How vain it is to sit down to write, when you have not stood up to live.
-Henry David Thoreau.
This quote puts flesh on the skeleton that has been goading me lately.
It applies to a lot of areas but one of them deals with regaining dominion in my home sphere, particularly outside the house.
God first made a garden and then created two people to inhabit, enjoy and tend it. I think place, is very important to God. How we care for gardens in our lives says a lot about us, whether it be in the garden of our marriages, our spiritual life, homes, children or work.
The tendency is to talk about how important these areas are, but not really do the work of cultivating them. There is a passage in the apocrypha book of Ecclesiasticus 37:19 that says: "A man may be clever enough to teach others and yet be useless to himself."
I think this speaks to the danger of falling into the sticky black ink of words and not really doing the work needed to live out the truth we so often quote. I determined to work this out in my yard this spring.
Beautifying one area at a time, step by step.
4 comments:
That quote is a piercing one.
It is so easy and fun to "enlighten" others with words.
But quite another to live it out.
I wish I had as much enthusiamsim concerning my inner garden as I do my outside garden. I wouldn't have to use a hose then, I would just call down rain from the heavens.
Guess I'll work on that this summer.
Love Dad
Emerson said:
"Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist.
He who would gather immortal palms must not be
hindered by the name of goodness,
but must explore if it be goodness."
I think your thoughts about evangelism are a good example of exploring goodness. I like the analogy, it works and I wonder if one can ever have much success in winning people to Christ if it isn't a burden of the heart. Can we have success in any service that we don't feel some kind of a calling too? I doubt it.
Problem is, like when the Lord first spoke to Mary outside the tomb, he initially said only one word, her name; "Mary". She had ears to hear but I think the difficulty with most of us in Christian service is we are unmindful and don't hear his voice.
Dad
I have been the opposite...put all the energy into the inner garden at the expense of the outer garden.
Seems that I would rather fault on the side of the inner garden rather than the outer garden, but I understand the point of balance. I will have to stop by and see for my self the wonderous majesty that I can only now see in picture.
Neue
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