The Worth of a Garden

As I drove home from the garden this morning, I thought I’d write about the different ways gardening benefits me. I’m not sure if my garden has yet been financially profitable, and I guess it hasn’t mattered enough to me to bother keeping track. There are so many ways to profit. Here are a few, in no particular order.

The Harvest: This morning I brought home a bunch of carrots, a bunch of green onions, a handful of cilantro, enough basil to make a fine batch of pesto, and a lovely bundle of lavender to tie with a purple ribbon and take to a friend. And I mustn’t forget the one late pea that I enjoyed while I watered. Every day’s harvest is different, and I am learning to use what God provides when He provides it.

Spiritual Lessons: Well, yeah, learning to enjoy and be satisfied with what God provides, because each day’s provision is enough, and usually more than enough: I still have potatoes from two days ago. There are too many spiritual lessons learned in the garden to list, but you’ll find hints of them sprinkled throughout this small essay.

Gifts to Give: This is one of my favorite things about gardening: there is always something to share. Lavender, lettuce, tomatoes, zucchini, a handful of fresh peas for my pea-loving son. Mmm.... I’m looking forward to making and sharing salsa later this summer. I think even the poorest farmer can’t help sharing a little of his harvest. There is so much joy in it.

Quiet Time: Because my closest garden neighbors don’t always come when I’m there, I often have and hour or so just to quiet my mind. The fence around our garden seems to have the magical power of filtering out the worries of the day, so while I am there I think of little other than pulling weeds, how much water the ground is soaking up, pinching back stems that will rob energy from the fruit, and what needs to be picked that day. I enjoy the bumble bees on the lavender and the honey bees on the thyme and worry that I’ve seen only one lady bug this summer. I wonder at the amazing beauty of a squash blossom or at how the pungent smell of a tomato plant is a built-in defense. Gardening is a restful work.

Fellowship: There are times when my neighbors do show up. And I am glad when they do. We talk plants and pests and plans for next year. We don’t know each other well enough to talk of personal things. One good neighbor is going to water my garden while I’m away in exchange for the harvest. We all share a desire to produce and eat healthy, tasty vegetables. And we all, knowingly or not, share a delight in God’s creation and the first work of our shared ancestors.

Sun: It has been much in the news these past couple of years that many Americans are not getting enough sun. My time in the garden ensures that I get an adequate dose of Vitamin D. I think I am happier and healthier for it.

A Little Exercise: Most of the exercise of gardening happens in the spring: hauling in soil and compost, tilling and hoeing, planting. But weeding and watering and other maintenance tasks do require a little work every other day or so. It’s a pleasant way to burn a few calories.

Is all this worth the time, money, and effort? Yes. I think so.

Why I Haven't Bought Into the Global Warming Theory

Sometimes I joke about global warming, especially on frigid days like today. And I'm sure my friends who agree that the earth is warming find my jokes to be uneducated and insincere. In a sense, they are right about my arguments being uneducated, and that is at the heart of my objection to the theory.

About the time I was first hearing about global warming, Al Gore was saying that the debate was over. Huh? What debate? I didn't hear anyone arguing the issue? At least not until a few of my rhetoric students jumped on the band wagon and decided to write their persuasive speeches in favor of the theory. The wild claims they made were entertaining. At best. I was practically begging them to give me good reasons to believe it; as a Christian, I find myself so often going against the tide of culture. But global warming has nothing to do with religion; it is either happening or not happening. How very nice for me if I could, just this once, go with the flow.

Of course, I wasn't going to base my opinion of the theory on my students' efforts. As Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth was making the rounds, I rented it and watched it with my daughter. It was, like those student speeches, entertaining. At best. The film is mostly a fluffy piece of self promotion; it contains very little actual science. I've seen more videos and read many more articles about why Al Gore is wrong than about why he is right.

Honestly, what I hear from people who support the IPCC findings is that they don't have to support their findings because "the debate is over" and "most scientists agre with us." That's what passes for persuasion these days? And then we had the hacked e-mails which further eroded any expectation that these guys would come forth with some evidence.

I have tried to be educated on this issue. But it is very hard to find articles that bring it down to the layman's level without oversimplifying (leaving out the evidence part) or scaremongering. There is rarely, if ever, even a tiny bit of humility. Humility should come in the form of refutation. A good argument should include both confirmation and refutation. The confirmation is the positive support; the refutation acknowledges and answers the opposing arguments. The global warming advocates don't acknowledge that the opposition might have some good points. They don't answer the questions posed by people like Bjorn Lomborg in his article Chill Out. He says, okay maybe this global warming theory has merit. But does it justify the massive amounts of money being thrown at it? Are the proposed changes enough to make any real impact on the problem? Is warming necessarily bad? Wouldn't it make more sense to take all that money and do such-and-such with it instead? Is this more about politics than science?

Those are great questions. But not only do I not hear answers, I don't hear anyone even acknowledging that the questions have merit. I can only surmise that the advocates of the global warming theory think that we common people have no ability to understand, that we must just trust those who do understand to make wise choices for us. Wow! That sounds kinda like the pre-Reformation church: you can't read the Bible, so let us interpret it for you. Um....no thanks. We all saw how that turned out.

So, enough rambling for now. I just want to explain why I haven't come 'round on this issue. Until the IPCC believers start seeing that the scientific community needs to give an accounting of itself, I'm not buying in. I will continue caring for the planet because I want clean air, clean water, and beauty just as much as the next person. I will support reasonable measures to protect our environment, and maybe someday I'll get to build an environmentally-friendly strawbale house. For now, I'm going with the sunspot theory and trusting that man will adjust to incremental climate changes as they happen.