the course of
our imminent destruction, we have joined those very forces which cause
immorality, destroy families and bring emotional and physical distress. We are
sick, unhappy and discontented.
Yet
there is hope in those women in the world who are yet true to their womanhood
and their gardening skills. These are the virtuous, the devoted, the believers,
the rubies who will one day be the jewels in Christ’s crown when He appears
(Malachi 3:17).
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
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