Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Planting

5:40 Am. Sitting on the back porch looking at the empty wooden planter tub where just yesterday C planted 6 new California Poppy plants. Manna had a better idea; pull them all out with her teeth and deposit the chewed remnants at the back door. How proud she must have been!  C was not amused."But just think," I said with tongue in cheek, "what joy she must have felt in that." This did not appease the situation.

This reminds me that we are all constantly planting things along the road of our lives in the hope of something better taking root. We plant our dreams in a soil turned with hope, under a sun we look to expectantly to keep the seed warm and full of life. We raise children within the garden of our own keeping, nurturing and watering with both tears of joy as well as tears generated by unexpected storms.
Planting the saplings of forgiveness in hope of a larger tree built on trust. Planting seeds painted with the glow of love and celebration that blow in on the wind and happen to catch upon our sleeve, as well as those that come to us dark and unaware, slipping through under the door and accumulating in some corner of the room. These we may not know of their genesis, but we will plant them anyway in the optimistic take we have on life, that all must ultimately bear good fruit.

And yet, with all that, as Manna so ably demonstrated, we can do all with such good intentions, but our own visions of tubs full of golden flowers can be interupted so easily. I think today I will surprise C and go to the nursery and buy replacements, plant them and keep Manna at bay. Then, for sure they will be the ones we were intended to enjoy. The patchwork of golden light from the kitchen window that spilled out on the deck is starting to fade now with the new sun. Best to take Manna in for breakfast.




2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for these thought, Scott. For me definitely brings a current take on the parable of the sower. The sowen in 'good soil' requires vigilance, lest the planting and growth be upheaved, even by another's best of intentions. Thanks again for good food for thought!

Unknown said...

Thank you. Don’t know when this was sent, probably a while ago. But, I loved your reply. I guess life only can build upon the seeds we plant, on the songs we write, on the poems we make, on the art we supply. On the vision we have to try to make our lives more meaningful, more productive in a sense of love, more thoughtful in our relationship to others in need, more destined to be a song of hope than a song of dispair, hatred and resistance to the love of all people on this earth. We must, we will, we stand in solidarity against prejudice, fear, and ignorance in knowing we are all one people, one hope, one dream.