I’ll begin with a quote from one of the worst books ever written: “We must cultivate our garden.
I read Candide in college and abhorred it! There’s only one book that I have ever wanted to burn and this was it. My husband, however, says he thought it hilarious. The explanation for our polemic opinions? We were in a way on two different planes of being when we read the book. That’s a story for another day.
I remember that final line coming as a jolt of common sense, almost goodness, at the end of a loathsome book. So much vileness, crudeness, blasphemy, ugliness… And, then, “Let’s plant a garden”?
Whence came this change of tone?
I never want to read that book again, but the memory of that quote popped to mind when I began this blog. Even Voltaire liked to garden, I thought to myself. While I’d much rather shovel manure than reread that book, my curiosity drive me consult some secondary sources to explain this apparently wholesome sentiment of Voltaire.
It turns out that Voltaire wrote Candide to protest a philosophy which said that this world was all for best and couldn’t possibly be better. Voltaire created the innocent character, Candide, to be gradually and grossly disillusioned from this optimism into a more cynical perspective. His final words about gardening basically say, this world isn’t going to take care of itself. Nothing is perfect. We have to strive to keep back the wildness.
Can We Really Succeed?
Was Voltaire correct? I’m a Christian and I believe that Man fell from a state of perfection into sin. St Paul wrote that creation itself groans for redemption. Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden of Eden to toil with the thorny and rocky soil.
Pelagianism is the word that comes to mind. You may say, “Well, I never!” It’s a big old crazy word. It refers to the belief that we, we humans, can do it all by ourselves. We people can do the horrible world of Candide by ourselves, yes? Can we, humans, do the self-making, nature-taming of Voltaire by ourselves and get anything that looks a bit like Eden? I don’t refer simply to the physical place, but also to the blissful state of sin-free man?
Enter another person, also once deeply disillusioned: Mary of Magdala. The place: a garden. She sees Our Lord and, not recognizing His resurrected body, thinks that He is the gardener. I make her conclusion my own. He is the Teacher, Rabboni, but He is also the master Gardener of our souls.
The Soul Needs a Master Gardener
A master gardener. I live next door to one: my father. If every I need a tool, or a strange bug identified, or advice for spring my soil’s ph levels, I go to the master gardener. I do much of the work myself, bug, believe me, my garden’s not going far on my limited knowledge and resources. I need help.
So, too, my life. I have an idea how I want to improve my life; How I want to better love and serve my family and community. I can do some of the work on my own, but I have discovered that I’m not that consistent and that I often chose the lesser Me than the better Me. I need help. I need Someone to help me have a clearer vision. I need Someone to help me implement that vision amidst life’s challenges. I need a Master Gardener.
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