I got to work out in the garden early this morning. I am about 80% done spreading the 3 cubic yards of mulch we got a couple of weeks ago. My roses have been bursting with blooms and today I also spent over an hour dead-heading them, cutting off the blooms that are past their peak. I filled my wheelbarrow and that was just a start. I’ll have to spend about an hour a day until Friday or Saturday to get them all trimmed back because they flowered so profusely. It’s a good problem to have. And this has been a good way to spend the morning after Holy Week and Easter Sunday.

On Monday, I went to a funeral at a Methodist church; the first hymn we sang was In the Garden. This is not a hymn that I’ve ever heard frequently, nor like much. It is certainly very sentimental. But it made me happy that morning; these days, the garden is where I find myself, my hope and my joy, maybe even my salvation.

I think it has to do with time. June 20th marks the 5th year since I moved to Lowndesboro, and I’ve worked each year to do a bit more with flower beds; this year, even doing some container planting. Time has done the rest.

Time is at once cyclical, linear and inexistent out in these spaces where the light goes from gentle to harsh to kind, day in and day out. I see in my mind’s eye an image of the garden covered in snow this past January, while I look at so much new growth pushing through the earth. I still am raking leftover leaves from the fall, not a lot of them, but enough make that time present as well. On Saturday, I tried something new. I planted a bunch of Dahlia tubers and now must wait patiently for them maybe, hopefully to grow into plants and then bloom later this summer.

I go out, start working and lose track of time, so all of a sudden, my throat is parched, and the sun is hot, and 3 hours have just flown by. It isn’t just that I have something to show for the time—though I feel quiet pride seeing the mulched beds, my new plantings, the strong muscles in my arms. It’s that there’s this giving and receiving of life that leaves me not giddy or silly, or some kind of exuberant, but rather, profoundly, joyfully grateful. I know I speak of gratitude a lot, but maybe that is the best gift aging has brought me.

I am so profoundly grateful for the tiny flower that comes out, in part, because I did just a bit to create a favorable environment for it to thrive. Mainly though, it blooms because that is what a plant was meant to do and that little flower is beautiful. I am grateful for the silence that is not empty—or worse yet, filled with unspeakable anger, or grief, or hurt, or suffering. The silence of being busy and pushing my body hard is my favorite silence of all these days. I am grateful because I love the notion of tarrying in a garden, with my thoughts about Holy Week and Easter, with my hopes, with the sense that no matter that my days are limited, I have days, however many there are.

Mainly though, it is time as now I am so glad to live in. Not time past. Not time future. Time now. Though I appreciated In the Garden in a new way on Monday, it is another hymn by Jaroslav J. Vajda, that our choir at Ascension sang during a couple of our services last week that has been with me all morning:

Now the silence, now the peace,
Now the empty hands uplifted;
Now the kneeling, now the plea,
Now the Father’s arms in welcome;
Now the hearing, now the power,
Now the vessel brimmed for pouring;
Now the body, now the blood,
Now the joyful celebration;
Now the wedding, now the songs,
Now the heart forgiven, leaping;
Now the Spirit’s visitation,
Now the Son’s epiphany;
Now the Father’s blessing,
Now, now, now.