Furious Gardening

Last updated on: May 22, 2019 at 8:17 am by Anne Kennedy

Furious Gardening 2019-05-22T08:17:47-04:00 Anne Kennedy

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

This is very important. I’ve skimmed like six articles on this critical subject (and also some of the queen’s garden parties) mostly for the clothes, but also because—well, there’s nothing else online I want to even think about, certainly not that Harvest Chapel person biking up and down searching out someone to do away with his enemies. Gardening, like clothes and royals, is a serious business and I for one would like to know the truth about Meghan and Katherine’s true relationship—by which I mean, please keep the rivalry articles coming because I will always click on them.

My own season of furious gardening has restlessly unfurled. Technically, no one up here should plant anything out until Memorial Day. But every year I defy the possibility of late snow and strew seeds and seedlings into the ground anyway—praying to my Father in heaven and and cursing the darkness in a single breath.

The fact is, I want flowers. Lots and lots of flowers. I want all of them to grow and keep growing from three weeks ago until the very last day of October when I finally withdraw to the indoors, having anxiously worn away my garden paths by months of pacing in my big winter coat—the only way to endure the frigid outdoors all summer.

Morning and evening I go out to see if anything is going to survive. While other people go about their lives—to work and to school—I stand hunched against the cold, willing flowers to grow.

Indeed, all the anxiety and stress I feel in the autumn, standing in disconsolate judgement, wearing the same coat, threatening and begging God for the glory of that final effulgent flame, I similarly feel in the spring, only now staring at the ground instead of up into the branches.

While Matt “digs out beds” and strews mulch, I kneel on the ground day after day, reverentially, trying to discern any kind of verdant hope emerging from the dark earth, any green besides the weeds that come no matter what.

Weeds, of course, like sin, grow everywhere, untroubled and strong. They hide amongst the tremulous stalks of the real thing, winding their roots around the prize. If you leave them too long, you are done for. If you pull them out too soon, sometimes you are mistaken—their horrible healthy strength mimicking the shape and hue of what you really wanted to grow. And you have to keep at them—constantly—because after pulling them all up in the morning, there they again in the evening. “This is why we should have mulched,” says Matt bitterly. Yes, we should have, but we didn’t have time, did we. When we finally do, we will have spent weeks and weeks pulling weeds.

That’s how life is. The thing that you should do right away, that would make everything easier in the long run, is so daunting or so apparently expensive that you decide to worry about it later. Coping with a child’s recalcitrant and morose attitude. Facing the ant laden pool of honey on the back of the shelf. Finally clicking on an overstuffed email inbox full of questions that needed answers two weeks ago. Admitting the bitterness entwined around some essential part of who you are. The time to face it was yesterday, but here you are today and it’s as unyielding and intimidating as ever.

That’s why I like to call it “Furious Gardening.” Because the time is short, the end is nigh, there are only days in which anything sublime might grow, and yet the inclinations of sloth, evil, poverty, and rage flourish as vigorously as any desperate hope or longing for beauty. All of life is a kind of fury, a mad dash for the finish line—that perverse, bewitching kind of dash where you are always stopping and forgetting that you are even in a race at all.

We aren’t competing says Harry, and nobody believes him. It’s life or death. Hope or despair. Beauty or ashes. Either the garden will live or die. If you don’t win, you die. The winter comes back and you didn’t have any flowers for your instagram. Oh my word I better go look and see what happened during the night.

In the News

Work and the Christian

Previous Post

May 21, 2019

Rambling around with Frog and Toad and Children and Food

Next Post

May 23, 2019 If Only There Were Some Way To Find Out Why Humans Are So Irrational

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category books Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Children in Conversation culture watch Daily Devotions Demotivations with Anne faith alone for the grandparents GAFCON In conversation with children In the News Kitchen Notes Lambeth Learning Notes Life Going On Men are Human Notes from Home Pictures Reading the Bible Saturday Links Sermons Signs of the Apocalypse The Bad Word Association The Prayer of Jonah Travel Notes Uncategorized Witless Wednesdays Work and the Christian

Select a Month June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 July 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who did God call as a boy in the Tabernacle, saying his name three times?

Select your answer to see how you score.

David Samuel Saul Eli

Books by This Author Books by Anne Kennedy

See All Titles »