‘Rain Garden’ Remedy

Today I received a Thomas Merton quote from my friend Jim Forest that spoke of the danger of activism and overwork, one of my basic problems. Also today I experienced a garden remedy for this problem. First the quote:

“There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence.

“To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence.

“The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.” — (Thomas Merton, “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander”, Doubleday, 1966, p 73)

The remedy came in the form of my wife’s father’s day gift to me, two hours of work in the garden. I took her gift of two hours of work by having her work with me in preparing part of the front lawn for the ‘rain garden’. I took off the grass top and she shook out the soil from the grass toppings and put the clumps in the wheelbarrow to go to the compost pile. The work was hot but satisfying. We talked a little during the two hours but mostly we worked in silence. We were both focused on the same task and in some ways we were contemplative. It was work but not overwork. It certainly was not any form of activism. We were both grounded in our work and managed to get two wheelbarrows of grass clogs up and into the growing compost pile. Garden work is one remedy to the danger of overwork and activism.

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