How Does Your Garden Grow? Always With Hope for Summer!

“God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.”

--Francis Bacon, 1625, Essays

I have no green thumb, nor green fingers either, though as I prepare to plant my first vegetable and flower garden in many years next weekend, I’m hoping this season my efforts will produce abundance. Juicy, red tomatoes in late August; succulent, green lettuce leaves, maybe by July’s end; snap peas and green beans to grace my table, steamed and then covered in melting butter. And to symbolize my hoped for gardening success, I’ll also plant three or four sunflowers, those oversized black and yellow giants that reach up to the skies with such speed and fervor.

All gardeners, pros and amateurs alike, dream of their personal gardens of Eden: plants that grow true and tall and healthy. Vines that crawl without hindrance. Green stalks that climb like Jack’s beanstalk.  Bright, technicolor flowers that frame the garden, make it just so, a green and color filled space to work at and to enjoy on a long summer’s day.

How does your garden grow? Mine? Well, this year, we will see.

The last time I attempted to grow a garden, a mini-garden really, was in a small space right off my screened in back porch, a brown rectangle of dirt that catches full sun for much of the day. I went compact, intentionally, rationalizing that if the plants succumbed to critters or to blight or to too much water or too little water, my disappointment might be compact as well.  That’s the risk and the mystery and the adventure of home gardening. We always might just have our gardening hearts broken.  

All gardens, like life itself, are acts of hope, natural prayers of faith, offered by human hands covered in dirt. You never know what the outcome will be: one year a garden of Eden, the next a dust bowl. But still the gardener must garden. It’s what he does, what she does, what we can do too, perhaps to somehow remind ourselves that humans came from the dirt, that in the creation story from the Bible, it is written: "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." At life’s end we go back to that soil, earth to earth and dust to dust. Maybe that’s why so many of us work the earth: to hear the ancient echo of our own creations, where we came from, where we return to.   

And so, on that Memorial Day weekend five springs ago, I planted five tomato plants I’d bought at the local big box garden center. I watered them faithfully, pinched back the suckers to push them to grow up and not out. I flicked off the occasional bug that gnawed at those delicate leaves.  I looked at my budding garden with increasing pride as June came to an end and then July 4^th burst forth and by the end of that month, little green fruits appeared! I might just make it!

Then tragedy struck. Taking my morning coffee out to the porch, I looked to the garden as I did every day, and waited for that feeling of pride but…it was not to be.  Sometime in the evening, the deer had come, treating my back yard like a salad bar, and so, like thieves in the dark, they nibbled and bit and stripped back all of my plants, every last tomato fruit consumed.  The plants stood denuded, bare, for all intents and purposes, dead.

Damn you, Bambi!

This year I will plant again, in spite of my PTSD: Plant Tomato Somehow Destroyed.  I garden this year, in part, to take my mind off the pandemic. I’m pretty sure I will have lots of time on my hands this summer. Plants I’ve grown from seed are thriving in my sunny bay window at the front of the house. This Saturday I will build a raised bed container garden, and then fill it up with 18 bags of rich and dark soil and then with care and tenderness, transplant my homegrown veggies and flowers. My menu of hope this year includes tomatoes, lettuce, melon, snap peas, green beans, zinnias and of course, those gaudy sunflowers.

Yes, I know it might not turn out so well, the story of my 2020 garden. The deer might come back for a second helping. The summer might be too dry or too wet. The skies might open up with hail to pummel the plants or rushing winds to topple the sunflowers.  Rabbits might ravenously chow down.   

Who knows?  

But still: I must garden. Still, I dare to dream of a summer harvest.  Still, I must hope, for in the seed is always the possibility of life: amazing, wonderful, miraculous, beautiful, green life. 

Thank you creation. Thank you creator God.

     

 

They Did Their Part: Now It's Our Turn

“In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds meaning, such as the meaning of sacrifice.”  --Victor Frankl, "Man's Search for Meaning”

“They did their part.”

That’s the slogan on a World War II United States government propaganda poster, issued by the Office of War Information in 1943. “They” were the Sullivan brothers, five siblings who hailed from Waterloo, Iowa.  In January of 1942, George, Francis, Joseph, Madison and Albert, the sons of Thomas and Aleta Sullivan, all signed up to serve in the United States Navy, a little more than a month after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. 

They did so with one stipulation: that all be allowed to serve together on the same ship.  Though the Navy had a policy to not allow such family groups to serve thus, it was often not enforced and so the five men were assigned to duty on the U.S.S. Juneau, a light cruiser. On November 13, 1942, during the battle of Guadalcanal in the South Pacific, the Juneau was struck by two enemy torpedoes, exploding, and then sinking the ship.

Six-hundred and eighty seven men died. Ten survived. The Sullivan brothers all perished.

They did their part.

I have an original of that poster in my home and it hangs in my living room, a reminder to me that there have been times in our nation’s history when the greatest of sacrifices was asked of American citizens, like the Sullivan brothers. That there once was a time when millions of Americans laid aside their own wants and needs, gave up the normalcy of every day life, to server a greater good and a common good, beyond individual desires. That there was a time when our nation was led by a President, who in both word and deed, actually inspired Americans, and called forth the absolute best in people, and a shared commitment to do one’s part, and not just as soldiers, but also as civilians on the home front. Working in wartime factories. Participating in wartime drives to collect scrap metal or grow a victory garden or buy a war bond.  All of this energetic and patriotic energy was designed with one purpose in mind.

