Have you ever noticed that, according to Genesis, the first thing that God does after he creates man is to then create a garden for him. I believe this was purposeful. I believe it because I’ve noticed that while crops are growing in the ground other things are growing in us. I believe it because among the first seeds that seem to sprout when adults begin to care for a first garden are memories of what it was like to be a child, fresh and new to all the wonders of the world.  

It is standard fare for children to see and hear things that their elders miss. Adults are often so preoccupied that we fail to appreciate the miracles sprinkled all around us. Some people become jaded to the point that they swear the impossibility of such childish thoughts until, watching a chrysalis ripen alongside their tomatoes, perhaps they remember that caterpillars do indeed turn into butterflies, and maybe the mortal into the immortal.  

I hope you believe me when I say I have heard a surprising number of sermons, homilies, and perorations while standing in our garden, second row of onions from the end. Some come from the heart, as it finds a momentary escape from the busyness of life beyond the garden. And some from a place my rational mind has trouble tracing to an origin.

Newton believed that Nature was God’s third testament, and I do too. Out and among God’s handiwork, the Spirit speaks if we are willing to listen . . .

Below are summaries of the first three messages I remember the garden placing indelibly on my heart. Each one will eventually link to a fuller version of these ideas and others. Whether you are a spiritual leader looking for a new source of inspiration or a layperson wishing to deepen your own spiritual life, and possibly doing so in company with family or a few friends, I hope you will consider starting an Umoja Unity Garden and sharing some of the thoughts that come to you as you tend it.

1. A Spiritual Lesson: Not only did I have no idea what a potato plant would look like as it grew; worse, what I imagined bore no resemblance to the truth. This left me puzzled when directions recommended between a foot and a foot-and-a-half between plants. In the end, the lesson I learned while watching the full life cycle of a potato became the garden’s first spiritual lesson to me, one I think about almost every time death calls on the need to comfort people.
       
2. Similar Spiritual Views of Our Place in Nature?: Consider the African concept of Umoja, the Dine (Navajo) word Hozho, the flow inherent to Taoism, the Greek’s Platonic balance, and on and on. If a person is willing to leave unspoken the name of the god or gods overseeing a particular religion, a surprising commonality – a spirituality or spiritual ethic – seems to naturally arise when a person or group is in regular communion with nature. Then again, by virtue of being Christian myself, I may be biased in seeing and feeling the Spirit everywhere. What to you think?
   
3. A First Insight into Christianity: The word “dominion,” as cited in the first chapter of Genesis, is often embraced by people in ways that are almost at right angles to each other in meaning. Until time in our garden convinced me to look closer, I failed to see an important truth about these cross-purposes: Genesis, in its entirety, is an extended meditation on the nature of dominion as God understands and wishes it to be practiced.

• The Potato Sermon
• The Nature of Dominion
• Epiphany and Irony (Or, Where is God)

(These and other posts are coming soon)