Monday, April 30, 2007
Tending our gardens
Ray Stubblefield
Recent columns
From the RoundTable blog
It's been a rough couple of weeks around here. After experiencing one of the warmest winters on record, April follows as one of the coldest. Normally, I have to fire up the woodstove a few times in the morning to take off the chill, but for two weeks I had it going nonstop. I burned more wood in April than I did in January.
Warm weather early in the month had leaves budding out, only to be killed in a hard freeze. And to add insult to injury, it snowed. But it doesn't end there. Last week winds were so strong and sustained for two days, we were without power for three.
When nature wasn't going nuts, it seemed mankind was. A pastor was murdered in her home just a few miles from us, only to be followed by the Virginia Tech massacre. And halfway across the globe, there is the endless, daily carnage in Iraq.
Time in a hospital waiting room brought a new perspective on life for me, but in a totally unexpected way. In light of the Tech shootings, Earth Day and springtime planting, nothing could be more apropos.
This visit to the hospital found me using the public restrooms more than I normally like. I'm not sure what it was, nerves, too much coffee, but between walks around the building, I returned to the waiting room every 15 minutes, and then to the men's room adjacent to it.
Because of the hospital setting, this facility stayed remarkably clean. It stayed clean, that is, until my last visit. I had to wait a few minutes as the door was locked this time. A boy of about 12 or 13 stepped out and I stepped in.
He, or someone who used this restroom very recently, hadn't flushed. There was urine all over the seat. Soap and water covered the rim of the sink, and wet paper towels were in the bowl. This is the very reason I loathe using public restrooms.
Besides being angry and disgusted, I was totally amazed at how much mess one person could make in such a short time. And it got me thinking. As we move through this world, we all leave footprints, some large and destructive, while others small, light and almost invisible.
We leave footprints as individuals, we leave footprints as societies, and we leave footprints as nations. Western culture has left a huge footprint on Mother Earth, one that is like those left on the moon by the astronauts. It will be here for a very long time.
Some people move through life like a herd of rhino or elephants, oblivious to the environment and those around them, trampling everything under foot, knocking down trees and fouling the water wherever they go, needing hundreds of square miles of territory to sustain them.
Then there are those rare few who move through life like an Indian maiden, walking along the path to the river to gather firewood, fetch water or wash clothes. She is not idle and all her actions have purpose, but she moves along completely in tune with her environment, at peace and harmony with all around her. Besides the path that is worn to the river, there is no evidence she had ever passed this way, despite the hundreds of trips she has made.
How is it then we move through life? We have all been placed into this great garden we call Earth. We are all gardeners, sons and daughters of the first gardeners, Adam and Eve. Our whole purpose is to lovingly tend and care for the space we have been given.
But not only have we been placed in a garden, a garden has been placed inside each of us in the form of our heart, soul and spirit. How do we tend that garden, and how do we move through it? Do our labors and actions bear good fruit or bad?
And just as important, how do we move through the gardens of those who come into our lives? Do we move through with kindness, care and respect, realizing we are just guests? Are we the elephant, rhino or the Indian maiden? Is our footprint large or small? Do we trample and ruin everything we touch, or do we leave the world a better place as we pass through?
Realize it our not, like it or not, we are all gardeners, and to the extent we understand and embrace this role is to the extent we are at peace and harmony with ourselves, others and our environment.
From the looks of the daily headlines, it seems much of the world needs a little reminding.
Stubblefield, a physics and astronomy teacher at Magna Vista High School in Ridgeway, is a Roanoke Times columnist.
