A Quote by May Sarton
Gardening is the instrument of grace.
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Gardening is an instrument of grace.
Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.
It is grace at the beginning, and grace at the end. So that when you and I come to lie upon our death beds, the one thing that should comfort and help and strengthen us there is the thing that helped us in the beginning. Not what we have been, not what we have done, but the Grace of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. The Christian life starts with grace, it must continue with grace, it ends with grace. Grace wondrous grace. By the grace of God I am what I am. Yet not I, but the Grace of God which was with me.
No sinner has the right to say with impunity, 'God you owe me grace.' If grace is owed, it is not grace. The very essence of grace is its voluntary character. God reserves to himself the sovereign, absolute right to give grace to some and withhold that grace from others.
He even knew the reason why: because enough men had gone off to war saying the time for gardening was when the war was over; whereas there must be men to stay behind and keep gardening alive, or at least the idea of gardening; because once that cord was broken, the earth would grow hard and forget her children. That was why.
Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession.... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.
The love of gardening is a seed that once sown never dies, but grows to the enduring happiness that the love of gardening gives.
You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.
Grace stands in direct opposition to any supposed worthiness on our part. To say it another way: Grace and works are mutually exclusive. As Paul said in Romans 11:6, "And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace." Our relationship with God is based on either works or grace. There is never a works-plus-grace relationship with Him.
The basic idea of a hyper instrument is where the technology is built right into the instrument so that the instrument knows how its being played - literally what the expression is, what the meaning is, what the direction of the music is.
There's something about beautiful moments in sports that alters our experience of time. And I'd say the same thing about poetry and gardening. Gardening slows me down. I want to stop and observe everything.
A singer starts by having his instrument as a gift from God... When you have been given something in a moment of grace, it is sacrilegious to be greedy.
Gardening does so much for your brain. You're learning how a process works, and how important it is to do everything right so that you can eventually enjoy a tomato three months later. I've always been patient, but gardening really helps you with that.
Gardening as far as Gardening is Art, or entitled to that appellation, is a deviation from nature; for if the true taste consists, as many hold, in banishing every appearance of Art, or any traces of the footsteps of man, it would then be no longer a Garden.
When I'm outside gardening, it can be so inspiring. I think of words and melodies. It's peaceful. Every singer-songwriter should find something outside of music that makes them as happy as gardening makes me.
It is far better to limit our choice to real permanencies, which do not require staking... and a general mixture throughout of dwarf shrubs, perennials and ground-covers, with bulbs... This has been called gardening in four layers, and I believe it to be the most satisfying form of gardening.
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