The rains returned just as Easter was ending. He felt good. This means El Niño may not be as bad as projected, since it will come in the wet rather than in the dry season. And if it would be bad, there was always prayer to turn to, prayer for rain, for the right weather, one that sustains rather than destroys life.
The rainfall made him glad. He had taken to gardening for reasons that had yet to become clear to him. At the very least, he was nurturing life in doing so, or straining from his subconscious for the idyllic rhythm of reaping and sowing that marked the days of his forefathers.
Palms, ferns, lemongrass and lichen grew in the garden. It was not manicured, and oftentimes he left untouched the variety of weeds and whatever else grew from the seeds the birds scattered.
They were God’s gifts and, he was certain, bore English names in honor of the Virgin and the saints and in that oblique way kept his mind on paradise, where the honorees dwelt. There was order in his motley collection of flora. And they lent freshness and color to the yard that was otherwise arid and grey with its cracked, concrete finish.
He had read one night from a Brazilian author the story of a woman who went to different places in the world to paint artworks she had seen in particular places in her dreams. The picturesque revelations were few and far between, giving her time to save so she could always arrange to travel soon after she woke up with a piece to paint in the place to visit.
The author said the woman said this was her way of correcting defects in the web of life that connects everyone, every creature. Gardening, he thought, could be one of the ways he is being called to contribute to the health of life’s web.
On the morning before the eve of Pentecost he transplanted gold-green shrubs from a spot under the eaves to an open place where first light would hit and the rain could fall on them. The week had been bruising, and at work he had needed to speak his mind argumentatively, something he did not like to do, what with debate’s tendency to drive interlocutors from objective, dispassionate speech to the brink of interpersonal discord.
Replanting the shrubs nurtured his courage to be gentle, and made him think of Jonah, the prophet who foretold with gusto the annihilation of a city of sinners. Jonah became upset when God, seeing the repentance of those who heard the prophet, stayed his hand of retribution.
Towards the end of the story about the prophet, God let a plant grow that shaded Jonah from the sun. Later, a caterpillar came and ate and killed the plant, to the prophet’s consternation. God wanted Jonah to see the absurdity of his compassion for the plant and his mercilessness to the people.
The amateur gardener needed his plants, for in their silence and dependence on the weather and on him they told him he could always choose to confront life and people from the vantage point of caring. Anger can be of use, and it is used well by those who denounce the powers that be who make decisions that make this planet hotter than it should be. But elsewhere there is always the way that can be taken when cooler heads prevail.
On the eve of Pentecost, after the rain fell, the skies cleared, and in the coolness the half-moon shone. He turned his thoughts to Rome. The Pope was waiting in the eternal city for the leaders of Israel and Palestine. They were to pray together for peace, not a month since the Holy Father planted an olive in the garden of Gethsemane.
The gardener thought his own plants should witness his work for peace in his own circles, even if it should exact from him the price of agony, which often is not demanded. The Pope only had to listen, as he planted, to the Spirit, the celebrant of the fiftieth day of Easter, who alone refreshes the earth and renews hearts.
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