We have lived in our house for just under 30 years. In that time, the bungalow opposite has had three occupants. The first was gardener of significant ability; the place was a picture, something flowering almost all the year round. She was continually pruning, planting and generally injecting love and enthusiasm in a way that nature seemed to respond to in like manner.
Eventually the property changed hands and the second occupant was immobile but loved the garden and made sure he paid a gardener, at least to maintain the status quo. Things grew taller but nothing was out of control, and it still looked good. Then the third phase developed and oh dear. People with no ability or apparent concern for anything except feeding ducks, hedgehogs and (inadvertently) rats moved in. Within a few years ivy was pulling the facia boards off the bungalow, broken gutters spilled rainwater down the walls and the garden was a jungle with all the beautiful flowering shrubs and plants stifled into submission by brambles and elder.
And now, an apparent renaissance! A gardener, a skip and signs of rebalancing and restoring as much as can be recovered of the past.
We are living in an age of rewilding, but the experiment opposite has told me that rewilding only works in the right places where nature is already unaltered by human activity. To simply let a garden do its own thing once it has been formed is not a recipe for beauty or success. Ironically, the jungle may have harboured hedgehogs and rats but there were seldom any small birds or insect activity because there were no seeds or flowers for them to feast on.
Our lives are a bit like that garden. Once we have been tamed and changed by the work of God in us it is vital that we allow him to keep on tending and nurturing us. When we see others drift out of his care having been beneath it we watch them become unattractive and unproductive; it is heart-breaking to see.
A prayer
Gardening God, you tend, nurture, stimulate and prune us so our lives are fruitful for you. Give us the grace to recognise what you do for us and in us and to bear witness to those around us who may be swamped by overgrowth and lack of care, so they want to return to your care again. Amen.