Continuities of conflict
There many things that people do in their lives and most of them have attachments in life that go down the history of a lifetime. Some of the activities that take place in our family are generational and have gone through our lineage for a very long time. Gardening is one such thing and for a long time, our family holds it dear to our hearts. This is because of the memories it brings to the minds of those of us who have gone to farms with out parents. It has been a while but every time I remember the occasions when I went to the farm with my mother, I forget how hard it was to be in the farm, what comes to mind are the lessons we learnt as we worked in the garden. Gardening is important part of many families in Spain and it is used for many reasons through generations. The tradition of gardening has transformed through generations used as an educational platform for young people.
Gardening is a practice that has lived the test of time because several centuries have passed and people still farm. There are many intentions people have while they engage in farming. These range from the preparation for winter, exercising, food production and lately educational. People depend on the produce from farms to put food on their tables and that just makes farming a practice to cherish for a long time. In our family, farm time is not just about taking care of the plants and working our backs out. Gardening time is valued and it is used to pass lessons to the younger generation (Christina 326-337). This is a practical approach given the amount of time people spend in the gardens. I have been going to the farm for a long time now and it is all through the encouragement of my mother. She tells me she knew about the importance of gardening through her mother and that makes our grandmother a great inspiration to any gardening activity within the family.
I do not know how my grandmother came to love farming but given the manner in which she instilled the idea of farming to all of her offspring’s, it is worth making an assumption that she learnt it from her parents. It is a wonderful thing that she learnt the importance of gardening. However, most especially she learnt how to utilize the gardening time for instilling lessons to her children. Focusing on the questioning of MacIntyre ‘what is he doing’ I can no longer settle with an answer held on general beliefs of fending for food. I look at gardening as a learning time and a session for bonding with my family, while doing a constructive activity. It is just amazing how gardening has transformed itself in my family lineage from a mere food fending activity to an educational event. As stated by McIntyre, ‘Someone who genuinely possesses a virtue can be expected to manifest it in very different types of situations,’ my grandmother and mother have both succeeded in utilizing their virtues to nature morals through gardening (318).
There are values, virtues and morals that gardening teaches to those who engage in the practice. Patience is a lesson gardening teaches, since for the preparation of a farm to the time when crops yield and harvesting takes place, it is a long time, which requires patience. This as discussed by Alasdair MscIntyre in ‘virtues therefore are to be understood as those dispositions which will not only sustain practices and enable us to achieve the goods internal to practices, but which will also sustain us to achieve the goods internal to practices (324).’ Farming, therefore, teaches some virtues and anyone who indulges in gardening learns the value of patience as a virtue. This is a virtue that I love to learn because I find it incredible because it teaches how to live a good life. I am sure if this was not a good virtue, I would not have been glad following in my mothers footsteps, but since this is a virtue, which learning would help me in future, I am glad learning more about patience. I am not yet a fully groomed gardener, and that means that my patience is not mature but the impatience with, which I started has cooled off. When gardening, you must wait for the farm to get ready before you can plant. The wait is even longer when rains refuse to come as required and patience helps a farmer to trust that rain will come at an appropriate time. Even after rains have come and the plants grow, there are other processes like weeding before the corps can be ready. It is just a whole process, which requires patience before anything planted can get to its final state.
Gardening also teaches the moral of perseverance. Just like stated that farming requires time for seeds to transform into their final status, a gardener must be ready to embrace all challenges just like in many life situations. In everything that an individual does, there is always the need for perseverance and self-assurance that things will be fine even when there are difficulties. Gardening is never easy and giving up can never yields any results. Every challenge that a farmer faces during the period of farming requires improvement with subsequent seasons for farms to give better yields.
The moral of mercy is another lesson a gardener has while handling crops. This is especially during weeding when the young crops depend on the handling the farmer gives them to thrive. There are occasions when as a gardener, the plants must be watered, sprayed and supported. This takes a merciful understanding from the gardener. Handling the young plants helps the gardener to understand the value of life and appreciate through the desire of helping the plant to grow to maturity.
The morals, principles and virtues, which people learn from gardening helps in the journey of life. These are important aspects for one to learn and use in life for the realization of happiness. It is necessary for a person to act virtuously in every aspect and since there are virtues, which gardening teaches, people can venture into it more for the lessons on morality.
My role in the tradition of gardening is that foremost, I am a student on the lessons of living a virtuous life. As stated by McIntyre, ‘without those moral particularities to begin from there would never be anywhere to begin (McIntyre 324), I have the responsibility of carrying what I have earned to the next generation. It was my grandmother who passed down the gardening tradition to my mother and she is doing all her best to have the tradition instilled in my life. It is my duty now to learn as much as I can and later pass it on to the next generation. This is a hopeful inspiration to me with the encouragement that those behind me will have the same insight and passion I have for gardening as a learning process for the virtues of life.
Gardening is an activity that will give the next generation value in their lives and without it, the lessons I have learnt will have no avenue of shaping peoples lives. Regardless of what their lives and social settings they may have in their lives, gardening would open a whole an opportunity for learning a whole range of virtues and moral conduct. I know my life would be very different if my grandmother never had this tradition passed down to me. Her not appreciating gardening would have left my mother without the appreciation and that means that even myself, I would not have anything to do with gardening. That means that the lessons I have learnt regarding the virtues of perseverance, mercy and patience would be unknown to me.
Works Cited
Christina, Hoff, Sommers & Fred Sommers. Vice and Virtue in Everyday Life: Introductory Readings in Ethics. 4th ed. Fort Wirth: Harcourt Brace, 1997): 326-337
MacIntyre, Alasdair. tradition and the virtues
