Hope For Tomorrow

Every time I garden I ponder life. Pulling weeds, planting seeds, harvesting, enjoying the fruits of your labor, learning to be content even when the dog digs up all of the work you've been hard at. I think God knew we'd have questions about life so he gave us excellent explanations to be learned by discovering the world around us. Through some things we can learn a lesson or two, but what I love about gardening is that it's a lovely summery of life. Like the book of Ecclesiastes summarizes life, gardening does so without words. It's therapy to the soil really... oops, I meant to write soul. ;) Hehe... You can forgive me, I'm sure, since I have been outside all day mowing grass and weeding gardens.

I was browsing through a recent Economist magazine and read about new research on the symbiotic relationship between bean plants and fungi. Apparently the bean plants send messages to other bean plants through the fungi.
I also heard that plants do math according to a BBC news article! It's not so much that the plants think but rather they have been created by Jesus Christ to be able to do brilliant things and respond brilliantly to the elements that effect them to sustain life and live harmoniously with the world they're a part of. As noted in the BBC article in regards to plants doing math, "Dr Richard Buggs of Queen Mary, University of London, said: ""This is not evidence for plant intelligence. It simply suggests that plants have a mechanism designed to automatically regulate how fast they burn carbohydrates at night. Plants don't do maths voluntarily and with a purpose in mind like we do.""
I like that Dr. Buggs used the word "designed".

Oh, of the curious things we discover and do throughout life, gardening truly has to be one of the greatest pleasures and the greatest pains. What I find to be the most interesting part of this prodding of the ground is that it is a testament that we are an optimistic people. What is the point if there is not hope for tomorrow? Or hope for the day after tomorrow... hope that seasons will be constant, that drought or flood will not persist, hope in conquering little challenges that come up and hope in triumphing over large obstacles. I believe it is this hope that makes us happy and gives us so much joy in the end. No matter what sort of weather life will throw our way we have hope that there will be a harvest. Either beautiful foliage to please the eyes and nose or delicious fruits to sate the palate and appetite.

We garden because we have hope that even in spite of failure tomorrow will bring opportunity and another chance.
So really, what I'm trying to say is this... Instead of being afraid of the future or worried that any day could be doomsday get outside and plant a garden. 

I like how Theodore Roosevelt said it,  
“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failures, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”

Here's my new gardening motto:
Don't read and weep, go weed and reap.