To Plant is to Hope

To Plant is to Hope

The parable of the tomato plants

There is a wizened gardener who grows tomato plants from seeds. Each year we are privileged to go and get some from him and you never know exactly what sort he has come up with. It's a real liquorice all sorts, a lucky dip sort of experience.

Each year we plant out these seedlings, we water, fertilise, wait and hope. I have to say that on the law of averages, the quality and abundance of fruit is always pretty good.  I am sure this is due to the craftsmanship that has gone into nurturing these seedlings.

But… you just never know. There are no guarantees in this world, particularly when it comes to growing tomatoes in the garden.

We simply plant, wait and hope.

It is like this with everything in the garden, fruit veggies and flowers. There are no promises, no guarantees. You simply give it a jolly good try and you hope.

It’s the same with relationships. You try, you work and then you hope. It seems nothing is happening and yet everything is happening. Sometimes it starts out robustly and then it falls over.

The ones that start out straggly often become the most productive and the ones that begin life sturdy and full of promise sometimes don’t seem to reach the potential that was hinted at in the early stages of life.

When we plant things in the earth this is the risk we take. I think about this at every burial I conduct. We tenderly, with great respect and thankfulness plant the body in the ground. We then wait and hope. We have no way of knowing what the final outcome will be. We sort of have an idea but…

To Plant is to Hope.