Spiritually Theraputic Gardening


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I went to visit two families to administer the sacrament today.  So I took two containers of blueberries with me from our garden.  While I was on the way, the EQP told me over the phone that the second family had already begun meetings at the church with the Bishop.  So, I didn't need to go to them.

When my sons heard the news, one of them said,"Great!  We get more blueberries."

Just a month ago I would have gone along with that reasoning.  But something has changed in me as I've been more into my garden than in past years.  I told him to put all the blueberries into a single container to take to the first family.  I could feel the disappointment in their hearts.

I told them that we are fortunate to have people in our lives who are in need.  How often do we get to share something that will make people happy?  How often do we get to do that with people who are in need?  Gardening is a wonderful thing because one cannot really grow a garden without knowing that no matter what we do, God is the one who makes it happen. 

  • For the practical conservative economist in me, I reasoned that there is no such thing as asking for more because the garden produces whatever it produces. You can't  force it.  You can't ask it.  You're in no way entitled to more.  It's a matter of rationing, proportioning, & prioritizing.
  • For the theist in me, we have a lesson about grace and works.  For all the work we put into it, God (or Nature/Nature's God/The God of Nature) is the one who makes things grow at all.  There is a certain partnership.  But in the end, God can do it without us.  We cannot do it without God.  There is a certain humility that comes from that recognition.

Recognizing this, I found that I had started the garden because I wanted to eat the fruits.  But now, I'm more excited about sharing the fruits.  I'm more excited about giving things away -- especially to people who are in need.  Gardening has changed me.  I wonder what gospel parallels that conjures up :).

When I explained all this to my sons, my sons quoted."Doing good is a pleasure.  A joy beyond measure.  A blessing of duty and love."

Edited by Carborendum
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Lessons I've learned from my garden:

  • The law of the harvest: I've never harvested watermelon because I've never planted watermelon. I currently have wild strawberries growing in my yard, but they are small and bitter.
  • The law of weeds: weeds are anything I don't want in my garden. Those wild strawberries are weeds. Cucumbers are not. Mint isn't a weed except when it grows past the bounds I've set for it. Weeds require 2 skills: the ability to correctly identify a weed, and diligence in removing them. I once planted carrots, then replanted carrots, then replanted carrots because only weeds grew where I planted. Turns out I didn't recognize carrot sprouts and kept weeding them out. It's okay to let the weeds alone early on, but once you've identified that it's a weed you remove it with abandon.
  • The law of work: I've had plants die because I did not water them enough, or planted them early but didn't make the effort to protect them from late frosts. Gardens need weeding and tending. And yes, Jacob and Zenos, sometimes that means working with dung.
  • The law of rest: God told ancient Israel to let their land go feral once every 7 years and again once every 50. Today we practice crop rotation so the soil can perform a different work and not get burnt out in always giving the same nutrients. The land needs to rest, and the Lord will help if necessary.
  • The law of grace: I control what I can control, but I don't control the frost, the weather, or the plants. At the end of the season I am grateful to God for what He has blessed me with.

Apply how you will.

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1 hour ago, Carborendum said:

I went to visit two families to administer the sacrament today.  So I took two containers of blueberries with me from our garden.  While I was on the way, the EQP told me over the phone that the second family had already begun meetings at the church with the Bishop.  So, I didn't need to go to them.

When my sons heard the news, one of them said,"Great!  We get more blueberries."

Just a month ago I would have gone along with that reasoning.  But something has changed in me as I've been more into my garden than in past years.  I told him to put all the blueberries into a single container to take to the first family.  I could feel the disappointment in their hearts.

I told them that we are fortunate to have people in our lives who are in need.  How often do we get to share something that will make people happy?  How often do we get to do that with people who are in need?  Gardening is a wonderful thing because one cannot really grow a garden without knowing that no matter what we do, God is the one who makes it happen. 

  • For the practical conservative economist in me, I reasoned that there is no such thing as asking for more because the garden produces whatever it produces. You can't  force it.  You can't ask it.  You're in no way entitled to more.  It's a matter of rationing, proportioning, & prioritizing.
  • For the theist in me, we have a lesson about grace and works.  For all the work we put into it, God (or Nature/Nature's God/The God of Nature) is the one who makes things grow at all.  There is a certain partnership.  But in the end, God can do it without us.  We cannot do it without God.  There is a certain humility that comes from that recognition.

Recognizing this, I found that I had started the garden because I wanted to eat the fruits.  But now, I'm more excited about sharing the fruits.  I'm more excited about giving things away -- especially to people who are in need.  Gardening has changed me.  I wonder what gospel parallels that conjures up :).

When I explained all this to my sons, my sons quoted."Doing good is a pleasure.  A joy beyond measure.  A blessing of duty and love."

My brother wisely noted that those that value the bounty of their labors from gardens - enjoy freely sharing their harvest.  But those the value the bounty of their labors from money and the investments in money are not so happy with freely sharing their harvest.

I have no such luck with life - last year, I thought to again attempt a garden.  Not much, just some tomatoes.  But before any tomatoes were ready my lovely grand kids found great fun in throwing them over the wall for our neighbors - and whatever else was left were eaten by rats before I could pick them.  Perhaps I should learn to tolerate cats more. 

 

The Traveler

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45 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

By the way Carb, I'm glad you're back.  You classy up the place. 

Interesting. 

I had thought you found me to be a tedious, self-righteous, verbose narcissist.  I guess I need to take your tone in a different light.

