Me, Monty Don and Gardening Rage

Monty, my hero-a man who knows where his trowel is!

Photo Jo Marshall

There are three things that bring out the worst in me, bring out my inner incredible hulk; putting up coving (don't ask), finding a parking spot in the rain and... gardening. All three bring out my inner 3 year old. Let's talk about the gardening one.

This year has been a phenomenally fruitful one in the garden. The raspberry canes we got in LIDL two years ago have fulfilled all their promise. Ella and I dug our potatoes up yesterday. There is nothing better.

St Ella of the Spuds

Raspberries Galore!

We have carrots, parsnips and turnips on the go and will be ready in maybe a month. What's the problem? Well, you see, I find it so hard to remember forwards to these fruitful times when in March and April I am digging the soil and planting the seeds. It seems like nothing happens. Nothing at all. Forever winter and never Christmas. It's all input, all graft, cold Saturday digging, sore back and no payback. I am so, so impatient. I can be heard, teeth gritted, anger-whispering (you parents will know what I mean) to the seedlings " Grow will you, bloody grow!" It seems to take forever for anything to get out of the ground.

As I plant the seeds I feel  my frustration, my addiction to immediate gratification is growing within me. My impatience feels like a rage. I feel it surging through me. I needs results and now dammit!

This Spring I really got a sense of the Holy Spirit gently pointing this out to me. "It's hard living in the moment when there is no payoff, isn't it. You want the future, juicy bits now don't you, to compensate for the effort you are putting in right now".  

  

Our thriving caterpillar colony.

I don't want to live in the moment when it's dull and tedious. Moment...Schmoment! So I have been trying to accept these moments, to see them as reminders that I have more to learn about living mindfully, right now, in the 'whatever is happening now'.

It is such a useful reminder. The feelings of impatience and frustration tell me that I have vacated my own building and am trying to live somewhere else- some future happiness or glory. If I can't be at peace and content in this moment, why do I think I'll be able to do it in the imagined future?

 I remind myself to breathe, to wake up to what is around me, to walk slowly, to see God in this time. Slow... down, like a river, slow and deep.

The Father is so patient with me as he gently prises my tight white knuckled fingers, one by one, from the steering wheel of immediate gratification.What a wonderful Gardener He is. Taking his time with me. Seeing the long game, but present with me now, to what needs tending, nourishing, trimming. Always present, in the present, right now..

Eh...Bottum!