“It is no disparagement to a garden to say that it will not fence and weed itself, nor prune its own fruit trees, nor roll and cut its own lawns. A garden is a good thing but that is not the sort of goodness it has. It will remain a garden, as distinct from a wilderness, only if someone does all these things to it. Its real glory is of quite a different kind. The very fact that it needs constant weeding and pruning bears witness to that glory. It teems with life. It glows with colour and smells like heaven and puts forward at every hour of a summer day beauties which man could never have created and could not even, on his own resources, have imagined. If you want to see the difference between its contribution and the gardener’s, put the commonest weed it grows side by side with his hoes, rakes, shears, and packet of weed killer; you have put beauty, energy and fecundity beside dead, sterile things. Just so, our ‘decency and common sense’ show grey and deathlike beside the geniality of love. And when the garden is in its full glory the gardener’s contributions to that glory will still have been in a sense paltry compared with those of nature. Without life springing from the earth, without rain, light and heat descending from the sky, he could do nothing. When he has done all, he has merely encouraged here and discouraged there, powers and beauties that have a different source. But his share, though small, is indispensable and laborious. When God planted a garden He set a man over it and set the man under Himself. When He planted the garden of our nature and caused the flowering, fruiting loves to grow there, He set our will to ‘dress’ them. Compared with them, it is dry and cold. And unless His grace comes down like the rain and the sunshine, we shall use this tool to little purpose.” ~C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves, “Charity” (1960)
As we approach the new year, this is the time for many of us to reflect on the past year and to plan out those changes we want to make for the coming season. What I appreciate about the comments from C.S. Lewis, is how clearly he demonstrates that gardens are a great metaphor for life. But I want to emphasize that gardens are also an essential part of our very existence. So, as you think about the new year, I hope that you reflect on the significance of the garden in your own life, and that you make plans to elevate the importance your personal garden in many different ways this coming year.