Planting Trees

My brother and I have spent the last two evenings planting trees.  It is a satisfying thing to bring nature to life which so many of us are able to do by nurturing our gardens.  There are few things as beautiful as a flourishing green garden with the scent of flowers wafting about as one walks along the grass or sidewalk.

      In the way we carefully plant things then weed around the growing things we create something beautiful.  In the same way we ought to take care of what we plant in our minds and what we pull out of it.  Today I saw one of those little elevator blurbs that said the movie industry would earn something like $100 billion this year.  Imagine how much money we spend on entertainment.  It seems incredible and my thought was that we really do over indulge ourselves with some very unfruitful things.

      Now I do love the movies, when they are good quality entertainment, but think about how much of our time is spent with television, watching goodness knows what when instead we could be creating something, or working, or even simply talking with our family or friends.  It is a little benumbing to be in front of a television or computer or on a cell phone playing games for hours every day.  The other day we talked about living in another age, if we happened to be one of the rich folk like those on Downton Abbey, but our lot would more likely be that of a servant.  Think of what their lives were like, the lives of our grandmothers would have been similar, washing clothes by hand, making their own bread and preserves, brooming carpets rather than vacuuming them (if they even had a carpet).  Today we moan about working 8 hours a day, 5 days a week and then we go home numb.  Only think how very good we must have it if we can spend so much money on Entertainment.

      We are richer than we think.