Lessons from the garden

I’ve been spending some time weeding in my garden recently. 

Our yard isn’t very big, but we’ve got
a fair amount of the space we have devoted to flower gardens.  My garden used to be my main hobby, but since adding children to our
family, it’s slipped considerably in my list of priorities.  So, between the beautiful summer weather we’ve been having and my inattention, my garden is a bit of a jungle!

Weeding around the peonies I transplanted last summer, carefully choosing what plants to keep and plants to pull, I opened up space and light for the peonies to grow.  After an initial pass through, I noticed I had overlooked some weeds – smaller, shorter ones, as well as other weeds that were growing too close to distinguish them from the peony stems.  Some of the peonies – having grown since last summer – are now too close to each other, and probably need to be moved, to allow optimal growth and flowering for next year.

And so as I went along, I found that these simple tasks called forth some important analogies for me about how we each do our work to make a difference.  (And I’m not the only one thinking about gardening analogies recently… see here)

We have to choose where we put our efforts – what, when, how much, with whom.  We have to choose what we want to grow and what we need to let go of.  We have to know how best to nourish what’s important. We need to know what we’re looking for, and how we’ll know it when we’ll see it.  We have to able to see how our work now will impact what we want to have happen in the future.

What needs weeding in the gardens you’re tending?