Honor in the Garden

I am slowing down - age is taking over but I am also listening more. We sat eating out the other day and teachers were talking beside us - they had been to some event and were all headed home - appearently they were from different schools.

One man was very loud and talked about how he would not drive thru Cushing because the cops would issue tickets for speeding. He even related a story about how stupid a cop was for issuing a ticket to a man's daughter who this same man had formerly given this police officer sporting tickets. I guess the police officer caught this man's daughter speeding, gave her a ticket and now the father would not give this officer anymore sporting tickets - and the teacher called this police officer stupid for doing his job.

I thought, would this teacher allow a student to cheat if he was the superintendent's child - or do his job?

Gardening has been a part of our life forever - David had to have a garden when we first married - 36 years ago. I didn't love it right off the bat - he had to coax me into enjoying the outdoors and for a long time I was afraid of the spiders and snakes and such. Wolf spiders in the green beans basically meant I was not picking. Now I can pluck the web of the golden orb and let her netting fall aside as I continue picking tomatoes and the black snake that had one of our goldfish by the head was the same one that was hiding in my columbine. The goldfish was removed (and lives) - much too big for the snake who was about 4 feet long and the snake was placed into a box for transport to the bottom of the hill for release - these are very good snakes. Before David took him down the hill, I had to look into his mouth - so with a 2 inch shard of cedar, I could see there were no fangs, his round eyes and pointed tail more indication of his being one of the snakes who does much more good than harm.

Fear kept me from enjoying my garden early, then I learned to know the good that spiders and snakes do.

I am just trying recently to use a new term - Honor. And in the same light that the teacher did not honor the act of the police officer, I hear a lot of statements that lack honor in them. I fail to honor myself - beleive me I am preaching to myself. But I like the word - better than being selfish or taking care of myself first. Those terms seem so interchangeable and negative and Honor sounds good in my mouth. Klingon's spoke of honor, Native American's speak of it - even the Bible exhorts us to honor.

I hope each of you honor your gardens with care and enjoyment and I hope your gardens honor you with tons of produce and joy. I needed this break because I was not honoring myself - I was letting the world invade my peace and I needed to change myself - thank you all for a moment of your time.