Last week, my car was hit on the street in the middle of the night and totaled.
Now going through the insurance process and the tedium of car-buying, I keep thinking about chains of events, and the affects of our actions.
I wonder who hit my car, and what they had been doing that night. I wonder if they were drunk or texting or crying or fighting. I wonder what they thought afterward. I wonder if their car is okay. I wonder if this chain has affected their life. I’m not trying to say this in a bitter way, grumbling angrily to myself – but just genuinely curious.
There are so many places I’ve been this week, and situations I’ve found myself in that, if not for that one moment of negligence late on a Monday night, I would never have experienced. Our actions and reactions ripple. They are links in a chain.
Pondering this more, the image of a garden grew clearer in my mind.
If each of our own little worlds is a garden, and we are the gardeners, then every time we step outside our front doors, past the gate and onto the soil, we have an opportunity. Surrounded by plants in all states of growth and variety, we have an opportunity to nurture and cultivate the garden. Or to stomp through the beds hither and dither, not watching our step, just trying to find the shade and sitting by, neglecting the sprouts and wrinkly leaves all around us. To plant good seed or ill.
Actions can be the planting of something new and words can be the misplaced stomp of a boot.
Each day, we are planting seeds and walking throughout the garden. So spread good seed and tread gently.