{"id":367,"date":"2010-09-17T09:20:22","date_gmt":"2010-09-17T09:20:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/i-failed-as-a-gardener.html"},"modified":"2010-09-17T09:20:22","modified_gmt":"2010-09-17T09:20:22","slug":"i-failed-as-a-gardener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/i-failed-as-a-gardener.html","title":{"rendered":"I Failed as a Gardener"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\"roses.jpg\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

My mother gardens. She has gorgeous flower beds. Everywhere.
\nZinnias and lilies and hostas and petunias and daffodils and flowers whose
\nnames I’ve never learned. When I was little, our backyard had more sunlight
\nthan it does now, so she also grew green beans and tomatoes and squash and
\nzucchini and lettuce and herbs.<\/p>\n

I remember that garden fondly, and I wanted to recreate it
\nfor our children. I wanted to give them the experience of pulling the strings
\noff string beans and wiping the dirt off the yellow squash and watching for
\nbugs and bunnies. I had dreams of our whole family feeling more connected to
\nthe source of our food, even if only on a symbolic level. I envisioned
\nvegetable casseroles and digging a second plot for more produce next summer. <\/p>\n

And then the reality set it. The crab grass.
\nThe abundance of squash–all at once, growing so quickly I couldn’t keep up no
\nmatter how many casseroles we ate. The need for water almost daily. The
\ntomatoes that never ripened. The parsley. I don’t even like parsley. Or green
\nbeans, for that matter. When we picked them, they sat in a pile in the
\nrefrigerator until they were so shriveled I had to throw them away. <\/p>\n

It’s the end of the summer, and I have failed as a gardener:<\/p>\n

\n

\"IMG_5684.JPG\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

There are all sorts of reasons. My priorities didn’t include
\nmuch time for weeding, for instance. It was easy to dash up the road to the
\nlocal farm stand and select juicy fresh tomatoes and peaches and corn. The
\nvegetable plot was too crowded for Penny and William to join me inside it. And
\nmy pregnancy gave me an excuse to avoid crouching down and tending it all. <\/p>\n

But at the end of the day, I just don’t delight in
\ngardening. And since it is not a necessity, I don’t do it. Next summer, we’ll
\nlet the land return to grass and support the local farm stand even more
\nfrequently. <\/p>\n

I don’t want to make too much of my failed attempt here. But
\nit does strike me that one of the images used throughout the Bible to describe
\nGod is a gardener, with human beings as the plants under his care. One of my
\nfavorite passages comes from Jeremiah 17:7-8: <\/p>\n

But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose hope is in him. <\/i><\/p>\n

He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by
\nthe stream. <\/i><\/p>\n

?       It does not fear when heat comes;
\nits leaves are always green. ?       <\/i><\/p>\n

It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.<\/i><\/p>\n

I may have failed as a gardener. Thankfully, the same isn’t
\ntrue on a spiritual level. God is willing to endure the constant tending and
\nwatering and waiting and weeding, that we might grow and bear fruit.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My mother gardens. She has gorgeous flower beds. Everywhere. Zinnias and lilies and hostas and petunias and daffodils and flowers whose names I’ve never learned. When I was little, our backyard had more sunlight than it does now, so she also grew green beans and tomatoes and squash and zucchini and lettuce and herbs. 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Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}