A garden update

I've been working in the garden since mid-March, about the time lockdown started here in Norway. Apart from working at home and remaining indoors, the garden has been the only free space available to me when I am outdoors, and I am immensely grateful for that. I have taken the occasional walk around the neighbourhood, but ran into too many people for there to be safe social distancing. And that's not so strange considering we live in a city. So it's been nice to escape to my garden, and there's been plenty of work to do since March--raking, clearing away dead twigs, turning the soil, cutting back a number of trees and bushes, spreading grass seed, sowing out vegetable and flower seeds in the greenhouse, cutting away the dead canes in the raspberry patch, weeding the raspberry and strawberry patches (this can take hours), and transplanting some bushes from one place to another. Plus I've bought more plants, mostly perennial flowers, to round out the garden, and they needed to be planted. It may not sound like enough work for a couple of months, but it is, especially since I am not in the garden full-time. If I was, it might go faster, but since I'm still working full-time, it all takes time. And that's ok for now.

We finally got the roughly 12 square meters behind the greenhouse 'returned' to us last summer, and I decided to make this space another 'room' in the garden. Last autumn, I planted allium, tulips, scilla, spring snowflakes, grape hyacinths, regular hyacinths and narcissus (a type of daffodil), all of them bulbs, and they have all come up. We also bought a wisteria tree and a magnolia tree and planted them in this space, as well as a lilac bush. The magnolia tree is blossoming now, and its blossoms are a lovely reddish-pink color. I decided that I wanted a stone path leading from the vegetable garden area up to and behind the greenhouse, so I bought some slate stones and embedded them in the soil, and sowed grass seed around them. I bought pachysandra plants and planted them along the path, in the hope that these hardy plants will begin to thrive and spread out.

There is always a new project to work on in the garden, and I love each one--both the planning and the execution. Whenever I think I'm 'finished', I realize shortly thereafter that I'm not, and never will be. Gardens are works in progress.

C.S. Lewis quotes

• You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.
• We are what we believe we are.
• True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.
• Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don't implement promises, but keep them.
• You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.
• Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What! You too? I thought I was the only one.
• God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
• No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.
• Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.
• Miracles do not, in fact, break the laws of nature.
• We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.
• I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
• Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.
• If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

Some reflections on C.S. Lewis

I finished Preparing for Easter by C.S. Lewis shortly after Easter, which is a book of his reflections on Christianity for each day of Lent. Lewis was a prolific writer of both children’s books and books for adults, and I was introduced to his adult books by my father, himself a prolific reader and a great fan of both Lewis and G.K. Chesterton (who wrote The Everlasting Man). Lewis was an atheist for a good portion of his life, but found his way to Christianity by reflection and reason. Or as he might have put it, he was pulled in that direction and at some point stopped resisting.

His writings appeal to me and others who have had questions about their faith, who haven’t accepted all aspects of our faith on ‘blind faith’ alone. Perhaps that makes us doubting Thomas-es, but I for one have a lot of compassion for doubting Thomas, who was a sceptic by nature. Yes, his faith was wanting when push came to shove, but life is often like that. I doubt that God loved him any less in the long run. Even Lewis suffered doubts about God’s existence when he lost his beloved wife Joy to cancer. Some of his best books come from that period and that experience; he wrote about pain, suffering, and grief in ways that you will remember long after you read his books. He never forgot to write about our humanity in our meetings with God. He understood as an academic that it was difficult to accept some of the tenets of Christian faith. So his mission was to write to help us understand them. I must admit that I use quite a bit of time to reflect upon his writings. But as he himself once said, ‘he reasoned his way to faith’. And for an atheist, that is perhaps the only way. When reason overpowers scepticism so totally, then there are no defences left to fight with.

Supalonely by Benee ft. Gus Dapperton

Loved this song from the first time I heard it.....

It's getting some airplay now during these quarantine times--Supalonely.

Pope Francis' message for Easter

I found Pope Francis' message of Easter hope to be comforting during these trying times. We need to be reminded that there is light and hope in the midst of darkness and despair. Pope Francis said that we should 'Be messengers of life in a time of death'. He is, and he can show us the way. Here is the link to the article: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-easter-pope-vigil/be-messengers-of-life-in-a-time-of-death-pope-says-on-easter-eve-idUSKCN21T0UK?il=0

It's hard to focus on life when the media are so focused on corona virus deaths. I understand that they need to present the facts, and some news channels are better at it than others, in other words, some are better at not sensationalizing everything. Each of us has an overload button that gets pushed at different times for us all. I watch what I need to watch, and no more. That's about ten to fifteen minutes of news at night. Besides those hospitalized, my heart goes out to all the doctors and nurses and EMT personnel on the front lines. They are and will forever be the heroes of this time. They are truly focused on life, on preserving life, on trying to keep their patients alive. Perhaps even if they keep one patient alive in the midst of all the death around them, that is a victory. They don't give in or give up. And that is perhaps another message for this time: 'It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness'. We can't give up. God never gives us more than we can handle. He has blessed the world with scientists who are united now in a global effort to find a vaccine for this virus. They will find one, and there will be a victory over this virus. And he has also blessed the world with those who have faith, and who pray for the world. We need both science and faith. They are not mutually exclusive.