Life (A Short)

Life is like a garden, in all things, like a garden.

You plant seeds in hopes they grow.  They are of all kinds.  Every kind if you so wish or perhaps there are certain tastes you favor and others you do not like.  So you plant what you like in hopes that it will grow.  You water the ground, you fertilize the ground.  You watch it carefully and expectantly.  You check everyday to see what has become of your garden and the seeds you planted.

And some do not ever grow.  You tend them, your fertilize them, but they will not grow.  And others will rise forth from the ground…but will bear little or no fruit and wither away.  And you will tend them, and fertilize them, but they bear little and wither away.  And some bear fruit, bounties of fruit….and these things…..these are the ones that stay. 

And in time perhaps, perhaps if you are wise or unwanting, you will let the few that stay remain and grow no more.  But if you are gluttonous, or needy, or more human than angelic, you will try to grow more.  And perhaps you will eventually satiate yourself, or perhaps you will spend your life trying, or worse, perhaps the ones you grow anew will choke the old away. 

Yet no gardener knows which seeds will grow and which will not.  They may hope, but it will not be so.  They cannot tell how much fruit a plant will yield and even those that do may wax and wane in bounty.  They have no control.  And of all things, this makes it no less frustrating….no less heart shattering…..no less terrible to know that it is so.  For the plant can only be tended, it can only be fertilized, it will choose of its own whether it yields.

But one thing is true.  If life is like a garden, if you have believed the opening line…if you have seen that it COULD be this way….then you must know that no gardener lives alone.  He needs the seeds.  He does not plant them and care for them out of simple kindness….it is reciprocity.  For their life, they give life back.  For his love, they bear fruit to please him. 

And certainly not everyone gardens, not everyone plants flowers or fruits and vegetables or anything at all.  And some plant to grow for others besides themselves, too….but in this gardening….there is simplicity and truth.

It is simple.  It is ideal.  It is not lost.