Lessons from a Garden

I’ve just finished an intense last week push to finish my manuscript on Sarah.  To say it depleted me is an understatement.  I was surprised that relief wasn’t my first emotion.  Emptiness was. I knew I needed time to reset my creative spirit.  I knew I needed a trip to Gibbs Garden.

I've written about this viewing garden before. Located less than an hour from where we live, it is a 300-acre viewing garden. What distinguishes it from other gardens is that it spreads on the land where Mr. Gibbs, founder and developer of the garden, still lives.  It is the largest residential garden in the United States. 

As soon as I walked into the garden, I breathed peace.  But this time, it was more than peace I needed.  Nothing felt pushed.  Not the staff who welcomed us, not the workers who were busy watering and cleaning away dead growth.  They moved in rhythm to the garden, quiet and steady.

We found ourselves matching their unhurried pace.  Pace sets the rhythm of heart and mind, I realized.  I made a mental note:  pay attention to pace!

We knew that the garden was at the end of its growing season.  What we didn’t expect was to be transported by the full growth color of its summer energy.  Knee-high pink impatience spread profuse color. The caladiums waved their heads in strong chorus. And rich blood-veined coleus made their bold but silent presence known.

I started collecting some important lessons from this garden stroll:

Each season shares its own beauty. 

I had forgotten that end-of-season shares have their own special beauty. Maybe it is the last hurrah before their winter sleep, but I felt more celebration than grief.  Even the drying brown balls of yesterday’s hydrangeas made their statement on green boughs. So did they the last drooping roses or the last azalea blooms.  Nothing disappointed us. Instead, we marveled at tenacity, strength, and last season's push.

The lesson for me: savor the season.  Do not fear the emptiness because it is part of a necessary renewal. Let each season bring its own beauty, but don’t expect that a season defines life.

Growth is ongoing, but blooming is seasonal

We didn’t see everything in fresh bloom.  The daffodils were gone.  Roses were small and drooping. Rhododendrons were green-leaved bushes. We didn’t walk to the wildflower field because we didn’t expect to see anything.

The garden reminded me that my own blooming production has a cycle.  When one blooming season closes, another can’t begin immediately.  Instead, I must give time for the unseen growth that makes next season’s blooms. I had never thought of seasons in my life like that.  It was novel and freeing.

Whatever dies in the garden encourages something else to grow.

Even though I know this about gardens, I always hated pulling up perfectly good plants, even when I had little hope that they would survive a winter. Let the soil rest, my garden instructors cautioned. And when I listened, I found it was easier to plant the next season.

What does this mean to me now? After an intense ten years of research, rejection, revisions, more rejections, more rewrites, it all becomes fodder that feeds a new season of growth. But only if I let my creative ground rest.

As Ecclesiastes 3:1 reminds us, there is a season for everything. The lesson for all of us is to know what season it is and cooperate with its purpose.

So how am I translating these lessons into action?

• I am starting a new Bible study on Joseph’s life.

• I am cleaning out files and much “dead weight” in my office.

• I am returning to porch time devotional reading (weather permitting)

• I’ve made a commitment to unhurried living for a season of rest.

  I want to invest more time in building relationships.

• I am not evaluating life by how much I accomplish, but by who I am becoming.

I also plan to take garden walks that remind me how our God of creation has proven that His rhythm of growing things works: Plant.  Water.  Wait. Repeat.

No one loses who lives in rhythm with God's seasons!