I received something of a cryptic E-mail a few days ago. At first it looked like spam, but the sender’s name was vaguely familiar, so I opened it. It was titled something like “in praise of God’s greening love,” and it went on to talk about the advent of spring, and the new gardens all around, and the renewing of the earth. It was a little too sentimental for my taste, or as my sons would say, cheesy, but I’ve not been able to get it off my mind.
It is told that once St. Francis of Assisi was asked what he would do if he knew for sure that the end of the world was imminent. His answer was that he would keep on hoeing his garden. We are the gardeners of Eden. We live in a paradise not lost, a theology the church likes to foist upon us, but in a marvelous paradise in which we are created to enable and participate in the greening, the restoring of it, from year to year, from season to season. K, to the curiosity of our incredulous neighbors, has dug up the grass in our front yard and planted a parterre vegetable garden…now at the center of our comings and goings…and we see from day to day its greening…its germinating potential…the hope it engenders…a living and apt metaphor for who God is and what God does. God is all about greening, setting life loose, making hope alive.
Our God hoes the garden, God’s life and labor, bringing forever and always, new life. We know, if we but pay attention to the signs of nature around us, that God forever and always comes to us amid the cold barrenness of winter, bringing green shoots from the earth which will renew and sustain the life force, our souls as natural as the plants of a garden, raised, renewed, a new germination towards hope and love and life. So we never despair…for even in our dark winters…God is forever greening. God’s greening life is the one life and light we forever share in profound intimacy, and life which we forever bear to our world with artful gardeners’ hands. Get hoeing gardeners for winter is past and it is for us, God’s sons and daughters, heirs of the garden, to bring life and life abundant.
This wonderful and appropriate. I got an email earlier today from an old friend and mentor about what moves history, and this fits nicely in with it.
Re: St. Francis and his garden. There is a similar story about Martin Luther.
It is said that when Luther was asked what he would do if he knew the end was near, his answer was that he would plant a tree.