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A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Rev Richard Littledale

Good morning.

I hesitate to ,make this confession, even at such an early hour of the day, but I have become a gardener. Over the past two years, gardening has become a source of solace and joy to me, both mentally and physically. To tend a patch of God’s good earth and bring the best out of it has been wonderful. I now find myself gravitating towards nurseries and garden centres, and last week felt like a child in a sweet shop at a plant stall on our local market. How times change!

I have developed something of a taste for unusual planters in the garden. I have an old chair, whose seat has been replaced with an Alpines garden, and an old copper fish kettle which holds a collection of houseleeks. My latest acquisition may well be the most unusual. It is an old ammunition case, still with bright yellow writing on the side describing its contents as two high explosive Howitzer rounds. Above those words now bob the smiley yellow and black striped flowers of sun-ray petunias. They seem to me to provide a delicious contrast between hard and soft, destruction and creation. These innocuous little flowers are redeeming the past of that old metal box.

As a relatively novice gardener, I continue to be amazed by the miracle of growth – where God turns brown seeds and green shoots into every colour under the sun. I play my part of course – providing shelter and nourishment, but the clever stuff is all down to him. Looking out at my old box made new just now, I am reminded of God’s ancient promise that ‘the deserts shall rejoice and flowers bloom in the wilderness’.

Dear God, make me more aware than ever today of the things which grow, and help me to cherish them wherever I can.

Amen.