The Spirituality of Gardening Seminar is Over

Saturday we held the second Spirituality of Gardening seminar at the Mustard Seed House.  Twenty five participants gathered in our living room to share gardening knowledge and reflect on the spiritual lessons we had all learned from our interactions with the garden.  Dave Timmer shared a little of the far more ambitious endeavours that he is involved in in Lynden WA at Five Loaves Farm and North City Community Garden

Spirituality of gardening seminar

One participant mentioned the lessons in forgiveness she had learned.  Sometimes we plant seeds that don’t grow.  Maybe we haven’t watered them properly.  Or the weather might have been too hot or too cold.  But there is always another opportunity to try again.  Sometimes we can try again immediately.  At other times we need to wait a few months.  For example here in Seattle if our cabbages and cauliflowers don’t grow we can replant in July and wait for our harvest in the autumn months.  

Walking onions, cabbages and cauliflowers prosper

Another talked about how they had learned patience.  There is no instant gratification in the garden.  We plant and wait for the new growth.  We water and weed and watch for the blossoms but even then the fruit could be a long way from reaching maturity.  If we don’t have patience it will never mature and if we pull it up or pick it too soon the fruit will be inedible. 

Celtic cross framed by irises

After that we embarked on a garden tour, admiring the beauty of the irises and glossy red cabbages which are just starting to head.  We laughed at the walking onions which are sending out their bulbets which will bend over and re-root providing our next crop of green onions.   We talked about the tomatoes that we had just planted in the midst of their red collars and the fact that I should probably have planted carrots with them as these make good companion crops.  

Tomatoes in red collars

Catie Rosario Kilmer helped greatly with the tour, just as she had helped with the garden preparation.  She reminded us that blue and purple flowers like borage and lavender are important elements of the garden as they attract bees that pollinate flowers.  

Catie showing Jo Ann her garden

After a pasta salad lunch and cheese lunch we descended to the street where we have 3 apple trees planted.  We covered each tiny fruit with a small stockingette which will protect them from the invasion of apple maggots.  This was a fun exercise to perform as a group.  We needed the different perspectives that each person bought in order to find and cover the small vulnerable fruit.  Some of us got down on the ground and peered up into the foliage.  Others who were taller looked down on the growing tree.  Someone even clambered into the middle of the tree where he could see more fruit and any of us.  

We realized too that this can teach us much about our faith.  Together as a community of faith we can accomplish far more than as individuals and we need the different perspectives that each person brings.  We were also reminded of how important it is to protect and cover the young vulnerable fruit from pests that would invade and destroy it.  

amongst the apple trees

As the sun shone brightly we gathered for our afternoon session in the backyard and reflected on the many ways in which God is revealed to us in the garden.  We then each planted a seed and reflected on the many ways in which the resurrection story is enacted in the garden.

Afternoon reflections

At the end of the day someone commented that they would have liked to do some weeding.  I chuckled to myself because I had deliberately avoided a job which i thought might make people feel that I was taking advantage of them.  So the weeds are still there and if anyone would like to help get rid of them I would welcome the help. 

The day was very rewarding for me at least.  I was reminded of Vigen Gurioan’s comment in The Fragrance of God:

“We garden because we are created in the image of the Master Gardener, in whose likeness we grow in measure as we garden.  We are not only the field that God gardens but his fellow gardeners in the paradise he is restoring. When we garden in humility, with love of truth and beauty, love of the Beloved One himself, Paradise grows up around us.”  p48

Seminar participants admiring walking onions