Small Doings

This is backyard gardening: a working toward rejoicing in the tiny harvest of red, red beauty because it's fun. 

I don't garden because it's the end of the world, and I think I'm going to feed my family in the next Apocalypse. I'm way too dependent on Ace and Tractor Supply to think I could maintain this without Chinese manufacturing.

I don't garden because it's a morally superior activity to say: learning to play the piano or sew or read a book or take a nap. I'm not racking up righteousness with every weed I pull. 

I don't garden because the harvest is so abundant that I just have to drop those seeds. I don't always succeed at my gardening endeavors, and sometimes the harvest is quite measly. 

Sure, we get a harvest and depending on the plant, sometimes we get a significant harvest. We have eaten a lot of collard greens this Winter, and I hope to eat myself silly on okra this Summer. 

But if you were to calculate this process based entirely on cost and reward, then technically I'm losing. 

I garden because it's beautiful, fun, healthy, and educational. I garden because it's a doable way for me to enjoy God's world. I garden because I love it. I garden because I'm a great-great-great-great-granddaughter of gardeners. That is to say in Lewis' terms, I am a daughter of Eve. 

I'm an advocate of planting seeds because the garden was Man's first nursery, and there are too many parables in the soil. As much as we roll our eyes at the song, at one point in our history, a human walked with God in the garden alone. He lost his soul in the garden, was clothed in a garden, exiled from a garden, and has longed to get back ever since. 

I garden because somewhere in my genetic memory is a longing to visit Eden. 

I'm an advocate of gardening like I'm an advocate of married couples having babies, because it's living with, not against, the grain of who God made you to be. There are certain things that just make sense, and sure you could map it out and explain it from a scientific and theological standpoint. You could talk about Adam and Eve being created in a garden and given a garden mandate and all the parables in Scripture that are related to planting and weeding. You could show from a psychological viewpoint how good it is for your mental health. You could prove that Sunshine creates vitamin D, and vitamin D creates joy, and people should get outside; and they should probably get outside with a spade and pack of seeds.

You could talk about the affect of hospital gardens, castle gardens, cottage gardens, seaside gardens, secret gardens. You could notice that every single civilization is marked by various commonalities one of which is gardening. You can even say gardening is of the same value as music, art, dance, and poetry. You could lecture till you're blue in the face that something about this activity is vital for human flourishing. That someone on every street should manage a garden if only for the well-being of their neighbors. 

You could prove it all right. Gardening matters, even if it is done in a sandy backyard, haphazardly enjoyed by a housewife and her daughter. 

But I prefer to keep it simple: you should garden because it's cutting with the grain and not against it. Why fight your good, God-given humanity? 

You should fill a pot up with soil and plant a bulb. You should walk in your neighborhood and enjoy someone else's tree. You should notice where the sun falls and where the shade hits. You should touch a flower. 

You should go with the grain and not against it. 

The thing I love about backyard gardening is that it is small. It can be nothing more than two berries shared between two souls: "One for Mommy and one for me," as Meg says.  

It's small, the very essence of it is done best when it's simply done. Scrape up a patch of dirt and toss some seeds, water and watch as beautiful flowers fill the wind and bees and bugs and birds startle you from getting too close. 

The point of a castle garden is magnificence. 

The point of a Japanese garden is order. 

The point of a botanical garden is cataloguing. 

The point of a backyard garden is small doings. 

It's not meant to be skilled, magnificent, or exhaustive. It's just a backyard garden. It's like doodling during a lecture: something to create while you go about the business of living.