Quote:  Love all God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it.  Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light….If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things.                                                             –Feodor Dostoevski

I would kill for one gardenia bloom, a buttery white flower under my nose, full of sweet scent.  We planted a gardenia bush.  Of course.

We then took immediate steps to make sure it would survive searing summer temperatures in the dry Arizona desert.  Workers installed a vast system of thin water tubing connected to an automatic timer, this programmed to give exactly 18 minutes of water to the gardenia at 3:00 a.m. while we slept.

For years, I was a gardener without responsibility.  I plucked gardenia blossoms at dawn and retreated inside, far from suffocating heat.  So it was a shock, on a first summer day this year, when I found my beloved gardenia bush limp and quietly dying.  Our watering system had crashed.

Alarmed, I grabbed the hose.  I sprayed.  I filled the well around the bush with water. Each morning thereafter, I sprayed water and studied my bush.  I watched buds mature, predicting which ones would bloom tomorrow.  I caught the first signs of yellowing leaves and applied fertilizer.  I plucked off faded blooms, allowing the gardenia bush to direct energy to new leaves and buds.  And I understood the hurt of thoughtlessness, a day without water because the gardener forgot.

With surprise, I’ve learned to treasure the daily responsibility of caring for the gardenia bush that takes care of me.  We don’t plan to fix the automatic water system.  My love of a gardenia flower is so much stronger now because of my love for its bush.  

He told them this parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees.  When they sprout leaves, you can see for yourselves and know that summer is near.  Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near.  [Luke 21:29-31]

*****************************

Meditations:  In the Garden
TABLE OF CONTENTS

*****************************

Copyright 2017.  All Rights Reserved.