Gardening can be both rewarding and frustrating all at the same time. This pastime requires a lot of time and patience and care. When things grow and flourish we take great pride and joy in the accomplishment, but when plants die we are sad and disappointed. Sometimes plants die because we as gardeners did something wrong; sometimes plants die because a pest or animal got at them; and sometimes things just die despite the fact that we did everything right and we cannot find a known cause.
Gardening is a great metaphor for the spiritual life because we too find our lives of faith to be defined in similar ways. We take great pride and joy in the times when we are flourishing, while we are disappointed and sad in those moments when we are not. We look for causes for these failures and sometimes it is our own fault through sin and neglect; sometimes a pest has got at us and infected us; and sometimes we find ourselves doing everything right and still we are not flourishing.
As long as we remain on the vine there is life and hope, even when we do not feel it. And even when death occurs there is always resurrection and new life. A dead plant becomes new nutrients and soil for something else to grow and flourish in its place. Nothing is wasted in the vineyard of the Lord; everything has value, and life within us will rise again in the mystery of our relationship with God.
No comments:
Post a Comment