Watering the Garden

I'd like to tell you about Precious. He is 4 years old. That is his name and also his character!!. He has been visiting me ever afternoon for 5 days now. All the other kids play with toys and run around screaming and yelling. He has just sat and watched, never saying a word. Today I was watering the garden I saw him watching me from around the corner, as I held the watering can with one hand, the next thing I knew a tiny little soft hand slipped into my free hand, he just walked along the garden with me, watching what was happening and not saying a word. I stopped at one point to say something, but changed my mind as I looked down at him. He returned my gaze with the biggest smile I have ever seen, shortly after squeezing my hand a little tighter and then looked back at the garden as if to say, well enough of that lets got on with the work. So we walked along hand in hand watering my garden. I wanted to cry.

Why don’t we take the time to love people in such simple ways?
Have we made love to difficult? to unattainable with our fairy tales, and our media frenzy, our perfectionism? We think it needs to be complicated, or expenseive, or grand, or extravagant, so much so that it becomes difficult, limiting, and to much hassle, to much commitment, therefore, we put it off. And as a result we don’t love with our actions at all.
We think that we have to say something profound, or that we have to do something special to be loved. That being ourselves might not just be enough. That something simple might not be enough. Where did we so stupidly loose our way? Where did we become so complex, so modernised, so developed (!?!?!) that we have warped “love” into something different. Something difficult. Something with strings attached. Big strings attached. Hmm. The things you learn


Oh the things you can learn from a 4 year old while watering your garden.