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43 minutes ago, Carborendum said:
1 hour ago, NeuroTypical said:

By the way Carb, I'm glad you're back.  You classy up the place. 

Interesting. 

I had thought you found me to be a tedious, self-righteous, verbose narcissist.  I guess I need to take your tone in a different light.

Maybe NT thinks that tedious, self-righteous, verbose narcissism is classy.

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8 minutes ago, Vort said:
52 minutes ago, Carborendum said:
1 hour ago, NeuroTypical said:

By the way Carb, I'm glad you're back.  You classy up the place. 

Interesting. 

I had thought you found me to be a tedious, self-righteous, verbose narcissist.  I guess I need to take your tone in a different light.

Maybe NT thinks that tedious, self-righteous, verbose narcissism is classy.

Or that NT thinks that when we compare tedious, self-righteous, verbose narcissism to what we have here, the former rates higher on the classy scale.

Edited by Fether
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So... last week, I wrote to my missionary son about my garden and asked him to relate it to a gospel lesson.

This was my email:

salad.jpg.208062055163a368185fe0249e1dae7d.jpg 

I have been taking care of this leafy green everyday since it was a seed.  It was getting big and healthy and I felt very good that it attained such state under my care.  Then we had 4 days of rain.  I was very happy because the garden is getting blessed with so much rain.  I knew the garden would get even healthier.  Because I didn't really want to be in the rain, I didn't tend to the garden for 4 days thinking the bounty of nature's blessings will care for it.  Well, the first non-rain day brought me back to my garden to see the plant almost completely devoured by caterpillars.

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3 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

So... last week, I wrote to my missionary son about my garden and asked him to relate it to a gospel lesson.

There are certainly a lot of spiritual lessons that one learns through gardening and farming. 

I'd daresay that my wife and I have gotten a lot closer through gardening together.  I generally consider myself the technical/scientific person and my wife as the artistic/creative person.  Gardening has reminded me that she has been pursuing a biology degree and knows quite a bit about botany.  At the same time, I've gotten more creative.  This is certainly an area that our talents and experiences have mingled quite a bit.

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8 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

There are certainly a lot of spiritual lessons that one learns through gardening and farming. 

I'd daresay that my wife and I have gotten a lot closer through gardening together.  I generally consider myself the technical/scientific person and my wife as the artistic/creative person.  Gardening has reminded me that she has been pursuing a biology degree and knows quite a bit about botany.  At the same time, I've gotten more creative.  This is certainly an area that our talents and experiences have mingled quite a bit.

Interestingly, my husband and I both do not have gardening skills.  This whole thing started before we got married and my husband found out that I love orchids (because my mother love orchids).  He's been buying me orchids and I've been killing them.  It's become a family tradition that my orchid shelf is where orchids go to die. 

I also grew up in a 350 sqm (0.09 acres) urban property with a 3-bedroom house, a  chicken coop, a pig pen, a cucumber arbor, and a rice bodega (my dad owns a rice field in the next island) that my mother successfully tended.  As kids we sold eggs and cucumbers to neighbors to buy soda and banana-q, so, I've always wanted a homestead... my husband tamed our backyard so I can put my garden, he gets me seedlings and seeds and ornamentals and whatever he thinks I would need (he doesn't ask me what I need, he just comes home with another "present" - he loves doing it even as it frustrates me, hah hah)... I read up everything about gardening and zones and plants, etc. etc., then they all die.  My husband has no interest in the plants.  He just likes to mulch and mow and trim and feed the birds and bring me presents for the garden.  Fast forward a couple decades and I've had successes down my belt - including a few surviving orchids - but gardening is still one of those things I like to do to "try novel ideas" which my husband is happy with because... more presents.  This year, I'm trying out growing watermelon in a square-foot garden which is very wild that you happened to post that awesome watermelon patch around the time I planted my single watermelon plant!  My husband, on the other hand, installed timed misters for the birds and the orchids - that was a nice present!

 

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The OP got me thinking about the Fall. Adam and Eve start out in a world where the earth brings forth naturally and bountifully. Then the Fall happens and God tells them the earth will now in large measure be uncooperative but that it is their responsibility to tame it and make it do what by it's fallen nature it doesn't want to do. And so by the sweat of their brow they learn to work both with and against nature to produce desirable fruit. Eventually the knowledge of the Lord will one day fill the earth and it will become a paradise again but in the mean time we spend so much of our mortal probation simply trying to get the earth to sustain our life. Surely the Lord had a lesson or two in mind when he planned this all out. And while the Lord can use all situations to teach us I think there are some things that just can't be taught the same than while tilling the earth, many of which have already been mentioned here.

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I grew up on a farm. My mom had a half acre garden. Saturdays were spent weeding (and getting a tan).  We had an orchard, grapes, strawberries, raspberry, blackberries, blueberries and over 200 herbs.  

I have learned that I don't have my mom's magic green fingers. Her plants were huge. Double what they should have been. I don't know how she did. 

My berries, tomatoes, peaches, plums and cherries never make it in the house. My boys race out to eat them every morning. It's on to see who finds the ripe fruit. They found the sugar snap peas today.  I remember doing that as a child. I never came inside. Just found food that was growing. 

I think life can be life a garden. You take care of it and sometimes it grows amazing. Some times things happen and it all dies. You do the best that you can and hope and pray it is enough.  It's amazing what a little seed can do in a short amount of time. 

Oh and even the loveliest rose has thorns. I got nailed with a thorn yesterday.  They are beautiful and dangerous. 

 

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