Valentine from the Garden

Virginia Hughes

Some winter days sit claggy and grey, looming oppressively in their gloom. Emily Dickinson caught the feeling well in her poem:

There’s a certain slant of light, winter afternoons — that oppresses like the Heft of cathedral tunes—

So aptly she describes the heaviness that creeps in and overtakes if allowed to simmer and brood within ourselves. This is when one affirms that God spoke the world into being in the most delightful ways. He pulled light out of darkness when he created the world. He pulled a dry blanket of soil out of the wet blanket of ocean, layered the soil, and planted the whole earth as a garden. And what a grand design we enjoy.

Enviable lines and towering mountain ranges shoot up into focal points and unfathomable trenches in the unexplored, unmapped deep. Lakes glassy as mirrors reflect the heavens. Dry sand and lush terrain, myriad textures, colors and variety. The grace of the Lord’s sustenance harvested from the gardens and fields of the world blesses us, his design and order therein.

Winter brings seed catalogs as February valentines to the gardener and love abounds. Brightly colored photos of flowers, fruits and vegetables full of sunshine and descriptions so lovely one may happily cast off cold weather blues because, surprise! It is planning season and time to dream in a flurry of Post It notes holding places in the catalogs and a marker gleefully circling plants and seeds. What to order? I’ll have this one, one of these, those and those. Online, the same dream shopping occurs as selections are put into mini garden wheelbarrow shopping carts. Oh, to grow such spectacular flowers, scrumptious vegetables and succulent fruits. Lush gardens may be grown by anyone according to winsome captions in the catalogs such as Easy to grow! Trending Blooms! Favorites of the Master Gardener!

Of course, all the dreaming wanes a bit when it’s time to truly order. One scales back wild wishes to have one of everything into reasonably ordering a few standbys and a couple of new plants to try. With 25 to 50 or more seeds per packet, it’s a bountiful amount and it’s not acres being planted, but small spaces tucked here and there.

When the seed packets arrive, a little disappointment bubbles up. Hey, where is the gorgeous flower picture that won me over in the catalog? What’s up with stark seed packets with only a basic black ink sketch or plain word label? Surely suppliers know that hopes are hung upon brightly colored envelopes and beautiful photos, a feast for the eyes. Perhaps similar to the lesson of moving on from milk to solid food as we mature in the faith, seed packet photos matter less the more one practices gardening due to relationships that develop between the gardener and certain plants. One knows the plants one loves. I confess I’d still opt for the breathtaking photo on a seed packet if given a choice.

There is trust for the plants that fulfill their promise to be sturdy and long lasting. Scorn and never again; is noted for the plants that did not do well when earnestly tried. Each of us may tolerate a few garden divas, the plants that take a little work but reward with delightful scent and presence.

We employ shade lovers, dark horse late bloomers and always plant dependable blossoms not favored by rabbits. Many factors are important in growing seeds. Planting time, depth of seed in the soil, the importance of the quality of the soil. Jesus told the parable of the sower in Matthew 13 starting at verse three, to describe how the gospel is sown as seeds. Some is eaten by birds, some grows up quickly and dies in the hot sun, some gets choked by weeds. But the seed that falls into good soil flourishes producing a crop that is a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. “He who has ears to hear let him hear,” Jesus says. A gardener knows a balance of certain nutrients is necessary for plants to thrive. The amount of light, moisture, breeze from a fan if seeds are started indoors is necessary to strengthen tender stems and keep mildew at bay. One wonders how a seed grows at all as small and weightless as some are. It is God’s will that they grow and so they do.

A garden tends to mirror the gardener. It tells the world how attentive one is. That’s what we are sensitive about and why we need to give the tour and explain why it was so lovely two days ago right before your visit. And just like the rest of life one asks Is the garden I have the garden

Artist Spotlight Dave Carlburg

I grew up in a Christian family and have attended College Church all my life. My parents sang in the choir, ran the print shop, cooked many meals for STARS and wedding receptions, and were always basically doing things for others. I learned early on that I enjoyed working with my hands much more than working at a desk. As a result I worked construction for 10 years, worked for United Airlines for 17 years and now have spent nearly 17 years at College Church. I have been amazed to see how the Lord has used the skills I learned over 30 years ago used here at church.

I want? Have I embraced the fact that a garden requires thought, time and work to flourish? What must I do to make it better? More plants? Less plants? A focal point or trellis? There are elements beyond our control. We don’t give up. We dig in and prune, we soldier on, we fertilize, fester and sometimes start over.

The beautiful plants get our attention in the garden, but there are also unseen things that help or hinder their bloom. Just as the war wages around us for our souls, we recognize the visible and obvious things such as beneficial insects we are thankful for and destructive ones we plot against.

In the soil there are invisible nematodes that are beneficial. They nourish the soil and destroy harmful insects. There are also harmful nematodes that destroy plants at the roots. It isn’t only tares that choke out good plants. This silent war wages beneath our feet right in the soil between good and evil.

There are unseen beings that spare and save us daily. The working of the Holy Spirit in us, the Lord’s ministering angels. Saints who pray. We are blessed when we taste and see that the Lord is good, and from the garden we send a valentine to a good nematode.

Photography

BOTTOM

Relaxing in the Rain

ABOVE: St. Louis Arch

SIDE BY SIDE