By the Rev. Barbara Mraz
I’ve always had a garden. It’s in my blood. My grandfather grew exquisite roses behind his St. Paul home and my dad’s garden featured a little bridge spanning a tuberous begonia patch and also an arbor with pink, white and purple Sweet Peas (my favorite flower) and climbing beans. I favor the old-time blooms: lilacs, peonies, hollyhocks, daisies and, of course, roses.
Whether a garden spans acres or a couple of pots on a balcony, the impulse is the same: to grow things in the soil of the earth, things to eat, things to heal, and things to admire. To participate in a miracle.
Gardening imagery appears frequently in Scripture. We are told that human life begins in a garden, called “Eden,” and while Noah was rounding up pairs of animals for the Ark, I like to think that Mrs. Noah was gathering seeds.
Jesus compared the Kingdom to a mustard seed and spoke a lot about vineyards. He also used flowers to teach important truths: “Consider the lilies; they spin not and neither do they reap, yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane shortly before his death. The women at the tomb confuse Jesus with the gardener.
Many flowers are immigrants to this country. For example, early Czech settlers brought lilac bushes with them, and planted them outside their homes; many lilac hedges we see today are older than we are. Daylilies and daises came from China. The salt spray rose (Rose rugosa) came from a Japanese ship which broke up in a storm off the Massachusetts coast. The rosebushes washed ashore, rooted, and grew.
Gardening can be a consolation in times of peril. The acclaimed English gardener and writer Vita Sackville-West wrote:
Small pleasures must correct great tragedies.
Therefore of gardens in the midst of war
I boldly tell.
Perhaps she is speaking about the “victory gardens” which sprang up in backyards throughout England during World War II, feeding civilians so that more food from large farms could be sent to the troops.
Gardens teach us about mortality. “To every thing there is a season,” Ecclesiastes tells us, “a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted.” Each plant has its life cycle, although sometimes we can “force” blooms early, like the Forsythia branch I have blooming on my windowsill. But none of us can rush spring!
Gardening reflects the seasons of our lives: from youth to old age. Sometimes we are the bloom, other times the root, as in this poem by the Native Cherokee poet Marilu Awiakta:
MOTHEROOT
Creation often
needs two hearts
one to root
and one to flower
One to sustain
In times of drouth
And hold fast
Against winds of pain
The fragile bloom
That in the glory
Of its hour
Affirms a heart
Unsung, unseen
The Church is a microcosm of this duality. We are rooted in the traditions, stories, and gifts to us of those who have come before us. At our best, we show forth this heritage with glorious blooms of love and service that are our lives now, at this time, in this place.
Originally published in the May-June 2018 Evangelist.
