The Parable of the Hoe

I love to garden. One of my favorite primary songs is “The Prophet Said to Plant a Garden,”

1. The prophet said to plant a garden, so that’s what we’ll do.
For God has given rich brown soil, the rain and sunshine too.
And if we plant the seeds just right and tend them carefully,
Before we know, good things will grow to feed our family.

2. We’ll plant the seeds to fill our needs, then plant a few to spare,
And show we love our neighbors with the harvest that we share.
Oh, won’t you plant a garden, too, and share the many joys
A garden brings in health and love to happy girls and boys!

Words and music: Mary Jane McAllister Davis, 1925–1988. © 1982 IRI

Recently I took my four young children (ages 5 and under) to the garden. We really went into town to buy groceries. But I decided we should at least drop by the garden and pick the beans and cucumbers and see if the corn is starting to get ripe. We have done this before. I’ve learned that I have about 40 minutes to an hour before the kids have had enough gardening.

We arrived to find the weeds on the pathway flanking our plot had been mowed down. Our knee high (and higher) weeds growing with our vegetables were exposed! I quickly picked the ripe beans and cukes. Then I started in on a mad dash of yanking out the tallest of the weeds. I was focusing on the weeds around productive, non-vine vegetables and around the edges of our plot where there was a clear line of division between the weed-less neighboring plots and our towering plot of weeds.

As I rounded the bend behind the corn I noticed that my garden neighbor seemed to have weeded some of the larger weeds in our plot. How nice! Then a woman pulled up in a car. I could see she had her own young children with her. She said “I was doing that all summer.” I thought she was referring to pulling the weeds at the edge of our the plot. She must be the kind neighbor. But no, she meant bending down and tearing the weeds by hand. “I spent 5 hours a week pulling out weeds. Then someone gave me a tip and I went to the store and bought one of these.” She then pulled her weeder hoe from the car. “It takes them all out” she explained. Then she demonstrated how to weed with the hoe. It was like a weed broom. Instead of pulling each and every weed, it swept them all out with easy strokes.

I was amazed and somewhat embarrassed. “I have one of those in my car” I stammered. “I thought it only worked on small weeds.” “I had no idea, thank you for showing me.”

How foolish I had been and how grateful I felt. Her kindness truly blessed me. I pulled out my weeder hoe and began “sweeping” out the weeds. I had bought the hoe at the beginning of the season because I knew that’s what my dad used for weeding. But I only remember him using it on small weeds. I thought I wouldn’t work on the big ones. Their roots were probably too deep. Perhaps I wasn’t getting the entire root, but it was much more effective that what I had done previously.

I thought this is really an analogy for spiritual life as well. We know there are weeds that need to be pulled. Weeds are wrong choices that lead to habit that lead to tradition that lead to culture. The weeds stunt our growth, spread disease and can even choke the life out of our plants.

We may wish to keep weeds out, but we just feel it is hopeless. We may feel that the weeds around us shelter our weeds from the world’s view and make it somehow okay. Hey, everyone has weeds. I wont get a red stake and have my plot tilled under because that plot over there is *way* worse than mine.

But in truth, no matter how we rationalize, weeds are not good for our garden. Then some kind person may happen by and share their knowledge. They take the time to leave their own family and show us how to use a tool that will help us rid our garden of weeds. For some perhaps we will have to go invest in a new tool. In my case is that I already had the tool. I learned in my youth it was a tool for weeding gardens. It has been in my car everyday since I planted the garden. I’ve only used it once and didn’t understand the full potential it held for freeing my garden from weeds.

Thank you to a friend at the community garden. You have blessed my life. There are still weeds in my garden. But you have given me hope.

Miracles Grow

I finally broke down and signed up for the community garden in the town next to ours. It's a 20 minute drive, but I just can't resist the miracle of growing things. I know we probably wont save any money growing vegetables 20 minutes away. I finally justified it as a teaching tool for my kids. Plus, I roped in our family that lives there. It gives us all something to do together.

We planted 5 rows of corn, two sunflowers, a row of beans, a row of carrots and radishes, four tomatoes, 12 peppers (for salsa), and a hill of cucumbers. It's a big space, so we still have a lot of room to plant melons and pumpkins. I should mention we didn't actually use Miracle Grow, but a standard 10-10-10 fertilizer.

Our garden is full of blessings already. Our neighbor gardener offered to rototill our plot, saving us hours of digging in the clay-like soil to loosen it up. Also, on Saturday and were surprised that corn and sunflowers were already starting to poke up through the soil.

Speaking of miracles. I want to say something out of deep humility and gratitude. I have reason to believe that people with a lot of faith have been praying for our family. Something amazing happened last week. I wont mention here beyond it was a miracle and beyond what my own faith could produce. I have a feeling that it was due to the faith and prays of others on our behalf. If it was you, I wanted to let you know that your prayer has been answered in an amazing way. Thank you for your service to our family. My own faith in prayer and the Lord's tender mercies has been strengthened. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!