To win the war and to do your part; your part in that effort, whatever that might be.

Mistakes were made. Many folks were treated much less than equally, minorities and women in particular. War profiteers stole from Uncle Sam. A black market in rationed goods flourished. Yet it could be argued that in modern times, America then was more united, more communally committed and more willing to sacrifice for the common good, than ever before.

Ever since then too. Until now.

I’d argue that in this generation, at this moment in history, more so than at any other time since 1941, America is being asked to sacrifice and in big ways. To give up so others might live.  To go without so others might survive. To set aside what I want, for a shared ethic of what we, together, united, must do, in these strange and amazing days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

I don’t think making such a historic comparison is hyperbolic. We may not be at war in the traditional sense, but we are at war against an enemy, an invisible enemy, that has the potential to continue to sicken and kill millions of people around the globe, and millions of people right here in the United States. And so, to be blunt: we collectively need to continue to do our parts, in this effort, and meet our responsibilities to each other, as citizens and neighbors.

We are just two short months into what most epidemiologists and scientists agree will be a multi-year effort to discover and manufacture and distribute an effective vaccine. Our work is just starting.  Some elected officials might try to wish this truth away or deny it away or act as if we can just throw a switch and all will be well again and very soon too. 

Me? I’m not listening to them anymore nor do I take them seriously. They are clueless at best, reckless at worst.           

Instead, in 2020, we may have to look within ourselves for inspiration and strength, to keep calm and to carry on and to do whatever is necessary to win this battle.  We will have to reach deep and remember that America has this collective will within our spiritual and civic DNA.

They did their part. Now we must do the same. May God bless us all in this mighty effort.

                        

When It Comes to Those We've Lost: Attention Must Be Paid

“…he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to [just] fall into his grave…. Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person.” --"Death of a Salesman”, Arthur Miller

4,840 and 78,763 and 278,703.

Numbers. Statistics on a page.  A tally, a count, an amount. Not much to be moved by here or shocked by here or saddened by here until you realize that these are the number of deaths from COVID-19 since the pandemic began.

And so as of today, as I write this piece, 4,840 people have died in Massachusetts and 78,763 people have died in the United States and 278,703 people have died worldwide. When you realize this, when you look again at those numbers, if you pick up a copy of the biggest newspaper in the state, like I did this weekend, and look through 21 pages of death notices, then you know.

Know and remember that behind everyone of those numbers is a name and a face and a life.  Grandmothers and grandfathers, and neighbors and friends, and mothers and fathers, and the famous and the anonymous. Lives lived. Lives lost.

It’s not like I just woke up this morning and suddenly realized that so many people have been taken by the virus. Like most folks, I keep up with the latest news and I check in on breaking developments daily, and so a part of me has been aware of the truth that too many, that so many people have succumbed to COVID-19.  No one in my intimate circle of friends and family have died but just this week I did learn that two good friends had lost their fathers in the week just passed. I read it on Facebook. I wrote them my condolences.  And then went on scrolling through my news feed.

I’m not quite sure why the death toll hasn’t been more on my mind and heart, or been more on the minds and hearts of most Americans. As I consume news, I have begun to notice that the story of deaths is most often relegated to the end of the news cycle or news program or news digest, after so many other COVID-19 stories. The race to find an effective treatment and vaccine.  The economic toll the shut down had wrought on millions of people and businesses.  The latest wacky cures offered by some in government who seem more worried about news polls than death tolls. The protests, albeit very small, by folks on the edge of public opinion, who wave their flags and eschew masks and carry their guns and see stay at home orders as a grave threat to civil liberties.  Now that’s a “sexy” story that guaranteed to take the lead on the front page.  THIS JUST IN!          

But go deeper in the news and the stories of death are heartbreaking, very often telling the story of a senior citizen, someone in their seventies or eighties or nineties, who lived a really good life, who loved and created a clan and served their country and then died: in a nursing home or an assisted living facility or at home. 

The obituary doesn’t say it but the truth is that many were vulnerable, from a health perspective, to begin with, and so the cruelness of COVID-19 reveals itself. It most often takes the weak and the compromised and the vulnerable and not just the old but low income folks too. Folks who live in places with high levels of air pollution and low levels of access to quality and affordable health care: places like Brockton and Chelsea and Lawrence and Lynn. And people who can’t afford not to work: consider the three grocery store clerks who have died in our state. 

Maybe all those truths explain why as a society we have yet to rise up in collective grief and mourning.  No statewide moment of silence.  No ringing of church bells. No memorial service featuring government officials and the pomp and pageantry of so many people eulogized and remembered. 

Just page after page after page after page of death notices with haunting photographs of the deceased: some very recent images, some photos of life long ago. Black and white pictures of women and men, wearing a World War II uniform or standing at the altar on their wedding day.  They all come alive somehow for one last moment, and as your read those notices, you see the intimate and beautiful details of lives lived well. Beloved father. Decorated veteran.  Devoted wife. Loving great-grandmother.

So yes, attention must be paid to the dead, to those we have lost and will lose, to COVID-19.  God knows these lives matter.  These people made this world better and brighter and so we cannot let them be forgotten in the intensity and confusion of this moment in history. We have commended them to God. 

But so too, let us remember them, each one of these children of God.  Remember and honor their lives and legacies, all that they were. How much they will be missed.     

Attention must be paid.