The Secret Power of Flowerbeds

It took only 6 months to figure out that our last house was an impulse purchase and I’m the one that fell prey to the impulse. What grabbed me was the landscaping. The house was surrounded by an award-winning, low maintenance design that made you feel like you were living in the garden of Eden or the mysterious hanging gardens of ancient Babylon. So I gleefully surrendered to irrationality and made an offer.

Never mind the awkwardly arranged floor plans cut up into sometimes uselessly small packages of space… Or the dated but firmly glued ceramics… Or the token kitchen with particle board cupboards barely far enough apart that you could stand between them… Or the bowed walls… The list goes on… Never mind all of that stuff, I was blinded by the idea of living in the center of all that beautifully landscaped space. Unfortunately, the offer was accepted!

Now despite the painful lesson I learned about the need to be as excited about the inside of a house as you are about the outside, I also learned an unexpected lesson about the secret power of flowerbeds. You see, I think you and I tend to act as though beauty is an ‘accessory’ to life; especially when compared to the more important ‘practical’ or ‘functional’ things. It’s an ‘add on’ or a ‘luxury’ or a ‘thing you get to when the more important stuff is looked after’. But having sat for more than just a few inspiring moments in a beautiful setting, I passionately disagree..

That garden was a valuable life-resource. It was a retreat, a sanctuary, a distraction and a point of inspiration all at once. It’s almost made me a believer in “Feng Shui” (wikipedia can help you with that). I can remember sitting in that backyard one day thinking that if you want to write a book, first plant a garden. Why? Because it gives you a really great spot to do some really great thinking.

Now all of this is a challenge leading up to the way you think about and plan to ‘use’ your summer. Rest is not just a good idea, it’s a command of scripture. The barest minimum is one day per week, which translates into 14.29% of your time. Which is God’s way of saying that it is toxic to spend any more than 85.71% of your time working in any given week. It was a habit Jesus, Himself practiced (see Mark 6:31).

So I’d like to argue that things like gardens (hobbies, passions, recreation and diversions) are not just the ‘accessories’ of a great life. If you take God and scripture seriously, they are essential and mandatory components that make the other 85% of your life more effective, more sustainable and simply just better. It’s the secret hidden power of flowerbeds and something to consider about how you plan to spend your summer. It’s also something I’d like to challenge you about this Sunday.

Have a great weekend,

Chris