A Grower Perspective

I’d like to share a volunteer project we completed today at O’Hara Catholic School on West 18th in Eugene, Oregon.

We started a few days ago by making a colorful design, including many bright, beautiful and fragrant plants for a very visible private garden. This morning, we collected 313 plants for the job and loaded them into our truck. Once on site, Lorenzo, Gaspar, and I began unloading, sorting and placing them onto a freshly prepared bed that has for years been empty except for an occasional pansy. It was a blank and inviting canvas. Once the plants were in place, a bark truck came and blew in mulch to smooth over any imperfections. Completing the community labor of love, the sidewalk was swept and a fresh coat of paint was added to the school’s sign.

All the work on this project was volunteered with great generosity and spirit by members of the school community, including site preparation, irrigation repair, and plant layout. Many people with strong backs and shovels showed up to fill the earth with a plants that will soon bloom with bright colors that appeal to children, and reflect happiness. And though the work was a gift to the school the new garden will be shared by a wider community, especially the many people who wait for the bus nearby, live nearby, or drive on the busy street. We hope it brings a bit of joy and cheerfulness into everyone’s lives.

Before we left, I told Dianne Bert-- the wonderful, capable and energetic Principal of O’Hara, the story of the sweeper woman at Chartres, France. The story is told that hundreds of years ago a traveler went to Chartres to see the great church that was under construction. Arriving just as the work-day was ending, the visitor encountered an array of workmen leaving for home. The visitor stopped one man who was covered with dust and asked him, “What is your job here, sir?” And the man replied that he was a stonemason who cuts stone for the walls. The visitor stopped another man and asked him what the same question. This man replied, “I am a glassblower who makes slabs of colored glass.” And yet another man answered the same question, “I am a blacksmith who pounds iron.” Finally, when most of the workers had departed, the visitor wandered inside the unfinished cathedral where he came upon an old woman carefully sweeping up the stone chips, wood shavings and glass shards from the day's work. He asked this modest woman, "What are you doing?" The woman stopped her sweeping for a moment, leaned on her broom with one arm and raised her other arm to the high arches forming above her and replied, “What am I doing: is it not obvious? I am building a cathedral to the glory of God.”

And so too, do we feel all of our work today was done in the same spirit of that humble sweeper woman.