I had the privilege of having lunch with Justin Van Zee the other
week when he was in Grand Rapids. In his typical appreciative way, he mentioned
how much he’s enjoyed reading the midweek reflections Elizabeth and I have been
writing this past year. Then he took the opportunity to rib us just a little bit
about how many of the writings seem to deal with gardening imagery. “Yeah,” he
said, “It’s been great. A lot of times, I’ll get halfway through my week, and
then I’ll think to myself…hmm…I wonder how Jay and Elizabeth’s garden is going.
So I’ll go and open the midweek reflection to find out.” It’s true, I conceded.
But in our defense, there’s a reason—there’s something incredibly rich about
the imagery of gardening as it relates to our spiritual lives.
And so when it came time to write the midweek reflection
this week, I asked myself—well, what’s been going on in our garden? And then I knew
instantly what I needed to write about this week.
It started about a week and a half ago. We have a series of
flower boxes on our driveway along the side of our house. For most of the
summer so far, two of these boxes have been filled with beautiful flowers (a
mixture of ones I grew from seed and ones Elizabeth purchased from various
nurseries). But one of these flower boxes has housed an overgrown tomato plant.
I bought it in a moment of weakness from Brianna’s Blandford school plant sale
fundraiser back in May. Normally buying plants from a fundraiser would not be a
problem—I’d be happy to support the cause. But I knew form past experience that
we wouldn’t be happy with these tomatoes from this particular vendor. They’d be
bland, and nothing like what a homegrown tomato in Michigan can or should be. Plus,
I was growing more than enough tomato plants of our own—we had no need for more
tomato plants.
However, this tomato plant already had small tomatoes growing
on it, so I thought I could get a jump on the tomato season and start enjoying
tomatoes weeks before my own tomatoes would be ready. Plus, these were extra plants—nobody
had ordered them, and unless someone bought them, the organizers would get
stuck with the cost of the plants and the fundraiser would have sunk costs that
would eat away at the profits. So, in addition to three baskets of hanging flowers
that I knew would be excellent, I also came home with a tomato plant I
suspected I would regret.
Sure enough, the hanging flowers have flourished in our
backyard. The tomato plant, however, has been a disaster. The chipmunks ate the
first tomatoes (apparently they like more than just kale). The next ones I ate
too early in the hope of keeping the chipmunks from getting them. When I
finally had a ripe tomato, it was indeed bland, just like I had feared. Then
the rains came and all the tomatoes started to split before I harvested them.
And to top it off, the plant started tipping over into the driveway, and I couldn’t
figure out a good way to rig it to stay straight. Finally I pulled the plant
out altogether and threw it into the compost.
But that left an empty flower box alongside our house. It’s
pretty late in the year to plant anything, but I remembered how much Elizabeth
has enjoyed watching the zinnias grow and bloom—especially the ones from the seeds
we received at Easter. So I thought I’d go ahead and plant some zinnia seeds in
this empty flowerbox and see if they had time to flower before the first frost
in the fall. I planted them just before heading off to St Louis with the kids,
thinking that maybe the seedlings would be visible by the time we returned. I
also wanted them to surprise Elizabeth, so I didn’t say anything about them.
Elizabeth, however, stayed behind in Michigan and also saw
the empty flowerbox. When we returned, I was surprised to find a box full of
flowers—an assortment of flowers we had purchased from the nursery this spring.
I was confused at first, thinking maybe Elizabeth had moved a box from the
front of the house and my box of zinnia seedlings were still around somewhere.
But then I looked more closely and realized Elizabeth had transplanted some
flowers from the other (slightly-crowded) boxes and used them to fill the empty
flower box. My seedlings—which Elizabeth knew nothing about—had been
obliterated by Elizabeth’s nursery plants.
I wasn’t going to say anything about it at first, but the more
I reflect about it, and each time I’m reminded of it as I walk by these
flowers, the more amused I am by it. There’s something about it that reminds me
of the short story The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry where the wife cuts
her hair to buy a chain for her husband’s pocket watch while the husband sells
his watch to buy precious combs to put in his wife’s hair. I don’t know
entirely why our flowerbox reminds me of this story—neither one of us sacrificed
anything, after all. But there’s something about each of us doing something to
surprise the other without telling them, and then thwarting that person’s plan
in the process.
I’m also amused by the different approaches we each took. Elizabeth
went for the instant satisfaction of seeing already-blooming plants fill the
empty space. I, on the other hand, played the long game and thought about the
wonder of watching something grow and the somehow-appealing uncertainty of
whether we would ever see those zinnias bloom. I’d like to say this is an
instance of where delayed gratification brought greater reward, but I don’t
think that’s the case. Elizabeth’s approach was clearly the better one—it’s
delightful to walk by flowers already in bloom, the flowerboxes look better
with all three of them filled with blooming flowers, and the other boxes, which
had been overcrowded, now look even better.
There are plenty of parts of the Christian life where we are
told to look ahead at the glory that is to come. To keep our eyes on Jesus so
that we can endure our current hardships. But sometimes it’s good, too, to step
back and see the glory that already surrounds us. To celebrate the beauty that
is here and now.
