The Master Gardener Of Our Lives
Plants beautiful useful ideas, not weeds.
When my dad passed away, I had the job, or privilege, of going through all his papers. He saved them all. If a mudslide hadn’t ruined multiple boxes in our parents' basement many years before, I couldn’t imagine how long it would have taken me.
I’m sure he saved most of them because he didn’t know what might be valuable to other people in the future. He was right about some of those papers because they ended up in the section of the Penn State library dedicated to his study of utopias. Others, he probably didn’t know what to do with, so he let them accumulate.
One day, while going through a box, I found seeds. Yes, seeds. Flower seeds were carefully labeled and put into envelopes dated November 12, 1992, November 5, 1997, and December 5, 1999. There were two dwarf hollyhocks and one calendula.
I wish I knew the story behind these seeds, but the next year, I planted them. They didn’t come up. They were too old, I suppose.
Seeds are like ideas.
Sometimes, we put them away and forget where they are, and sometimes, someone else finds the idea and plants it for us.
We often forget that we are all gardeners of life. We are constantly planting seeds through our words, thoughts, and actions.
Other people also plant seeds in our lives. Sometimes, those seeds are weeds, so we must continually walk through our life garden to root them out.
Some seeds remain dormant until the soil of our lives is properly prepared for germination.
Then, there are the seeds that blossom into our thoughts and, therefore, our lives, making our life gardens more beautiful than we could have imagined.
Sometimes, seeds sprout, and we don’t notice until we stroll down our life garden paths and admire what has grown.
In my actual garden, I have planted various flowers and plants and am constantly adding more. Each plant brings what only it can bring to the garden.
Even if I plant ten roses, each will have its own unique individuality. This observation shows that the rose's true essence is beyond what the five senses can perceive.
That essence is the idea itself, which originates in the only place it could originate, within the infinite Mind.
As hard as it may be to imagine what that means, it is even harder to imagine that it isn’t the truth of all we experience.
Take away an idea, and there is nothing.
To have an idea, there must be an originator. In the garden of our lives, we may be the originators.
But in Life, there is only one.
The originator, or creator of all, is the Master Gardener of each unique expression of life.
We are Its ideas. We are each a unique essence brought to Its garden. No one is the same, and without all Its ideas, Life’s garden is incomplete.
As we accept this truth and let the Master Gardener care for our lives, the seeds we provide for others become increasingly valuable and beautiful because they no longer carry any vestiges of false ideas or weeds.
We are learning to let the Master Gardener guide our actions. The pruning and weeding we do in our lives reveal the beauty already provided.
My dad planted many seeds, not just for our family and myself but also for his students, colleagues, and friends.
Don’t we all have treasured memories of others who nurtured our lives, composted our garden, pulled out some weeds, watered some wilted plants, and pointed out gifts or ideas we didn’t know we had?
It’s important to realize that we do that for others, intentionally or simply by living our lives according to our current highest understanding of kindness.
In honor of those who have helped our life gardens grow, we can all choose to eliminate the seeds of despair, lack, fear, blame, envy, and greed and instead follow the Master Gardener’s plan and plant only the seeds of what is good, pure, useful, beautiful, and kind.
Take a walk in your life garden and notice the beauty of what the Master Gardener has planted for you. Remove anything that claims to be an idea of the divine Mind but is really a weed.
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