A Spiritual Garden

Gardening is a spiritual practice for a number of people. When we think about spiritual practices, we typically first think of things like meditation or prayer. Yet whether something is a spiritual practice depends more on how we do it than what we do. Many activities can be spiritual practices: walking, playing a musical instrument, singing, cooking, dancing, writing. What makes an activity spiritual is more a matter of what we bring to it, whether we do it with our full attention, whether the activity connects us to our deeper selves, whether it helps us connect with the life around us.

Gardening can touch us deeply. A gardener works the earth. A gardener regularly devotes time to his or her garden. A gardener must be attentive and sensitive to the needs of plants. A gardener must be patient. Gardening, done with care, connects us to cycles of nature: birth, growth, harvest, death and rebirth.

I still remember trying my hand at a small garden when I was a boy of eight. I don’t know what put the idea in my head—maybe it was a Cub Scout project. I cleared a small little plot, maybe six by eight feet, in our back yard. I planted a variety of seeds. I remember how exciting it was to see the first sprouts come out of the ground. I was impatient as the plants grew. I practically drowned them trying to make them grow faster. I kept yanking up radishes and carrots to see how they were progressing. I finally realized that I would have no crop at all if I kept pulling up the plants to check on them. (Root crops are probably not the best things for an eight year old to grow.) My best success were the radishes (the carrots were a major disappointment). I recall pulling up half a dozen fat red radishes and taking them next door to the elderly Filipino. What a kind and sweet man he was. He thanked me profusely and convinced me that my little home grown radishes were a great gift. And, of course, my radishes were a great gift. I have since learned that when a gardener shares a flower or vegetable from her garden it is a kind of sacred offering.

My late father-in-law was an avid gardener. I remember how he just loved to bestow pounds of his prized sweet Walla Walla onions on anyone who stopped by. There is something about gardening that helps make us generous. Gardens are for sharing.

A garden is a wonderful metaphor for the religious home we are striving to create. This community is a spiritual garden. Together we endeavor to create a place where every person is nurtured, where every soul can flower. Every one of us is like a seedling. Every one of us has the potential and desire to develop into something more than we are today, to grow fully into what lies dormant deep within our selves. We long to give of our selves, to bear fruit.

In our garden, you and I are both the garden and the gardeners. We are not passive recipients. Here we grow, develop and create. Here we also nurture one another.

Our congregation’s mission statement talks of three great goals: nurturing our spiritual community, growing our movement, and serving the world outside our church. Nurturing our spiritual community is spiritual gardening. Today, on this day of a flower communion celebration, a day of honoring our teachers, a day of welcoming dozens of new members, I would have us think about what it would take to be better spiritual gardeners.

Think of a beautiful garden. What makes a garden lovely? When I think of a perfect garden, I think of variety. My ideal garden is not all one kind of flower or one kind of vegetable. If it is a flower garden, a variety of different flowers makes the garden more beautiful. Variety means different colors and having different flowers blooming at different times. The same is true for a vegetable garden. Variety makes it better.

So it is with us. I love the fact that people here are of different ages. I love the fact that we have a mix of new members and people who have been here for decades. I even think the fact that we don’t always agree is good. Imagine what this congregation would be like if everyone were like me. (That’s a frightening thought. The hymn singing would be excruciating.) Imagine if everyone were just like you. No offense, but it would be dreadful. And boring.

I believe that one of our enduring strengths as a spiritual community is that we have been able to nurture variety. I would like to see even more. We have people dedicated to social action. We have people who come together to meditate quietly together. Others come together to explore everything from science to pagan traditions to women’s spirituality. We spend a lot of effort tending to our young people.

We have much to celebrate. Yet I would also have us ask, as any attentive gardener would, what our garden needs now and what it will need next year. What do we need to make ours a stronger, more engaging, more meaningful, healthier community?

When a master gardener looks at a garden, she sees more than what is before her eyes at the moment. A master gardener sees parts of the garden that are going to need special attention. Looking ahead, a master gardener sees new possibilities. A master garden tries to imagine the garden that is not yet there, but the garden that can grow there with the right planning and nurture.

I have been thinking about our spiritual garden of late. I have been thinking about what you have said in focus groups, in conversations, in our Pulse of the Congregation survey. Here are some areas I believe need some special attention.

Ours has always been a congregation that pays special attention to children and youth. Just look at our last expansion and remodel that we completed a year and a half ago. Most of the new space went for religious education. Our program has grown and is already crowded. We have a strong program. Yet this part of our garden needs some attention. Like so many churches, we find it easier to involve younger children than adolescents. We have some work to do in our programming for our teenagers. We also need to adjust our religious education program for our very young children in order to make it more age appropriate. Also, like so many of our sister churches, we could do a much better job of attracting and including young adults.

Pastoral care is the name we give for the emotional and physical support we give each other. Pastoral care is a constant challenge. To torture my garden metaphor, this is the rough equivalent of the tender vigilance a gardener gives. This plant needs to be tied up, that one needs a little pruning, another could use a bit more water. I am especially aware of pastoral care needs right now, for we have been short handed for months and people have not always had the support they need. Too often a note of concern I intended to write did not get written, a phone call I intended to make did not get made. Too often we did not find out about a need. One of the most important things we do as a congregation is to be there for each other in life’s tough times. We are a community that does care. Our pastoral care committee is committed and compassionate.

As we have grown, our needs have grown. We need to do an even better job of letting the compassion in our hearts express itself. We all have a part to play in this. If you are going through a difficult time, let us know. If you know of someone who is struggling, needs a ride to church, or perhaps is ill and could help with some meals, let us know. Don’t assume that because you know that your ministers know. Happily, with the return of Todd Strickland from sabbatical, with the addition of time for Nathan Woodliff-Stanley and with the coming of Dana Lightsey as our intern, we will have more ministerial time to devote to pastoral care. Our garden needs the attention.

I believe we need to do more to tend to the needs of people who have particular needs because of where they are on life’s journey. In the last few months new efforts have started to address the needs of families with young children, to starting a support group for people who have gone through divorce, and a new group that is for our elder members. We need to be sure we nurture these efforts and explore others. For example, we don’t have a singles group right now. We should. I am sure there are other needs as well.

We have a wonderful spiritual garden here. Like the flowers here at our flower communion, we each bring a unique gift to this community.

Yet I imagine the garden we could become and the garden I believe we should become. I see the spiritual garden we are still creating. I see a more vibrant, more fruitful, more tender, more gentle garden. I see the garden we are capable of creating.

I see a spiritual garden that nurtures everyone. I see a garden that has a special place for everyone: for the five year old who is beginning to ask those tough questions about death and God; for the adolescent who hides painful insecurity beneath a thin layer tough rebellion; for the young parents longing to combine nurture and loving discipline; for the person in mid life facing a major life change like a new career or the end of a marriage; for the newly retired person facing the loss of a career and the opening of bewildering options; for the person, at whatever age, facing his or her own mortality in the form of a life threatening illness; for the aged facing limitations and the prospects of their life ending. I see a garden that is a loving and supportive place for you and for me.

We are the garden. We are the gardeners. Together, let us nurture this precious spiritual garden. Come, it is a lovely, warm day. Let’s get on our grubby clothes and a our big hats. Grab your tools. Let’s go work on our garden together. May it be so.

Amen.