Tending the Garden

The deeply insightful novel by Jamie Langston Turner entitled "A Garden to Keep" is the journalings of a woman who discovered that her husband has been unfaithful. The entire book is her working through the process of anger, grief and the discovery about who she really is. It has a very "stream-of-consciousness" feel but the threads weave together beautifully to create the tapestry of her journey.

The main character is deeply in love with poetry and often the side-trails of her journey took her into writing poems of her own. She would have a line of poetry capture her attention and she would write it down. Then she would begin writing a poem backwards, adding a line that would precede the original one and then add another line before that, careful chiseling the words and phrases until she had a completed picture. A handful of entries back, I wrote a line that captured my imagination and yesterday, I thought of a line to work into it. I also reworked the original to get away from the passive voice. As a friend from college once said, "Alliterated for your listening pleasure."

Clouds bruised the skies and
rain wrinkled the surface of the water
while the city burned.

Again, I have no idea why this is so grim! It is like the way I love symphonic works in minor keys. Maybe more will come to me on this poetic journey too.

At my bachelor party over a week ago, we sat around the campfire, each of the men offering a nugget of wisdom on married life. My uncle offered the analogy that a marriage is like a garden, always in need of tending, weeding, pruning, watering, etc. I've always felt the tug to start a literal garden. It is a metaphor that applies so deeply to ministry as well (as many astute scholars and Jesus have pointed out). And considering both marriage and ministry are matters deeply important to God, maybe I should start gardening just to learn more about both and the God who institutes them.