My Roses

Disclaimer: If you know anything at all about gardening, you can skip this. It won't be any new information. If you know anything at all about the Bible, you can skip this. It won't be any new information.

Once, I asked for mulch for my birthday. That's pretty hard core.

Hey, you can't go to your therapist's every day, but you can almost always pull weeds.

That doesn't mean my yard is beautifully manicured and ready for a magazine shoot, though. I really believe in a more "organic" approach. "Organic" is a beautiful, loving, earth-nurturing way to garden. It's all very complicated, but basically, it works like this: I fall in love with something at the plant store, pay too much for it, bring it home and stuff it in the ground and walk away and forget about it for half the summer. If it lives, it belongs there. If it doesn't, oh well. It's kind of a Zen thing. Just let it be. Let it be.

Maybe I'm actually more of a Calvinist gardener. You know, some plants were destined to be doomed even before they were ever planted. It's not mine to question why.

When I moved into this house several years ago, there was already a giant old rose bush back behind the garage. Somebody told me I needed to prune it.

I had quite a bit of aggression to work out that day and a shiny new pair of hedge trimmers, so hey, why not? I hacked and whacked all afternoon. When I was done, I felt way, way better.

Of course, the rose bush looked like crap.

Until the next spring.

Next spring, it was breathtaking.

It exploded into giant blooms thick on branches that could barely hold them up. Blooms packed so tightly there was barely room for the leaves. Blooms that kept on blooming all summer long.

Now that I am more knowledgeable about roses, I know that roses need to be deadheaded and aggressively pruned now and then. If they aren't, they will waste a lot of energy supporting old, dead blossoms. New growth may sprout out of old, weak limbs and won't have the strength to fully develop. The branches won't get enough air circulation and they will be susceptible to disease. They'll be easy prey for deadly pests. Parts of the plant will be hidden from the sun. That means even less energy for health and growth. Oh, a rose bush will probably survive without the trimming and pruning, but it will never really thrive. It will never reach its full potential. It will just get by.

You see where I'm going with this.

Like all my analogies, this one isn't perfect. For one thing, unlike me, The One True Gardener isn't just blundering recklessly about with a sharp object. He knows exactly what He is doing. He knows where I'm wasting energy hanging on to blooms long past. He knows where I'm strong enough to support growth. He knows what parts of me need to be brought out into the light and He knows full well where I am vulnerable to The Predator.

I read that you have to be careful when you prune. You can't just relentlessly cut, cut, cut. You can't do it if the plant is already weak, or you are in the middle of a brutal winter. It seems that pruning is hard on the plants. They go into shock for a little bit after the trimming. They are traumatized. Wounded. Bruised.

That part is like human life.

I was thinking about that last night while I was trimming my rose bushes. I wasn't very sympathetic because I was getting jabbed and stabbed and scratched and cut up pretty badly myself. I thought, "Hey, plant, quit your whining. This is hurting me more than it is hurting you."

And then I thought about one more way roses are like us.

The blood that was splattered and smeared on the ground didn't belong to the rose. It belonged to The Gardener.

...while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.
John 15:2b