Enclosed Garden

A baby flower

Yellow grass.
Abundant weeds.
Dying flowers.

For the past seven years, I have tried getting use to this sight as I looked at our convent grounds.
None of us had any skills or time for the garden and have let things be.

Which meant we had more weeds than grass in our yard.
Which meant the hardy mini-roses survived and the other flowers shriveled in the Texas heat.
Which meant we chopped down three trees as they slowly went to their death.

I wondered how my dad maintained our green yard back home in Sacramento.
I wondered how he planted 9 varieties of vegetables and 4 different kinds of fruit trees.
I wondered how he found the time to pluck weeds, change oil for three cars, and finish books cover-to-cover.

After seven years, I could not get use to the sight of yellow grass, luxuriant weeds, and dying flowers.
I decided to head out.

Into the garden.
Which is "geard" in Old English.
Meaning enclosure.

Gardens, by definition, are enclosed and bounded space.
The first gardens could be traced back to 10,000 BC.

I didn't like pulling up the weeds that always seemed to come back.
I didn't like nagging my sisters to save the "rice water"* for my plants.
I didn't like not knowing if my care would result in any real results.

Yet, something kept calling me back.
To be still as the tiny leaves pushed through the dirt.
To be patient as frost and tornadoes threatened to kill my work.

To let this unusual verse settle into my heart:
A garden enclosed, my sister, my bride,
a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed! (Song of Songs 4:12)


I had learned that this Scripture passage referred to Mary, the Enclosed Garden.
Hortus Conclusus.

She was the rich soil in which the flowers of virtues grew and flourished.
She was the chosen land that bore the promised fruit, Jesus our Savior.
She was the secret garden in which the Trinity found their delight and rest.

There are secrets the soil keeps hidden from the bystander.
Secrets of life and beauty.
Life which springs from mud and beauty from daily consistent efforts.

There are secrets that God keeps from those who do not enter his Enclosed Garden.
Secrets of life and beauty.
Life that conquers this world's meaninglessness and beauty that doesn't depend on us mere creatures.

Perhaps this is why most of us kids can find my dad in the garden.

* Photo:  Me holding one of the first baby flower plants of the season.
* Rice water:  To cook rice, one has to wash and rinse it through 2-3 times.  This rinse rice water makes for a wonderful organic fertilizer.  The key is to remember to pour it in a bucket instead of dumping it down the drain!