Cultivate Your Garden

The Teacher’s Garden

What is it we are called upon to do? What is achievable, what is worthy of the work of a single life time? In the Funland House of Horrors of the present age, what might be undertaken with a reasonable chance of success, of making a contribution?

As the last red light of the dying sun of a year that most of the world wishes had never come gleams on the horizon, what single drop of sweetness can be extracted to nourish in us the will to go forward?

The French philosopher Voltaire wrote a short memorable novel in 1759 called Candide. Near the end of his story the weary young traveler and his two friends have found a bit of refuge on a small farm near Istanbul. Their adventures and misadventures, which they began with such buoyantly high hopes, have battered them about mercilessly. The wide world they have wandered has shown itself to be crowded with cruelty, violence, treachery, greed and deceit. Even Nature itself was indifferent to their needs. They are exhausted and feeling lost. What now?

The friends hear of yet more unrest and disorder as a rumor reaches them that the Grant Mufti and two Viziers have been strangled in the city. It seems all is lost, and the end is upon them. This scene of turmoil and uncertainty seems familiar to us.