Gardening the Soul: Introduction

My love for gardening was nurtured by my land-loving father. He taught me the language of the soil -- crop yields, soil moisture, weed control, weather forecasts. Having grown up on a farm during the drought-plagued 1930’s, he was thrilled by prospects of rain. He often drove my siblings and me to a hill overlooking the city to watch evening thunderstorms rumble in from the west. It was exhilarating, though sometimes frightening, to watch these powerful storms. Later, snuggled in the safety of my bed, I would contentedly drift to sleep to the patter of rain on a tin awning. My father also launched my first major gardening experience. When I was in sixth grade, he helped me and three friends grow two acres of sweet corn that we sold door-to-door. I was hooked -- if God hadn't given me other gifts and callings, I could have joyously earned a living from the soil.

Even today, my youthful infatuation with the land hasn't faded. I spend an hour or two most days from April to November in my garden. During the winters I study gardening books and catalogs, planning for and dreaming about the twenty acres of prairie that my wife and I own. We are cultivating fruit and shade trees, flowers and vegetables. We are restoring the native grasses and wildflowers that once graced our land.

One of the unexpected rewards of gardening has been an illumination of Biblical truth. The Bible was written to an "earthy" people. Its illustrations, metaphors and parables assume an intimate knowledge of the soil -- a knowledge few moderns possess. When Jeremiah claimed that God’s people were depending on broken cisterns or when Hosea pleaded with his people to break up the unploughed ground, these images leave many of us in the dark. Part of the Bible is still untranslated -- land language is a dying tongue.

When God reveals himself to us, he uses the known as a bridge to the unknown. But what happens when common knowledge is not so common? When the Bible compares God to a vine or a vine dresser, modern seekers are left with the unfamiliar (God) being illuminated by the unfamiliar (the vineyard.) We are as lost as a first century student would be with a computer metaphor like "programming our minds."

Though I still consider myself a "kinder-gardener" of the soil and the soul, these blogs will try to help non-gardeners decode the garden images that fill the Bible. Come. Pull on your work gloves. Pick up your spade. Join me in digging into God's eternal truths.