Endings and beginnings

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1)

"See, I will create a new heaven and a new earth" (Isaiah 65:10)

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had passed away" (Revelation 21:1)

"In the year 8510, God's gonna shake his mighty head. He'll either say I'm pleased where man has been, or tear it down and start again" (In the Year 2525, Zager and Evans)

My "lilies of the field" garden (seen earlier this spring here, here and here) has been looking rather sad lately as the nasturtiums, bachelor's buttons, and larkspur have completed their short circle of life. I took advantage of the early morning shade in this area to clear it out, again throwing the spent flower carcasses in a heap to decompose and hopefully reseed. I also cleared out some London rocket, bermuda grasss, and other weeds that had managed to sneak in somehow. Surprisingly, I found some healthy strawberry plants that had been hidden by the showier and taller flowers. 

There's a lot of God-as-gardener imagery in the Bible, and sometimes I think that when God made humans in his own image, he might have been thinking along those lines. At least, that's what I thought of today when I was weeding and pulling up spent flowers! Part of gardening is continually tearing down and redoing, either in an effort to correct mistakes, make improvements, or like I was doing today, just removing what has finished its life cycle in order to make way for new growth.

Now, I need to deadhead some marigolds and zinnias and sprinkle their seeds in the area I cleaned out, so that later this summer I will have a new accidental garden!