THE LENTEN GARDENER

Thursday after the Third Sunday in Lent

I’m working on planting a garden. For those of you who know me, you might more easily believe me if I said “I’m building a spaceship to visit Mars.” By the time I actually see anything I’ve planted break through the soil, the latter might have proved the more realistic prospect.

On my little ranchito, there’s an old pen, about 12’ x 15.’ I have no idea why it was built, but it’s obviously been there—unused—for decades. It has a fence just about 6’ tall that initially I was going to tear down (it sits right alongside a pumphouse on which I am utterly dependent for water) but when I looked it over closely, I saw how very well it was built and decided it would be easier to find a use for it than destroy it. The fence was almost completely invisible when I began my work; it was thickly covered with years of overgrowth from vines—most of them long dead—or so I assumed. It was the first of my many mistaken notions about this project.

Working for two or three hours a day, after seven or eight days I’d completely cleared the fence and discovered how sturdy it was. I’d begun to clear the small floor of the pen, something I initially thought I could do in an afternoon. That was a week ago—and I’m still working on that part of what has now become my Augean Stable. As I hoe and hack at the dirt, sometimes the Devil of Gardening whispers to me—and the devil doesn’t always lie—sometimes he tells you truths you want to hear—“Wilcox, you don’t even like vegetables!”

Over the past few weeks since the Great Fast began, I’ve been struck time and again about how related good, hard physical labor is to the spiritual life. Jean, one of my greatest friends, is a daily gardener and we often talk about the work she does in her own garden at home as well as keeping up the garden in her parish back in Virginia. Until I picked up the tools of her trade, I used to think how nice that was for her. Now I regard her accomplishments—she sends me pictures now and again—with the same regard I used to reserve for those who read Syriac.

This Lent, I’ve been focusing on addressing one of my sins in particular. I don’t have a “tendency” to judge others; I’ve made it one of my life’s specialties. I decided to turn my Lenten observances this year towards addressing it. I’m not so foolish as to imagine I’ll eradicate it, but I believe in Grace. What I cannot do, He may be able to purge me of if I don’t fight Him too much. He won’t come in with fire and sword, however, unless I invite Him over and over. My prayer, fasting and almsgiving this season is directed towards the end of bringing that sin, which has worked itself deep into my soul and psyche, to light, holding it to God as I come to see it, and asking Him to burn it out of me.

After I cleared the fence and raked the surface of the small spot which will someday produce zucchinis and squash gourds and all kinds of other little edible plants (which I’ll give away because I really don’t like vegetables), I made a Most Unpleasant Discovery. All those vines that overgrew the fence are still there—and they’re alive. They’re underground. It’s like a horror movie. “No, Greg, don’t go into the pen!—can’t you see? they’re alive and lurking in there, just waiting to get you!”

The vines are thick and resilient, and intricately networked. When I root out one, I discover three others it’s entangled with. You can’t see this underground system from looking at the ground (or at least, I can’t—Jean no doubt could, if only she’d fly out here and do this for me!). There seems to be only one thing to do, and that’s dig and dig some more. I have tools to help me do it, but I have to pick them up from my tool shed every day, carry them out to the “garden” and go to work.

My Lenten tools are no different. One of my principal ones—my spiritual shovel, I guess—is the Lenten Prayer of St Ephrem the Syrian, which I mentioned early on in these little meditations. The last line in the prayer embodies my daily struggle: “Grant me to see my own sins, and not to judge my brother, for Thou art blessed, world without end.” I say it three times a day, with my offices, but that frequent repetition has moved it to my mind and it often springs from there into my consciousness—especially as I hack away at those vines. I send my weekly alms to a Coptic monastery where I’m unknown, asking them to pray for “the sinner who judges his brother.” When my spoiled belly groans in protest of not getting all it wants, I ask God to show me who I’ve judged today and how I've judged them. All this—and just last night I was in a conversation wherein I had a chance to praise someone I dislike—and I passed it up to give my opinion on what a skunk they were. An objective observer wouldn’t be impressed with my Lenten victories thus far.

I’ve cut away all the visible vines, but I can’t begin the next stage of preparing the garden until I root out all those vines. This afternoon I’ll put in another three hours or so, but anyone looking at me couldn’t tell I was “gardening,” just digging and hacking and sweating. Those vines are just like my sins. I hack at them, uproot some, and discover others.

The ground looks a lot better than it did. Another few days and I should have it free of those cursed vines. Then, I’ll take my Outdoor Bible—a newly-purchased copy of Vegetable Gardening for Dummies, and begin the next step. I am grimly determined to grow some squash.

I like judging people. I do it pretty well. It makes me feel superior to them and I’m often correct in my assessments. But sometimes I’m not—sometimes I’m completely wrong about the secret motivations of another soul. That’s had unhappy consequences of its own. Even when I’ve been accurate in my judging of others, though, it hasn’t made my life better. It’s hardened me and made me more susceptible to those devilish whispers about how smart I am, how discerning, how much better. God only knows (literally) how much time I’ve already racked up for myself in Purgatory, where some devil is waiting to hand me a creaky shovel and take me out to a 1,000,000 acre pen thick with underground vines; to complete my torture, he’ll turn up a loud boom-box which will endlessly crank out a random combination of country-western music, Sousa marches and Victorian-era hymns.

We still have three and a half weeks till we sing the Alleluia again; I still have time to pray and prune.