- Feb 5, 2002
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For many enthusiasts, tending flower beds and growing vegetables is a spiritual activity that helps them grow closer to God. It has been this way throughout Christian history, perhaps inspired by the story of the very beginning of humankind in the perfect paradise of Eden.
Then from the earliest days of monasticism, to modern smallholders and homesteaders, faith and working on the land have been deeply associated with one another.
Biblical lessons
Of course for most people in the world, and in the West before the modern era, survival and life itself depended on the practice of horticulture. Everyone except the very wealthy would enrich their diet by cultivating vegetables and fruits in any ground that could be found, and a much larger proportion of the population worked as small farmers. Perhaps this is one reason why the Bible is full of references to and metaphors of plant growth to teach about spiritual life.
The fertility and abundance of good fruit is contrasted with the aridity and famine of a desert throughout. Jesus chose cultivation to illustrate spiritual growth in the parable of the sower; in Psalm 1 those who meditate on scripture are "like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season." Gardening therefore brings a deeper understanding of these passages, as well as awe of the beauty of the created world.
Eden
Continued below.
Gardening and God: nurturing plants has been a spiritual practice from the beginning
Then from the earliest days of monasticism, to modern smallholders and homesteaders, faith and working on the land have been deeply associated with one another.
