The Image of the Garden
A way to live in time, more quotes from school, and a lot of goodies.
To be a Gardener
Let me show you something. It’s my current lock screen wallpaper on my phone. I got it from Unsplash and made a few edits. (If you don’t know about Unsplash: you’re welcome.)
I am unlike a gardener. I like to remain unattached, unobligated, uncommitted. I like that my identity can be aloof and changeable—not because I frequently want to change, but because I don’t like the idea of being cemented. I don’t like integrating myself in an environment in such a way that my absence will be noticeable. I don’t like it when people are attached to me. I’m avoidant. I like independence.
At least that’s been my dominant pattern.
I recently read How to Inhabit Time by James K.A. Smith. He teaches how we (individually and communally) can come to terms with our circumstance of being thrown and embedded into time/mortality. His approach is theological and philosophical.
Here is one image that struck me:
“Planting is making a promise to stay near. Only care and attention will coax out the remarkable potential latent in these tiny orbs we call ‘seeds.’ The garden keeps us placed. Obligated to this patch of earth.”
It is uncommon for me to make the promise to stay near. I prefer the disposition of a passerby than an old-timer. To run with Smith’s metaphor: I enjoy seeing gardens but haven’t matured enough to dedicate myself to the tending of one of my own.
With the new year comes the zeitgeist of self-ownership, the desire to take charge and improve oneself. As I think of my personality in tandem with the type of life I want to eventually have (family, strong relationships, a contributor to my community), it is clear that I need to be comfortable with living like a gardener.
Rather than staying unrooted, I’m looking for ways to “stay near”—to be mindful of the things God would have me dedicate myself to, the things he would have me grow and care for. To live like a gardener is to abide, to be loyal. It’s to sojourn with God. It’s the commitment to live a life on my knees, in the dirt: weeding, watering, crouching, tending, praying.
C.S. Lewis says:
“It is no disparagement to a garden to say that it will not fence and weed itself, nor prune its own fruit trees, nor roll and cut its own lawns. A garden is a good thing but that is not the sort of goodness it has. It will remain a garden, as distinct from a wilderness, only if someone does all these things to it. Its real glory is of quite a different kind. The very fact that it needs constant weeding and pruning bears witness to that glory. It teems with life. It glows with colour and smells like heaven and puts forward at every hour of a summer day beauties which man could never have created and could not even, on his own resources, have imagined… And when the garden is in its full glory the gardener’s contributions to that glory will still have been in a sense paltry compared with those of nature… When he has done all, he has merely encouraged here and discouraged there, powers and beauties that have a different source. But his share, though small, is indispensable and laborious” (149-50, The Four Loves).
If God just wanted me to see what was beautiful in life, He would have only given me eyes to see and my heart to feel. Yet here I am with hands and time and resources and the ability to turn my life into a garden of care and contribution. Then, true beauty will come in retrospect as I see what He has made of me (both my being and my doings) as I have put forward my meager efforts to tend to the gardens of my life.
From School
There were two experiences this last week that reminded me how prevalent my quirkiness is:
During one of my lessons I wore a hemorroid seat on my head to get students curious about the lesson for the day (it was an object lesson about fMRI scans/the neuroscience of reading). Some of my students saw me and were confused, but a lot of them walked in unfazed, as if it were completely normal of me to do something like that. One of my students said: “Only you would…”
Me: Eating my salad out of a ziploc bag because I ran out of Tupperware.
Colleague 1: Sees me and laughs. “Why is nobody questioning this?”
Colleague 2: “Because it’s Brandon.”
"Mr. Merrill, if you ever stopped teaching, you would make a great therapist."
"Yeah! It’s your boyish face that helps to disarm."
"No, for real though!! And then it’d be great because you could be my therapist."
A student to some of his friends: “Have you ever just kissed yourself in the mirror?”
Student: “I’m not smart enough for honors math.”
Me: “Says who?”
Student: “Me… my brain… the people in heaven??”
“I like to burp.”
Goodies
Learning a Language ☞ This article is a metaresource. A resource filled with great resources. I’ve been trying out the Language Transfer app, and it’s been great.
Open Syllabus ☞ A website that “collects and analyzes millions of syllabi.” I think it’s a great resource to help design a curriculum for yourself. I’ve been inspired by their interactive chart of the most common books/materials assigned for different fields of study. I recently picked up and started reading one of the most popular ones in the field of education.
AnyQuestion ☞ An app that I downloaded and have been enjoying. It’s like TikTok meets the “office hours” of professors and experts.
Lincoln’s Great Depression ☞ Did you know that Abraham Lincoln was clinically depressed? Check out the article from The Atlantic.
Hard Fork ☞ This is currently my favorite podcast. I enjoyed the recent episodes about TikTok as well as ChatGPT in classrooms.
“The Tree” by Ludovico Einaudi ☞ A song that helps me to relax.
Cheers!
p.s. I have begun writing with a fountain pen; it is quite enjoyable.