… I saw a documentary recently about a poison garden based in Northumberland called (not surprisingly) the ‘Poison Garden’ or Alnwick Garden. The garden is filled with about a 100 poisonous plant that has the ability to kill. It is meant to be a child of the Duchess of Northumberland. What is so fascinating about the garden is that it looks incredibly beautiful and well tended, at least in the documentary I watched. The presenter mentioned that some people have some of these poisonous plants in their gardens and do not even know. Not a single plant was screaming “I am poisonous, do not touch me!” They were all looking beautiful and gaillantly presented.
I couldn’t help wondering, ‘how can we tell a poisonous person?’ They can be the most charming and endearing individual, but deep inside full of poison and transferring it from one person to another until the whole community is saturated with their deadly stuff. How do we know these plants are deadly, so we can stay away? How? Especially if we care about our lives and we don’t want to die? They don’t carry a sign! The sad thing is that most of us will not know until we get a reaction, a rash, an itch, a swell, a convulsions, a burning etc, some survive and know to stay away, others don’t learn, forever taken by the beauty of the plants and continuing to inhale the fumes and digest the poison until they die.
One question that I never seem to get out of my mind is ‘how did these plants become poisonous?’ Was this how their maker made them? Or is this some form of transmutation? I also can’t help extending this to human beings, are some people just created poisonous or is it life situation and circumstances that have made them poisonous?
If per chance they were not made like that, who started the chain, who poisoned them? Who administered the first dosage of the poison? Who started the story that a quiet person is an unkind and uncaring person? That an energetic person is too much for society? That a reserved person is bitter? That a clumsy person is an idiot? That a hurting person is pretending? That a concerned person is arrogant? That an innocent person is guilty? That a God-fearing man is sacrilegious? That a holy person is adulterous? Who painted good as evil? Who started it all? And what was the motivation? Why give place to the devil? The evil thoughts that sometimes fill our minds without any external influence.
I have met people going around dropping poison from one person to another and happy to drop it into every mouth that is opened until a whole family clan or community is infested, the wise keep their mouth closed and refuse the poison, but how many people are strong enough to rebuff and refuse the charm of the poisoned?
False and bad reputation is poison, some people go around and bad mouth another, planting this terrible poison in the heart of everyone that dare listens, before long an otherwise innocent person has the weight of unpleasant false reputation hanging over their head. It is just a matter of time before the weak dies from this poison. Let us all watch ourselves that we do not become a receptor and conduit for unpleasantness, ugliness and poison. The Scriptures tell us that the tongue is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison, the tongue can no man tame! what a troublesome conclusion!
In a multitude of words, sin is not lacking, but he who restrains his lips is wise, maybe our words should just be few, that we might not sin. Maybe we should take a step back and purge our hearts, that we store not iniquity in our innermost being. Most of us will say, ‘can’t drug dealers see what they do to innocent people?’ At some level we are not much different when we use our tongues to destroy people’s life.
Purge the poison!
Beautiful Ivory 