How's Your Soil? - your soul is a garden

When my parents moved into a new house it had a large patch of bare dirt in the back yard that was intended to be a garden. Because they bought the house in Autumn, nothing was done with it. The next Spring it was thoroughly weeded, but little else was done because my brother and new sister-in-law needed a place to keep their horse until they could afford to board it themselves. The few things that grew in the garden were eaten or trampled, then the garden became the horse's corral for the winter. Horses doing what horses do, the garden patch was soon covered in manure. The horse was eventually moved to better-suited boarding, but it took a long time to remove the make-shift corral and deep blanket of "fertilizer" that it left behind.

 

Another winter came and went.  When Spring came that little garden was full of life, full to the brim and completely choked by weeds.  My family tried to pull the weeds by hand, but there were so many that very little progress was made.  Drastic action was needed to be able to find the soil underneath, so my parents bought a flame thrower.  The tool was designed for annihilating weeds, and it was an exhilarating and terrifying thing to use.  I walked back and forth over the weed patch spraying fire at the plant life.  We quickly discovered that dead weeds from the previous summer quickly went up in smoke, but everything that was alive, and green was incredibly resistant to the flames.  My parents bought some weed killer and sprayed the garden.  Then they torched it again with the flame thrower.  They sprayed again, and torched again, and finally clear.

 

In many ways, the story of this little garden represents our lives.  Your mind, heart, and life are much like a garden.  All of our gardens are in need of refinement.  The gardens of our hearts, minds, and souls can become filled and choked by weeds.  Poor choices, unwanted habits, harmful patterns of behavior, or addictions are “cumbering the ground of our vineyards,” to misquote the Allegory of the Olive Tree from Jacob chapter 5 of the Book of Mormon.

 

Sometimes the process of repairing a poor choice is like pulling a small weed.  You grip near the base, gently tug, and the whole thing comes out.  You can toss the offending plant in the waste pile and move on.  Often times, it is more difficult than that.  Sometimes a soul is choked by addiction and drastic measures need to be taken.  You must dig around the plant and rip it out by the roots.  The weeds need to be sprayed and burned, repeatedly, to expose the soil underneath.  But whether or not we have an addiction, annihilating the weeds is not enough.

 

Soil rarely remains empty for very long.  Once the offending plant has been removed, it must be replaced. If you leave a hole in your soil and don't fill it with a plant of your choosing, the garden will fill it with a plant of its choosing.  You cannot simply remove undesirable behaviors, bad habits, or addictions, they must be entirely replaced.  This is where improved Border Patrol activities become essential.  These will be better patterns of behavior, wiser choices, new habits, PWR goals, and Passion Projects.

 

These new patterns, PWR goals, and Passion Projects are the plants you have chosen to replace the weeds. They will fill the holes and empty soil of your garden.  And because you will care for and fertilize them, the new plants will receive even more nourishment than the originals.

 

At first, caring for these new plants will take intentional effort. Frequent watering, weeding, and nourishing will be necessary to help them develop healthy roots. Over time your garden will require less intense effort and will only need routine maintenance. There will be seasons that require more effort (like planting new habits or schedules in the Spring and harvesting their fruits in the Fall) and seasons that need less (like early summer or the winter). Doing the appropriate work in the appropriate season will help your garden continue to improve. But if you ever stop caring for your garden then weeds will begin to pop up. Left neglected long enough, or exposed to the wrong kinds of seeds, your garden will go wild again.