Still Thinking – Garden of the Soul

In spring I get excited about the garden. I would love to be a better gardener that I am.  Of course that is easily solved by just doing it with more commitment and enthusiasm.  Nevertheless, I do enjoy the digging, clearing, planting, watering and watching the garden grow.  Even though digging is the most demanding and physical part of the process, it is for me the most rewarding.  Perhaps it’s because the nature of my work from week to week involves sitting in front of a computer screen, or having conversations with people or delivering a sermon, and that means I long for a simple physical experience of “groundedness.” And that comes when digging in the garden.  

I am sure that it is not lost on most gardeners that the word “humus” means of the earth and that the compost we spread when garden is “humus” which brings us close to the earth, in fact you could say, makes “humble.”  To be humble is to stay close to the earth or to be grounded. And of course “humus” is also found in the word humiliation which means to be pushed down to the ground.

There is such a vital connection between gardening and the spiritual life that many say that they are closer to God in nature – in the garden, then in a church building.  Perhaps it’s because they are a part of the rhythm of the seasons, or the process of composting and planting and then the act of contemplation as one watches the garden grow.  But also, while gardening brings us closer to new growth there is always the wonderful experience of pulling out the weeds.  It doesn’t take must imagination to see the parallels between gardening and the spiritual life.

The greatest of modern day Pontiffs, Pope John XXIII, once said, “We are not on earth to guard a museum, but to cultivate a flowering garden of life.” We all know that if we think of our lives as say, a building with walls and windows, doors and roofs, then we construct an edifice that may be strong, but does it grow?  It’s the garden in which the house is set that often gives the home both its fragrance and its garland of beauty.

Paul Coelho is the author the famous book The Alchemist, published in 1988 and soon to be made into a film. But a more recent book of Coelho’s titled Brida draws an imaginative parallel between buildings and gardens as metaphors of life.  He writes:

In his or her life, each person can take one of two attitudes: to build or to plant.  Builders may take years over their tasks, but one day they will finish what they are doing.  Then they will stop, hemmed in by their own walls.  Life becomes meaningless once the building is finished.  Those who plant suffer the storms and the seasons and rarely rest.  Unlike a building, a garden never stops growing.  And by its constant demands on the gardener’s attention, it makes the gardener’s life a great adventure.

I love that quote not because it diminishes the houses in which we live, homes are fundamental to human life, but because it pictures the spiritual life as an organic process in which growth and sustainability is its goal.  Our inner lives crave to be nurtured and nourished. We are healthy in our faith and our spiritual journey when we are adventurous – dig in the hard soil and add a good load of compost, pull out a few weeds and plant an exotic scrub that has never been planted there before.  Sometimes that takes a bit of effort both spiritually and physically, but the reward of gardening is well worth it.

Christopher