Garden Guilt

Dear Friends in Christ -

I spent time on this quiet, gray morning tackling my guilty conscience. Almost since my garden was planted this spring, I've felt guilty about not tending it well. Over the course of the spring and summer, I spent time going on training walks (in preparation for the Prayer Walk Around Shelton) instead of gardening, and my garden was the worse for it. Weeds grew up every which way. Beautiful produce went unharvested until it was past its prime.

Today I expected to have a rough go of it. I expected there to be little or nothing to harvest. I expected the weeds to be unconquerable. But I got my wheelbarrow and my garden gloves out and set to it.

The first surprise was that the weeds came out so easily. The weeds had gotten so big that they choked other weeds out, so it wasn't difficult to quickly make progess in clearing the garden beds.

The second surprise was that there was still so much to harvest - 3 kinds of tomatoes, 3 kinds of kale, 2 kinds of swiss chard, cucumbers, 2 kinds of onions, and even a beet! Garden grace gave me the tomato I ate today for lunch, the kale we had for dinner, and the potatoes and onions that are on the menu for tomorrow night.

I was really amazed at how fearlessly and faithfully the garden grew with such little tending. I was humbled to think of what might have happened if I had given the garden even a tiny bit more attention. I could have done a bit more, too, if I hadn't been avoiding the garden because of the guilt.

So today, as I weeded and harvested, I determined to learn from the error of my ways. Next year there will likely still be times when I don't tend the garden well, but instead of letting guilt keep me away even longer, I'll do whatever I can whenever I can. Next year, I'm going to forego the garden guilt and remember the garden's grace.

Faithfully learning . . .
Janet+