The Garden

James Toews

As part of a significant social trend, I have recently become something of a gardener. Maybe it is because with middle age I have become more sedentary. Maybe it is an unconscious urge to go back to my childhood on the farm. Maybe it is because the snipping and trimming and digging give me a feeling of control that I deeply need. Why I have become a gardener is not all that obvious especially when the fruits of that labour are observed but for several years now I have sporadically tilled a patch of dirt in our backyard.

While the fruit of my garden is not remarkable, the reflections on life which occur to me during those times of snipping and trimming and digging have become important to me.

The most recent reflection came as I observed the various fates of the plants which I attempted to cultivate. Since I am an inexperienced and rather random gardener, it is always a surprise when certain plants flourish under the most minimal attention, while others wither in spite of endless watering, weeding and pruning. For instance, I have declared myself to be a champion grower of pumpkins, but my attempts to grow other plants have been spotty to say the least.

What I have discovered is that being a good gardener requires several generations of insight. My garden is both blessed and cursed with a particular type of soil. It is soil which causes some plants to flourish but others to die even before the tender shoots see the light of day. I have also learned that some plants thrive when their roots are cultivated, while others die at that same touch. Some plants require constant snipping and trimming, while others shrivel under that attention. Some plants overpower their environments and crowd out every neighbour, while others can survive in only the most carefully protected settings.

Some of these things I have learned in discoursing with gardening experts, but most of what I know to be right for my garden has been learned by the experience of seeing a crop through the cycle of a season.

Which brings me to my reflection. I am also a parent. I am attempting to raise a "crop" from infancy to healthy maturity. In the process, I am snipping and trimming the branches that seem to be dangling all over the place. I also till the soil in which they are planted, digging through the root systems. Sometimes I pay a great deal of attention to certain details; at other times, by both design and neglect, I let nature take its course. And I constantly survey the crop—sometimes in wonder and amazement, and at other times with anxiety and fear.

There are, however, two significant differences between my garden and my children.

First, raising my children is not just a pleasantly distracting pastime it is an assignment of the highest magnitude. The success or failure of my task is literally a matter of life and death.

Second, with my children I have only one generation in which to work. The great lessons to be learned by watching successive crops complete their cycles are not part of this program. Each gardener is given only one "crop" and one field in which one unique plant is placed. The snipping and trimming and digging around that plant will either allow that plant to flourish or will cause it to wither. Suddenly, the task takes on awesome proportions.

While there is an abundance of other "gardeners" discoursing eloquently on what they feel enhances or hinders the raising of children, there is a deep dilemma: Few, if any, speak from the experience of more than one generation, and many in fact shun the insights of past "gardeners" as old-fashioned and narrow.

As I turned a failed crop back into the ground of my garden, I felt deeply discouraged. The job of being a parent has just too many dangers, and the stakes are just too high.

But then it occurred to me. There is a Master Gardener. Jesus said, "My Father is the gardener" (John 15:1). He has watched a thousand generations run their various courses. In fact, this is the Master Gardener who placed my unique children in my unique care. That is very good news for any parent!

Even more importantly, however, this Master Gardener has offered us two invaluable services. First, He has written a manual containing ageless principles of effective parenting. Second, He has offered to personally guide us through those times when everything seems to be out of control. Those are offers which no wise gardener would ever refuse.

It takes the cycle of many crops to become an effective gardener, and it takes the insight of many generations to raise healthy children. Thankfully, even in our fragmented, single-generation world, we have access to the insights of the ages.

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