I worked quietly and diligently in my terrace garden several evenings this week, cleaning up the beds and putting things away for the winter, enjoying the last roses of Indian summer.

Somehow, in the process, I missed the end of the world for the second time this year. Last May, you may recall, a self-styled prophet of doom and jackleg radio evangelist named Harold Camping achieved worldwide notoriety by declaring May 21 as the day biblical Rapture would begin and the world as we know it would dissolve into satanic chaos.

I happened to be in Manhattan that pretty spring day and nearly got flattened by a bus with one of Pastor Harry’s huge adverts on its side, speeding through a Fifth Avenue red light. I guess the driver was in a hurry to get to the New Jerusalem.

Intoxicated on the vision of a new and better world, hundreds of his believers flocked, in any case, to designated spots to wait for The End to arrive, including folks who sold their homes and businesses in anticipation of traveling to a new and better world.

Was this what Jesus had in mind when, according to Matthew 19, he suggested to followers to sell their worldly possessions and give the money to the poor, thus earning wealth in heaven and a purse no thief could possibly find? Probably not. I don’t presume to know Jesus’ mind, but I’m guessing he meant we should help the poor and broken people, those who struggle with life and faith.

When the end didn’t come as advertised, many followers of Camping were disillusioned and a few even threatened lawsuits — presumably appealing to the highest court. After remaining out of sight for several days, the good minister announced he’d simply made a mathematical error in his biblical calculations and set the new and improved date for the official start of the End Times as Oct. 21 — which, of course, was last Friday. My wife and I were en route to the Homestead in the mountains of Virginia when it was supposed to happen.

You had to feel sorry for folks who sold everything to join Campy’s Magical Mystery Tour, but I couldn’t help but recall a line from A.E. Housman’s famous poem “Terrance, this is Stupid Stuff,” which invariably reminds me of so many human affairs in these interesting days we’re living through.

Oh, I have been to Ludlow Fair

And left my necktie God knows where

And carried half way home, or near

Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:

Then the world seemed none so bad

And I myself a sterling lad;

And down in lovely muck I’ve lain

Happy till I woke again.

Then I saw the morning sky:

Heigho the tale was all a lie;

The world, it was the old world yet,

I was I, my things were wet.

And nothing now remained to do

But begin the game anew.

Some of my best thoughts and bits of poems always come while I’m poking around in my garden, probably because — like a small, faded sign in my mama’s garden used to read — I honestly believe one is closer to God’s heart in a garden.

When it’s my turn to be summoned wherever it is we go — speaking purely for myself, mind you — I hope to be transplan-ing something nice in my garden on a glorious late October afternoon like we’ve been having in such abundance lately.

Understanding the Cycles

Gardeners understand the cycle of life and death, the seasons of rest and rebirth, far better than most, which possibly explains why they’re among the most cheerful and generous souls on earth and also nature’s leading show-offs.

If you openly admire a gardener’s plant, chances are he or she will provide a cutting or pot you up a baby version of it to go. I trust people who smell like the earth, probably because I hail from a race of earth-smelling Southern Baptists and United Methodists who invariably had dirt beneath their fingernails, even when properly scoured and dressed on Sunday morning.

A couple weeks ago I gave a talk about this verdure in my blood at the annual autumn symposium at J.C. Raulston Arboretum and spent so much time chatting afterward with fellow gardeners that I plumb neglected to bring home a Planera Aquatica they gave me as an appropriate gratuity, a delightful little weeping water elm I knew absolutely nothing about.

If you love watching the seasons come and go and haven’t visited the Raulston Arboretum, you’re truly missing something special. In any season, it is a vest pocket oasis of botanical joy that’s just a short hour up U.S. 1 in Raleigh, the perfect place to escape a complicated and noisy world that may or may not end any time soon.

I sure hope it doesn’t, because the weekend after I spoke my wife went up for the Arboretum’s annual members plant giveaway and came home bearing that exotic water elm plus a dozen young plants I knew absolutely nothing about but promptly spent the better part of a glorious Sunday afternoon placing in pots for over-wintering.

We’re talking about such divine mysteries as a Cape Jessamine gardenia, blue oak sage, gold-margined forsythia, desert willow and Japanese cardinal plant. During the next few months, when gardening goes on largely between the ears, I’ll have the time to read up on these intriguing plants and calculate how they’ll help fill the rest of my days.

For the record, Planera Aquatica turns out to be a remnant of ancient European elms that largely grew in swamps, so I may have to find a swamp to go with my new tree.

Glad It Didn’t End

For all my modest garden’s success, I’ve missed one treasured rite of autumn that marks our gentle passage of fall into winter. Because of my fondness for mingling matters of faith and food — another gift from all those Baptist and Methodist kinfolk — we seldom miss the homecomings and lunches on the lawn at Red Springs and Old Bethesda, proving that even Presbyterians know a thing or two about feeding the multitudes good home cooking.

This year, owing to unavoidable conflicts, we missed both events. As autumn and my garden begin to slip away in earnest this week, though, I plan to catch a couple of other annual events that make the Sandhills such a special place to call home.

One is the Mid-Atlantic Star Party that attracts hundreds of stargazers to a darkened field in Robbins. This coming week, with clear skies and the added darkness of a new moon, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter and Mercury will all be shining brightly.

The other highlight is the Golf Capital Chorus’ annual show at 7 p.m. on Saturday night, Nov. 5, at the Pinecrest Auditorium. Celebrating its 31st year of life, the nationally recognized chorus has aptly chosen the theme of “Harmony in Nature” for this year’s show, its largest fundraiser of the year. Among other things, the chorus’ performances have generated more than $250,000 to support a number of local charities.

All of which makes me awful glad the world didn’t end for the second time last Friday. I’d sure hate to have missed the fine clear October days of young plants and old stars and a chorus of fine voices raised in a wonderful cause. The world — it is the old world yet.

And to paraphrase the poet, it’s still time to plant something good, look up in wonder, and begin anew.

Award-winning author Jim Dodson, Sunday essayist with The Pilot and editor of PineStraw magazine, can be reached at jim@thepilot.com.