I spend a lot of time in the garden. One of my favorite garden quotes comes from Thomas Fuller. He says “Many things grow in the garden that were never sown there”. I have a perfect example of this in the garden this year. Among the onions there sprouted a single dill plant. As I was doing weeding early in the season I debated on whether or not to pull it. It looked healthy. How the seed got there I have no idea. It would certainly look incongruous among the straight rows of onions. But I could not bring myself to pull it out. So it has remained and has grown into a lovely plant.
But for me, that garden quote pertains to more than just plants in the garden. Life too holds many things that are not of our own making. Things we don’t see coming. Spontaneous events thrown in by other people. Sweet surprises matured from something long forgotten. These things, not sown by us in the orderly rows of our lives, belong there too. To be less hasty in pulling them up makes a fuller garden. They disrupt what we intend but create a more interesting pattern. In the end, like my dill plant, they often turn out be something beautiful.
I am happy I let that dill plant survive. As I weed around it I smile. And I remain open to the disruption of the unsown moments of life.
But for me, that garden quote pertains to more than just plants in the garden. Life too holds many things that are not of our own making. Things we don’t see coming. Spontaneous events thrown in by other people. Sweet surprises matured from something long forgotten. These things, not sown by us in the orderly rows of our lives, belong there too. To be less hasty in pulling them up makes a fuller garden. They disrupt what we intend but create a more interesting pattern. In the end, like my dill plant, they often turn out be something beautiful.
I am happy I let that dill plant survive. As I weed around it I smile. And I remain open to the disruption of the unsown moments of life.
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