A Real Gardener is All About Touching

“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there.

It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.” ~ Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

I've always loved to read books.  I tried to pass that love on to my kids by reading to them from a very young age.  We've read stacks and stacks of books together over the years - all sorts of books, from Chronicles of Narnia, Pilgrim's Progress, to most of the classics.  It gives me great joy to see my kids reading.

One of the books we read was "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury.  The book's title is the temperature at which books burn.  This dystopian novel contains an unexpected quote about gardening that I cut and pasted at the top of this post.  Being a Christian, I don't agree with the first part of the quote.  My soul has a place to go when I die - Heaven!  The overall quote resonates with me, though, because it is about leaving a legacy. 

I would think that most people desire to leave the world in better shape than the way we found it.  We aim to change things for the better, to 'leave our mark' by touching things, investing time and energy, and molding them with your hands. Your kids can be your legacy.  Your kids can carry on your family name and the values you've tried to instill can be the torch that still burns after yours has been extinguished.

Bradbury's analogy of a someone who cuts the grass versus the gardener is a good one.  The grass cutter is a hireling, but a gardener is one who has gotten his hands dirty, tilling the soil, hoeing the rows, pulling the weeds.  The gardener, in a labor of love, amends the soil with organic material, minerals, and compost.  He or she feels connected to the soil and working in the garden is almost a spiritual exercise dating back to when God and Adam walked in the coolness of the evening.  The soil you've built and the tree you planted are here long after you are gone.  More than that, though, hopefully a legacy of deep faith taught to our kids will carry on after we're gone. 

Proverbs 13:22 says, “A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, And the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous.”

Although that proverb is talking about material wealth, we know that fortunes can be squandered and be gone tomorrow, but a deep and abiding faith in Almighty God lasts for eternity!