Many believe that it is possible to create security. We enact laws and create devices--helmets, seat belts, air bags, signs with warnings, speed bumps, metal detectors, among others - that are supposed to ensure our security.

We practice risk management with zeal. We insure our lives, our houses, our cars, our businesses, our health, our appliances, our toys, and our electronic devices. We sue others who have violated our security or those whom we believe have attempted to do so.

We stay in jobs with good benefit packages with bosses we despise and coworkers who drive us to the brink of insanity. We numb ourselves with booze and drugs, food and sex, games and TV shows and movies. We read rags to peep at others’ insecurities - like what Brad and Jen or Brad and Angelina, or Angelina and Billy Joe, or Jen and John are up to and we care passionately. We watch the news and read the news and listen to the news and shake our heads and despair of the doom and gloom surrounding us.

Gardening requires that we throw caution to the wind. We bring home roots, cuttings, seeds, and bulbs. We share and divide with friends and relatives and sometimes total strangers. We shop the garden stores and nurseries. We start seedlings of our own and we toil and sweat, and if there is any attempt at security, it is in what we do to nurture - we weed, fertilize, mulch, and water. All this with the hope that our labors will produce results that will sustain our hearts, minds, bodies and souls.

And to our utter delight, much of our labor bears fruit, and to our utter consternation, much of it does not.

There is no insurance against the deer mowing through the tulips when they are in full bloom, the hail storm in June, the blight that unexpectedly strikes this year’s tomatoes, a soggy July just when the hot sun is most needed to bring on dazzling blooms, fruits and vegetables, a late freeze in spring, an early freeze in late summer, snow in July, squirrels feasting on the roots of freshly planted annuals or digging up the autumn bulbs we just planted in preparation for spring blossoms.

And yet, despite all the travails of gardening, we return each spring, trusting our instincts, trusting nature to do what it does naturally; to yield beauty and sustenance in abundant glory. In return, we receive not security but unbounded delight. Our faith is rewarded as each new green spike or leaf sprouts out of the ground, blossoms appear on the fruit trees, seeds turn into seedlings, to magically (it seems) transform and bear the fruit of their respective form.

Gardening has little to offer in the form of security. There are far too many variables to ensure continuity from one year to the next. To be secure or at least to minimize risk, we would plant rocks, sand and gravel. It might even be interesting to look at, and we could be certain that when we awake each morning the landscape will not have changed, no damage will have been done. Our labors will be small - pull a few weeds and grass and keep the place tidy. There is, though, no nurturing, no learning, no experimenting, no adventure, no surprise. The joy of life comes not in the security we seek but in the lovely surprises and triumphs, the feeling of accomplishment, the exhilaration of creating a thing of beauty.

If our journey in life were to be a secure venture, our world would look quite different. We would enter it through a much different vehicle. Rocks would be soft and spongy. Falling down would feel good. Few of us live a secure life. Illness, job loss, death of loved ones, relationship problems, and a myriad of other challenges present themselves. Through it all, the one thing we can be assured of is the knowledge that a beautiful flower is waiting somewhere for us to breath deeply of its heady perfume and gaze joyfully upon its delightful beauty.