Where does your garden grow?

Starting a garden involves working with a plot of ground with many pre-existing conditions: quality of soil, exposure to sun and rain, altitude, and history.

In the same way, many  of the important variables that give shape to our lives were set at birth. Both our nature (e.g. DNA, personality, values) and our nurture (e.g. parenting, family history) are the soil for the life we now cultivate.

Accepting our nature and nurture as the pre-existing conditions of our will, ambitions, and efforts can help us extend vital grace to ourselves and others. For the most part, we’re all doing the best we can with what we’ve been given. We certainly have choices about where we go from here, but the Disney dream that we can ‘be anything’ can become a discouraging mind-weed. A thoughtful assessment of the gifts and limitations we’re starting out with can help us to grow as much health and fruit as possible in the soil where we’re planted.