The Garden

As an image, the garden is quite powerful. The garden is a place of rest, of fruit, joy, peace accomplishment, desire, love. We go to our gardens to feel whole, to entertain and connect. If you garden, you know the joy of sticking your hands in the dirt or pulling weeds so good plants can grow. Biblically, we begin in a garden where all things are as they should be, and then we mess it up but good. I think we as humans long for the garden. I think the garden we long for looks different to different people. We long for perfection and wholeness of heart, mind, body and soul.

In Spring, I am amazed that the buds when they first appear hold all the information they need to become what they are. How is it that we do not have this internal knowledge, or do we? Are we just born into a fallen or mixed up world and so no longer are able to hear the natural call to the garden?

When I look around, I see people looking for their own gardens and I wonder what their garden is all about. I wonder what they see as beautiful and perfect. I wonder what their desires are drawing them. I wonder all these things about myself. Maybe I need to edit my image of the garden, and pull out the weeds that just do not belong there so that truth, beauty and love might grow.