Dear Church Family and Friends,
In a poem entitled “The Garden,” Frances Livingston tells of one man’s path to new life. The man “had slaved away his early youth in a pharmacy day and night.” His work was drudgery year in and year out. “He was starved for color and light.” Missing as well were the pleasures and joys of life. “He had no time for romance.” He closed himself off from the world in his own private tomb. He was “too stingy to spend emotion.” His life was filled with dullness and frustration.
But then one day, color and light entered his life once more. He learned the wisdom of the outdoors. He tended to a garden, and soon his soul awakened. Nasturtiums stirred his enclosed heart. Dahlias bolstered his slumbering pride. In the embrace of nature, he found a family. “The roses he loved like children,” while “the lily was his bride.” The garden grew along a roadside, and one imagines that a passerby might see the man “bent among the flowers” or sitting amid his sanctuary dreaming for hours.
With such simple images, Livingston’s poem makes me want to run outside into the garden and start planting. I have never previously had any green thumb ambitions, but now I am charged with the sense of possibility that our new community garden brings. Our garden has even more to offer than a peaceful home amid nature. It offers the actual fruits (and vegetables) of a community that cares. With our produce going to those in need of its sustenance, our garden truly represents the flourishing of new life.
I can almost hear the man in the garden calling to us. “Come one, come all! Join me in the garden and experience the riches of God’s creation.”
Your brother in Christ,
Pastor Brooks
PS: On Tuesday, May 19th, our community garden was featured in an article on the front page of The Columbian. The article contains a picture of David Slocum tilling our garden.